Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
I flinched. She was two months into his first deployment. Will hadn’t survived his first two weeks. “How are you holding it all together so well?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not. I miss him like hell, and there’s not a second that I’m not scared shitless. I guess I just hide it well. Military brat and all that.”
I reached across the distance between us and took her hand. “You’re the strongest woman I know, Sam.”
“Look in the mirror sometime.” She stared at me in that way she had, forcing me to accept her words as truth, but I felt anything but strong. “You’re going to be happy again. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one day. You know that, right?”
I didn’t mention Dr. Circe. Her offer was ludicrous…right? But what if it wasn’t? What if there was a real chance that I didn’t have to feel like this for the rest of my life?
But seeing how my luck ran, I was probably one of the 30 percent.
“Maybe I’m one of those people who doesn’t get to be happy. Maybe my chance for happy died with Will.”
“I don’t believe that,” she whispered.
“Happy people never do.”
…
The sun had barely turned the sky pink over the ocean when I woke the next morning. That same sense of dread hit me that I had to get up, had to move through my day, had to pretend. The heaviness of it all was unbearable.
I rolled over on my queen-size mattress and stared at the dark screen of my sleeping laptop. One click, that’s all it would take. One click and I’d see him again, and for those seconds, everything would be all right. My heart lurched, longing for that ten-minute eternity where he was still alive. But I wouldn’t stay for only ten minutes.
All it would take was that first click—the sound of his voice—and I wouldn’t leave this bed all day. Some days I won. Some days I lost. Today was a coin toss, and I needed to call it in the air.
You’re going to be happy again. Sam’s words from yesterday rang in my ears.
But there wasn’t any happiness for me outside the video I’d seen thousands of times. I rubbed my chest, like that would somehow take away the pain, but it never left.
Why wasn’t I okay when everyone else was?
How long could I possibly live like this, fighting with myself over Will’s memory before I even got out of bed?
I know we can lessen some of the pain you’re in.
But Dr. Circe couldn’t. Or could she?
But what would happen if I tried her way and failed? Nothing could possibly feel worse than you do now. And then there was the unthinkable: What would happen if I tried her way and it…worked?
Was there honestly a chance? Probably not. I tried to squash the tiny flame of hope that had flared to life in my chest, but it kept whispering maybe.
I ran my finger along the top of my laptop. Will would have called me all sorts of names for not having the courage to try. He would want me to try. He would have wanted me to watch that video once, not use it as a lullaby for twenty-two months. He would have wanted me to get out of bed and try, even if I failed.
Maybe I couldn’t be as happy as Jackson and Finley, spinning around in the ocean, but maybe…just maybe I could hurt a little less.
I slammed my laptop closed. My feet hit the floor, and five minutes later, I turned the key in the ignition of my Mini Cooper—still dressed in my pajamas. By six twenty-five, I was parked outside Dr. Circe’s office.
She arrived at seven fifteen, her eyes flying wide when she found me sitting on the wooden steps that led to her office.
“I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life,” I admitted before she could ask me what the hell I was doing there.
“You don’t have to,” she said softly, moving her bag to her other shoulder and sitting next to me on the step.
“You really, honestly think you can help me?”
She reached over and took my hand. “I do. Now do you think you can find someone to be your support person? This really works better with one.”
I nodded, a slight smile curving my lips. “Yeah. I just need to buy a few cases of peppermint mocha coffee creamer as bribery before I ask her.”
Chapter Four
Jackson
“Hey, Jax, Connor is looking for the volleyball,” Cassidy told me, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Brie.”
Brie gave her a half wave from where she stood, leaned back against my kitchen counter. So much like Claire. And yet the two couldn’t have been more different. They’d been Irish twins—Claire older by eleven months—but Brie had always acted like the older sister.