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)
“Yeah. I’m just heartbroken for those aviators and their families.”
“Me, too.” We may not have gotten the knock at our door, but someone had.
She forced a smile, but there was zero joy. “But I don’t want to think about it, so I’m not going to. Besides, we’re sitting in here for you.”
“So I can constantly lay out my emotional baggage, but you don’t have to?” I lifted my eyebrows as I teased her.
“I’m not here for my emotional baggage. I’m here for yours. Now why don’t you tell me how it feels having started this truck?” She gestured to the dash, and I smiled faintly as sunlight kissed her diamond and threw tiny dots of rainbows all through the cab.
“I still hear him,” I admitted quietly. “It’s less and less these days, but whenever I’m in here, I swear I can hear him sitting right next to me. Do you think that will ever go away?”
“Do you want it to?”
“I don’t know.” I ran my fingers over the soft, supple leather of the console that separated my seat from Sam’s. Will’s seat from mine. “In some ways, yes, because maybe that means I’m healing. Plus, I’d really like to not have an anxiety attack every time I get in this thing, and I know I’ll never sell it.” That would be like selling Will’s memory. “But I’m terrified that one day I’ll stop hearing him, and then I’ll forget the sound of his voice, his laugh, then I’ll start forgetting him. And I don’t want that, either.”
How did I make more room for Jackson in my heart without losing Will?
“That’s understandable,” Sam said, pivoting in her seat so she could look straight at me. “Do you want to drive?”
I felt my throat tighten, but it wasn’t as severe as it had been. “Not today.”
She sagged in obvious relief. I wouldn’t want to take a ride in a vehicle that gave the driver anxiety attacks, either. “You’re doing great, you know. The therapy, the homework, all of it. The tapes are sounding better and better, and you even made it through that hotspot thing with the funeral memory tape, though I don’t know any other woman in her twenties who would reward herself with Virginia Woolf.”
“Hey now, don’t mock the classics.” I looked over my shoulder to the cab, half expecting to see Will’s helmet bag and flight gear, but it was empty, of course. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Sam. And I know you’re headed home in a couple weeks, but I’m immeasurably grateful that you’ve stayed with me.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
I looked over to Jackson’s house, then checked the clock on the dash. He usually napped the day he transitioned back to dayshift, which meant he should be waking up soon. My pulse jumped with anticipation.
“It’s okay to love him,” Sam said gently. “It doesn’t mean you loved Will any less. Or that you’re replacing him. He would want you to be happy.”
“That’s the thing. I’m usually happy around Jackson…when he’s not scaring the shit out of me and racing off to fly in a storm.” My hand closed around the sea-glass pendant, as if I could hold him by proxy, and my forehead puckered. There were very few times I’d been happy around Will. Sure, there had been nights like the ball and when he’d shown up at my house, but the angst definitely ruled the bulk of our relationship. “They’re so different from each other.”
“Night and day,” she agreed. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to compare them. It’s not like you have to make a choice.”
A choice? Between Will and Jackson? No, thank you.
She scoffed. “Girl, I said you don’t have to make a choice.”
I rolled my eyes and took another deep breath, searching my body for the usual signs that I was at my limit. “No anxiety attack.”
“No anxiety attack,” she agreed. “Look at you, getting all healthy and stuff.”
“Let’s get out of here. Maybe I’ll drive tomorrow.”
“How much of that anxiety medication do you have?” she questioned.
“What? For acute attacks?” I asked. “I haven’t taken rescue meds in…” I tried to think. “God, it’s been over a month now.”
“Right. I didn’t say they were for you. They’re for me riding along with you in this thing.” She lifted her eyebrows.
Our eyes locked, and we laughed. I still had a smile on my face as we climbed the steps to my house. I loved my little mushroom-shaped home. The teal paint, the white trim, the new, stronger decking. It felt like a stranger who had slowly become my best friend. My very expensive best friend.
The remodel was just about finished. The two other bedrooms upstairs needed to be gutted and redone, but I’d do that after Sam left so she wasn’t inconvenienced.