Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
And that was exactly what he’d given me. Wrapping me up in those big, strong arms, holding me against his chest, supporting me with his body and with something else that I was too heartbroken and numb to sense. I spent that day at his house, showering in his bathroom and putting on his clothes. I cried in his bedroom, sitting on the edge of his bed, in his shower while the water beat down on me, in his kitchen, on the couch, and when he tugged me outside, on the steps of his deck while that long, solid body sat beside me for who knows how long, lined up completely against my side.
Rhodes didn’t let me out of his sight, and Amos brought me glasses of water randomly, both of them watching me with calm, patient eyes. Even though I didn’t feel like eating, they pushed small things at me, nudging me with their gray irises.
I knew for a fact I managed to call my uncle to give him the news, even though he hadn’t been all that close to my mom. My aunt had called almost immediately afterward, and I’d cried some more with her, remembering when it happened, that it was possible to run out of tears. I spent the night at Rhodes’s house, sleeping on the couch with him as my pillow, but that’s all I was able to process other than the finality of the news I’d been given.
But it was the day after that, that Clara came over, sat beside me on the couch, and told me all about how much she missed her husband. How hard it was to keep going without him. I barely talked, but I listened to every word she said, soaking up the tears that spiked her eyelashes, soaking in her mutual grief at the loss of someone she had adored. She told me to take as much time as I needed, and I barely said a word. I hoped the hug we shared had been enough.
It wasn’t until that night, when I was sitting on the deck after texting Yuki back and forth while Rhodes showered, that Amos came out and squatted on the step beside me. I didn’t feel like talking, and in a way, it was nice that Rhodes and Amos weren’t big talkers in the first place, so they didn’t push me, didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to do other than eat and drink.
Everything was hard enough as it was.
My chest hurt so bad.
But I glanced at Am and tried to muster up a smile, telling myself like I had a thousand times over the last couple of days that it wasn’t like I hadn’t known she was gone. That I had gotten through this before and I would get through it again. But it just hurt, and my therapist had said that there was no right way to grieve.
I still just couldn’t believe it.
My favorite teenager didn’t bother trying to say anything though as he sat beside me. He just leaned over, put his arm over my shoulders, and gave me a side hug that seemed to last ages, still not saying a word. Just giving me his love and support, which made me want to tear up even more.
Eventually, after a few minutes, he got up and headed over to the garage apartment, leaving me there by myself, in my tangerine jacket on the deck, under a moon that had been around before my mom and would be there long after me.
And in a way, it made me feel better. Just a little as I gazed up. As I took in the same stars that she had to have seen too. I remembered being a kid and lying out on a blanket with her while she’d pointed out constellations that years later I’d learned were all wrong. And remembering that made me smile to myself just a little.
None of us were promised tomorrow, or even ten minutes from now, and I was pretty sure she’d known that better than anyone.
My head hurt. My soul hurt. And I wished for about the millionth time in my life, at least, that she was here.
I hoped she was proud of me.
It was then, as I was sitting there with my head tipped back, that I heard the chords to a song I knew well.
Then Amos’s voice started carrying lyrics that I knew even better.
The cold air filled my body just as well as the words to the song did, with tears I didn’t know I was still capable of wetting my eyelashes as I listened. I took in the message I had a feeling he was trying to share with me, absorbing it into my very essence. A memory I myself had shared with all the people who had ever downloaded Yuki’s version of it.