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)
A tribute to my mom, like every song and most of my actions had always tried to be.
Amos pleaded to not be forgotten. To be remembered for what he’d been, not for the pieces he’d become. And his beautiful voice belted out for the one he loved to be whole, and one day they’d be together again.
Almost a week after the news, when I was in my garage apartment going through my mom’s oldest journals, even though I had them memorized at this point, someone knocked on my door. Before I could say a word though, it opened and familiar heavy footsteps made their way up, and then Rhodes was there. His face even, hands on his hips. He looked somber and wonderful as he stood there, as steady as a mountain, and said, “We’re going snowshoeing, angel.”
I looked at him like he was fucking nuts because I was still in my pajamas and the last thing I wanted to do was leave the house, even though I knew that I should, that it would be good for me, that my mom would have loved—
My throat burned. I shrugged at him and said, “I don’t know if I’d be good company today. I’m sorry . . .”
It was the truth. I hadn’t exactly been good company lately. All the words that usually found their way so easily into my mouth had mostly evaporated over the last few days, and though our silences hadn’t been awkward, they’d been foreign.
It had been so long since I’d felt the way I had lately, that even though I knew I would get through it and was fully aware it wasn’t some overnight thing I’d randomly wake up from feeling fine, it was still like treading water against a changing tide.
I couldn’t find my way out of it.
It was grief, and some part of me recognized and remembered that there were stages of it. The one no one ever told you about was the final one when you felt everything at once. It was the hardest.
And I didn’t want to put that on Rhodes. I didn’t want to put it on anyone. They all knew me as being cheerful and happy for the most part. I knew I’d be happy again just as soon as the worst edge of this faded—because it would, I knew it and I’d been reminded of it—but I wasn’t there yet. Not with my mom’s loss feeling so fresh again.
I was exhausted on the inside, and that was probably the best way to describe it.
But this man who had slept beside me every night the last week, either on his couch when we’d pass out in silence, or who would coax me into his room, tilted his head to the side as he took me in. “That’s all right. You don’t need to talk if you don’t want to.”
I blinked. I swallowed hard before I snorted, which even that sounded sad. Wasn’t that exactly what I’d told him months ago? When he’d been upset with his dad?
Rhodes must have known exactly what I was thinking because he gave me a gentle smile. “You could use the fresh air.”
I could. Even my old therapist, whose number I’d found a couple days ago and had only hesitated for about an hour before calling—she remembered me, which wasn’t surprising considering I’d gone to her for four years—had told me it would be good for me to get out. But I still hesitated before glancing back down at the journal in my hands. Rhodes had been beyond great, but I’d been feeling all kinds of ways. He’d been there enough for me lately; I didn’t want to push it either.
Rhodes tilted his head to the other side, watching me closely. “Come on, Buddy. If it was me, you would tell me the same,” he said.
He was right.
And that alone was enough to get me to nod and get dressed.
Before everything that had happened, I’d told him I wanted to try snowshoeing someday. And part of that pierced through my mood, reminding me of how lucky I was to have him. Of how lucky I was for a lot of things.
I had to keep trying.
Rhodes didn’t leave; he sat on the bed while I changed my pants right there in front of him, too lazy to even bother going into the bathroom. He didn’t say a word as he nodded at me to ask if I was ready, and I nodded at him back that I was, and we left. True to his word, he didn’t talk or try to get me to either.
Rhodes drove toward town, turning left down a county road and parking in a clearing that I was familiar with because I’d driven by it before when I’d gone for hikes. Out of the back of his Bronco, he pulled out two sets of snowshoes and helped me put them on.