Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
“Aren’t you the one who said this place ain’t going nowhere? We’re still best friends. We’re still gonna talk every day.”
“I know, but that was then and this is now.”
I pulled her into a tight hug. She smelled like vanilla and sugar cookies the way she always did. “I love you,” I told her.
“I love you too.”
We stood like that for a long time, just holding each other up, before she pulled away and climbed into her car. I watched as she drove away.
“You okay?” Emerson’s arms wrapped around me from behind.
My whole life tumbled through my head then: Dad leaving, the drinking, family, Molly, people in town. My life was kind of like the blankets Mama liked to knit, a tapestry of different designs and colors, representing both the good and the bad. I figured that’s what life was—good and bad, and you just lived it the best you could. “Yeah, I am,” I replied. “I’m okay.”
We said our goodbyes to Charles that night too.
The next morning, we woke at the time we would have if we’d been taking care of Em’s animals. It was a Saturday morning, one of my favorite days.
We loaded his car with our things, climbed in, and Em asked, “This is what you want?”
“Yep.” There was no question in my mind about that.
“I know I said it was up to you where we go first, but if you don’t mind, there’s something I’d like to do…someone I’d like to say a proper goodbye to.”
Daniel.
Emerson hadn’t had another dream about him since that night. He told me he didn’t think he ever would. I knew how much he needed this, how important it was for our moving forward. Closure. This would finally be Em’s closure. “I think that’s a real good idea.”
He smiled, pressed a kiss to my lips, and we drove toward an uncertain future, but one I knew we would always face together.
EPILOGUE
Emerson
Seven months later
“I think maybe the Oregon Coast is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen,” Sam said as I walked onto the balcony of the small beach house we’d rented temporarily.
“I thought that was me?” I encircled his waist with my arms, kissed his honey-colored hair as it blew around in the wind, tickling my nose.
“The coast is one of; you’re the prettiest. I tell ya that all the time.”
“Nope, that’s you.” I nuzzled his nape, savored his warm body against mine. The Oregon Coast might be pretty, but it was cold as shit right now.
“How was therapy?” Sam turned, leaned against the railing, waves crashing on the shore behind him.
I’d been doing virtual sessions once a week since we left Ryland. It was weird and uncomfortable most of the time, but it was important. It took me a while to get used to it, opening up and letting someone other than Sam see those ugly parts of me, those demons that made me feel like I didn’t deserve this, that sometimes still tried to tell me Daniel was my fault, but in my head I knew it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, years of trauma, insecurity, and pain couldn’t be unraveled and neatly put together overnight. It was a process, but I was doing it and getting better. “She tried to make me cry again. I didn’t fall for her tricks,” I teased, earning a chuckle from Sam.
“Horrible, mean therapist.”
“Right?”
Sam rolled his eyes.
We’d been all over the country the past few months. We went to New York first so I could finally say a proper goodbye to Daniel, even if it was just his grave. I hadn’t had my nightmare again. I didn’t believe in fate, signs, or strange things like that, but if I were the believing type, I would have thought Daniel was telling me goodbye that last time, that he was letting me go, giving me his permission to be happy with Sam. He’d wanted me to admit I loved Sam, and I did, so much that sometimes it felt like my heart would explode. How could it hold all that love?
We’d spent some time in California, taking the coast from San Diego, spending some time in LA, Northern California, Oregon, up to Seattle and back down to the coast here again. Sam liked all the rocky cliffs and the water.
“You pretend ya don’t like it, the whole talkin’ thing, but I think you do,” Sam said, and I shrugged.
“I won’t confirm or deny anything.”
Carrie was doing well. She’d spent three months in Tennessee, and now she was home, attending meetings once a week and doing some volunteer work. She said she was sober, and we chose to believe her. We had nothing to signal otherwise, but if she relapsed, Sam knew it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t take responsibility for her anymore.
Molly was doing well too. She was still working at Iris’s, and creating her oasis in her backyard at home. Her schooling was going well. She’d also met some new friends in neighboring towns. Since Sam left, she was getting out more, spreading her wings the way Sam was. The two of them had been depending so much on each other over the years, and while they would always be able to do that, they were getting more of a life outside of each other too.