Page 150 of Forget Me Not

Cancer is a bitch. It doesn’t excuse what he did, because, let’s face it, Jack and I had problems that started very early on into our relationship. Still . . . it hurts to know he was hurting. For the boy with the soft blue eyes and the hair like nutmeg.

All these thoughts hit me the moment I open my eyes. I’m still laying on the floor of the living room, curled up in a ball with Toast on one side and Creamsicle on the other. I sank down after I read Jack’s letter and I didn’t have it in me to move because the thought was inconceivable.

When I stir, so do my pets and both look at me with wide eyes and sniff like they’re surprised I’m alive.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, voice hoarse, and scratch Toast behind the ears. “You deserve better than this.”

He eyes me with those sad, puppy dog eyes.

He’s hurting, too. I think that hurts the most.

Forcing myself to move, I stand, wincing at the stiffness of my limbs. My body is sore, eyes burning, and my cheeks feel swollen and stiff from crying well into the night. I feel like I was broken and forced back together again in my sleep like a porcelain doll held together by scotch tape.

I can’t cry anymore. I think I’m out. Is it possible to run out of tears?

I let Toast out to do his business and feed both him and Creamsicle before taking a shower hot enough to melt my skin. When I’m done, I throw on some jeans and a t-shirt because, well, I’m not winning any beauty pageants at the inn.

The day moves quickly. Probably because I’m in a daze. I feel like something was set in place last night. Like a silent acknowledgement that Jack is forever gone and I am in love with a man I’ll never see again.

It’s time to move on.

The people around me must notice I’m struggling because they keep their distance and I’m thankful. I work alongside Manto in the kitchen through dinner rush, and I’m grateful for his silence. He never pushes. He’s just there.

I work until I physically run out of things to do and then, I find something else to keep me busy. It’s not until I’m on my way home when I catch site of the boat docks.

It’s late. The sun has all but set, but I don’t care.

Hope’s Grace shines like a beacon, beckoning for me to join her in the water.

“You know what, fuck it.”

Storming toward the docks, I’m thankful no one is out. The town buttons up early in the winter, with how cold the breeze gets.

As soon as I’m stepping on to Hope’s Grace it feels like I’m being transported to another time. Inside, everything is as he left it, even the old captain’s hat. My fingers run over the steering wheel, the leather cold under my touch.

It’s been two and a half months since he left and in those two months, the world seems to have stopped spinning.

At least for me.

Forcing my legs to carry me down into the cabin, I’m hit with a wave of sorrow.

It smells like him. Like he was just here. Like salt and the sea and something so delicious my mouth waters.

The bed is still made. I check the drawers and they’re empty. He took everything that was his, leaving no sign that he was even here.

I pause at a new picture, hung on the wall. Hope’s Grace sitting at the dock, right where it is now. It’s sunny and bright . . . a different lifetime.

I want to take it, but I know it won’t help.

“Reid . . .” I whisper to the nothingness, even though I know he’s gone.

Both Whitaker house and Hope’s Grace feel like secret rose gardens, where we hid away when the world was searching for us with pitchforks. Like a different time and place. Our own dimension where only we held the keys.

I haven’t been back to Whitaker House since he left. I can’t.

Then it dawns on me.

What am I doing?

---