Page 26 of Catching Feeling

The sun is setting, and the massive arched windows let an ungodly amount of natural light in, bathing the cream walls in warm rays. The room itself is as stunning as the rest of the house, and it makes me wonder if Reese realizes just how lucky he is to be able to have a place like this.

Most college kids live in a shitty, small dorm and survive on ramen noodles.

It’s me. I’m that college kid, so the fact that I’m now currently living in this massive house with a walk-in closet and a Jacuzzi bathtub is still a little unbelievable. The soft, plush carpet. The recessed lighting and automatic shades. It’s like it all hasn’t truly hit me yet.

Part of me feels guilty not being able to afford my dorm and ending up here in this amazing house while my mom is stuck in our run-down, shitty two-bedroom apartment, struggling.

Maybe when I get all of my things set up and my murder board on the wall, it’ll start to sink in and really feel like… home away from home.

I walk over to my computer and pull up the music app, then click on my favorite band. The deep, folky beat thrums through the speakers as I start pulling out everything for my board. It takes a second to get the space measured and then the actual board on the wall, but I manage to do it without hurting myself.

Once it’s up, I start working on putting up the photos, research, and various stickies for the plot and character organization for the book that I’ve been working on since high school.

Being a writer has always been my dream ever since I was a little girl, typing away on an analog computer from the literal nineties, crafting stories about ghosts and things that go bump in the night.

I’ll never forget that computer. My dad was on his way home from work one night, and he passed by it on the side of the road, sitting on top of a garbage can. Someone had put it out with the trash, and while it was completely out of date and had very few capabilities, it was perfect for a twelve-year-old me.

The screen itself was black, the letters a neon green, and it lagged every time I pressed the backspace key, but it was mine.

I cherished it because it gave me a new space to write the stories I had been penning for so long on scraps of notebook paper.

It helped me see my dreams as reality, and when I sat down in front of that computer, I wasn’t just a little girl who one day hoped she could be an author like the stories she had been reading for so long. I was a little girl who was an author, who prayed one day she would be able to publish her stories for everyone to read.

I’m still that girl today. Just a little more jaded from the world and missing my dad with every breath.

And just like every day before this, I wish for just five more minutes with him. I’ll never stop wishing for that.

He died when I was a junior in high school. Driving home from his shift at the local paper factory, a drunk driver swerved into his lane and hit him head-on. He was killed on impact. Or at least that’s what they said.

My life changed instantly. Not only was I a child who lost her hero and her best friend, but in a way, I also lost my mother that day.

She’s never been the same, and not only have I grieved him, but a part of me grieves the mother she was. In the beginning, I was too caught up in my own mourning to realize it, but it quickly became apparent that she’d been swallowed by the same grief.

For most people, time makes it a little more bearable, but for her, it only seemed to get worse until she could barely pull herself out of bed. Until she lost her job, and then another, and then another. She couldn’t even see a television show with a car on it without having a panic attack. I found myself taking care of one grieving parent while I still grieved the other.

It’s been a constant cycle, with neither of us being able to break free from it.

I swallow down the emotion and reach for the frame on my desk, swiping my finger over the glass. A photo of Dad and me when I was nine at my first father-daughter dance. The picture has faded over time, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. Still remember dancing on his feet in the prettiest purple dress that I felt like a princess in. Giggling when he spun me around the dance floor.

“Miss you, Daddy,” I whisper, setting it back down on the desk. “Always.”

Grief is an emotion that never wanes. It’s constantly there in different shapes and forms, a reminder that no matter how much time has passed, you’ll still ache.

I spend the next hour repinning and placing everything back on my murder board to busy my mind, keeping my sadness from taking over. Burying my feelings, like always, because I don’t have time to fall apart. Not now, not later. So I do what I’ve gotten really good at… pretending that I’m not a mess.

Pretending that everything is going to be fine, even when it feels like it’s not.

“Okay,” I say to myself, blowing out a breath as I stand back and take in the entire board. The bright red strings connecting the plot points are back where they should be, and now I just need to make sure that it aligns with the second part of the story. I’ve been working on this so long I lost track of time, and now, darkness sits like a blanket outside my window. Black, inky

darkness.

My favorite time of day.

I’m working on pinning up my latest plot points when suddenly, my bedroom door bursts open and Reese barrels through, wearing nothing but a white towel slung impossibly low on his hips. He’s soaking wet, rivulets of water dripping down his chest, torso, and legs onto the floor. Clearly, he’s just come from the shower, but why is he in my room half-naked?

Before I can even ask him what in the hell is happening and why he’s panting like he just ran a marathon, he all but yells, “What’s in the pink bottle? In the shower?”

Pink bottle?

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