Page 128 of Unbroken

I eyeballed the nearest box, which was spilling over with papers and books, and as much as I loved Shelly, I wasn’t organized enough to be helping someone else.

But she tossed a trash bag my way with a grateful smile, and I couldn’t say no to the only woman who had ever treated me as a daughter.

I opened the trash bag and removed the lid from the first box. I set the lid to the side and accidentally knocked over a stack of papers that cascaded across the floor with a soft swish.

“Well, shit.”

We both stooped to gather the pages. “Looks like you found a bunch of my old hospital paperwork. How fun!” She handed me the paperwork, and I organized it in a neat stack. “So, I’ve been wanting to ask you how you’re doing, Blakely?”

“I’m fine,” I said, the response automatic.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she chastised. “Don’t ‘I’m fine’ me, Blakely Warrier-West. Tell me how youreallyare.”

Setting the papers back in the box, I moved on to one that was less cluttered. “I’m more okay than I thought I would be.”

“I guess that’s the best you can ask for right now,” she said. “Devon said something about hiring an investigator to help?”

“Yeah, he hired a PI, Marie.”

Sifting through the contents of the box, I started pulling everything out and making piles of like things—books with books, CDs with CDs, office supplies with other office supplies.

“Has she come up with anything yet?”

“Nope, and I’m not holding my breath.”

She clicked her tongue and dropped one box on top of another. “So, we’re a little pessimistic, are we?”

I glanced over my shoulder and tried to ignore her unimpressed, knowing expression. Her red eyebrows almost touched her hairline, and she pursed her lips, tossing another box down.

“It’s been over a year and a half, Shelly. Yes, I’m a little pessimistic,” I said, then added, quieter, “I think I deserve to be.”

“If you keep frowning like that, your face is going to stay that way.”

I stopped, turned around, and found Shelly staring directly at me, arms crossed over her chest. She was so stern, so serious,that laughter burst out of me. It was so sudden and light, I couldn’t swallow it back down. Then Shelly was laughing with me, too, and the boxes and boxes of shit were forgotten.

Moments like that were happening more and more often. Where I forgot how chaotic my life was and how impossible it all felt sometimes. Where my mind wasn’t riddled with disjointed, chaotic thoughts that made me want to disappear.

When those moments did push through, as they always did and likely always would, they were fleeting. Like little blips that disappeared as quickly as they appeared. Only a breath between each thought, each moment.

Minutes later, we both finally recovered, wiping our eyes and trying to catch our breath. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard that I’d cried.

We both went back to weeding through the chaos, talking about everything and nothing in particular. Shelly disappeared for a few minutes and came back with mocktails, which we were sipping as she helped me sift through the largest box of photos I’d ever seen.

“So, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” she began hesitantly, and I was quiet, although my anxiety climbed. “I’m moving out.”

I whipped my head in her direction. “What? When?”

She nodded and sipped her drink, sorting the photos into neat piles. “I decided about a week ago. I started…seeing someone when I moved back. And we’re going to move in together.”

Unsure what to say, I gaped like a fish out of water. It was the last thing I expected to hear.

“That’s really exciting, Shelly. What’s he like?”

She set her glass on the only clean spot in the room and cut her eyes in my direction. Flipping through photo after photo, she didn’t look up as she said, “Well,she’samazing. The best person I’ve ever met.”

Never mind,thatwas the last thing I expected to hear. But Iwas excited for her. After the crap she’d gone through with Devon’s dad and Sydney’s dad, she deserved love, and I was over the moon happy she’d found it.

“What’s her name?”

---