Page 129 of Stone

Thank you for a beautiful night. I woke early and left because I knew you’d have recriminations this morning, and I didn’t want to be there to watch you beating yourself up.

John, what you’ve gone through is terrible. I won’t sugarcoat it, but running away won’t make things easier. You tried it, but you still hurt, and you still think, and you still remember.

You have to live, and maybe it won’t be the way you envisioned a year ago, but even with a broken heart, life can be beautiful, if you let it.

Your Elise is still there, still alive, and while that remains, there’s hope. Nobody knows the future or what awaits them. That’s why life’s such an adventure. We were there for each other; we didn’t hurt anybody, and we just took comfort wherever we could.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mom’s death, and I want you to know you made a sad day one that now I’ll remember fondly.

I like to think our moms were somewhere bringing us together and looking out for us. Connie knew what you needed, and my mom, Suzie, did, too.

It’s not a stretch of the imagination. Think about it: I talk to beautiful strangers in bars. Where do you think I get my quirky personality? She probably saw us both in the same bar and badgered your mom to help her because she loved me, and I know she would’ve wanted a man like you to comfort me the way you did, exactly the way I needed it.

It doesn’t need to be anything more or less than what it was, a beautiful moment in time.

Thank you, John.

I had a splendiferous time with you.

Your friend, always.

Adele Whitlock.

My thudding heart began to calm.

Jesus, what a woman.

Suddenly, I wished she hadn’t gone. I wished she’d stayed and spoken the words in her letter with her Stevie Nicks voiceand made me laugh. I wished I could’ve taken her for breakfast and walked around town, seeing the stores and the park.

But she was gone.

Reaching across the bed, I grabbed the phone and dialed zero for an outside line. Then, I dialed again and waited for the line to click as it connected.

I heard it start to ring, once, twice, before it was snatched up. “Hello?”

“Abe,” I rasped.

“John!” he exclaimed. “You okay? You sound like a man whose girl left him for the mayor’s son and gave birth to his devil sprog.”

“Abe!” I hear Iris chastise me in the background. “That’s terrible.”

He chuckled quietly. “Sorry. Too soon?”

“I slept with somebody last night,” I blurted out, heart beginning to hammer again.

“Aahh,” he said knowingly. “I’m assuming not much sleeping was involved.”

My gut sank. “Why do I feel like I cheated?”

He paused for a moment, then declared, “First time’s always the roughest. But know this, son. Last night, you didn’t cheat. Whatever the circumstances were behind Elise and Robert, she made a choice, and she’s sticking to it. Last night, you began to move on. Nobody can blame you for that.”

My eyes dropped to the note. “She was a nice girl, cute and pretty, and she made me laugh. Left me a fuckin’ note, thankin’ me. How nutty is that?”

“She sounds like a trip,” Abe murmured.

My mind went back to the night before when I told her the same thing, and I smiled. “Abe?”

“Yeah, Stone?”

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