Page 112 of Promise Me Sunshine

He gives me a friendly smirk. “Of course not really.”

“So you’ll come with me if I ask?”

His eyes pierce me in the shadows of the kitchen. “Lenny, I’ll do anything you ask me to.”

I’ve never had anyone say anything even a tenth this passionate to me and I don’t know how to handle it.

His words have softened whatever gate I’ve been putting up. I can’t hide it anymore. The truth pours out of me.

“Miles, have you ever felt terrible about something you should be happy about?”

He blinks. “Well. Sure.”

He approaches slowly and pulls the desk chair out to sit below me. When I don’t say more, he hands the rest of his glass of water over to me and I polish it off.

“You gave me this…” I pull the locket out of the collar of my T-shirt, and his eyes fall to the glint of silver. “And Miles…I felt joy.” And love. “Real joy. And I didn’t know I was capable of that feeling anymore. But there it was.”

His eyes are soft and sympathetic. I think he might already know where I’m going with this. Which is amazing because I don’t even know where I’m going with this.

“But along with that joy,” I try to explain, “came a horrible feeling. Something so…”

“Guilt,” he whispers.

All the air leaves my lungs. “Guilt?”

“I wonder if…you felt guilt because Lou is gone but you were still able to feel joy in spite of it.”

My wheels are spinning viciously as I try to understand. “You think I’m beating myself up for—”Falling in love?

He lets out a long, slow breath. “Sometimes, when grief recedes, even momentarily, there can be a kind of disorientation or, yeah, guilt that comes along.”

I understand all at once and it makes me panicky. “Recedes? No. Ha. No. Miles. Grieving…that’s the only thing that I can…I can’t justget overher death, Miles. I can’t…Ihaveto feel the grief. How could I ever get used to her being gone? It makes mesick.How could I do that to her?”

I hear my own words in my own ears and I didn’t even know, until this second, that I’ve beenprotectingthis untenable pain, because it’s all I have left of her.

I’m gasping and reaching out for a handhold, anything to keep me from plummeting. I find his hands and then his shoulders. He leans forward in his chair, and with a strong grip he circles his arms around my hips.

“Grief,” he says in a low voice, pinning me to him, holding me in place against him, “becomes your companion, Lenny. As awful as it is, it’s your constant. And so when it starts to leave…when you start to heal—”

“I can’theal,Miles!” I’m gripping him with claws, inconsolable. What a horrific concept. So sickeningly backward. Lou wouldn’t have wanted this for me, but…“Grieving her…it’s the only connection…it’s how I hold on to her. It’s—” I break off and fight for breath.

“It’s not,” he says, and holds me even tighter. “I swear it’s not. Listen to me, Lenny. This does not mean you are forgetting her or losing her all over again.”

My choppy breaths dissolve into tears. I sob and cling to him and he clings to me right back.

“Grief is a relationship,” he continues. “It’s the way we figure out how to keep loving them even though they’re gone. And in order to do that we have to keep on going. And going and going.” His hold is tighter and tighter and mine is tighter and tighter and I’ve slid off the desk and into his lap. “You are not betraying her by healing,” he whispers directly into my ear. “You are honoring her. You are learning to loveher exactly as she is. As someone who isn’t here anymore…That’s who she is now. And this journey through grief…It’s what wedofor the great loves of our lives.”

The fact that he knows me well enough to call Lou a great love of my life has me clinging to him while I shudder through this new and terrible idea. It’ll take years to process. I’m so tired and so tired of being awake in the middle of the night. I want cool sheets and huge pajamas. I can’t take much more of this.

I’m about to slide off him when his arms tighten so slightly around me I think I might have imagined it. It’s the softest resistance imaginable, but it’s enough to still me, to keep me from going anywhere.

Some things are okay because it’s nighttime. Because one of us has recently been sobbing. Because he and I…we haven’t found the limits to what he will or won’t do for me.

So it feelsnatural—admittedly new—when he reaches up and presses one palm to my cheek. I don’t blink or move. His hand shifts and his movements become light as an eyelash. Long moments pass while he methodically brushes my hair back from my face. I tip toward him to make it easier. He’s calm and fond.

He’s both with me and not. I can see in his eyes that he’s reflecting, mulling, going over the night we’ve just had. There’s a sudden flash of white from his quick smile. “So the locket made you feel joy, huh?”

I give a watery laugh. “Miles, the locket made me feel…” The buttons on his new fancy flannel catch my eye. I reach down and fix one that’s gone crooked through its brave attempts at doubling as pajamas. “You giving me that locket…” I try again and then huff with frustration when I can’t generate the words.

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