Page 99 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

But maybe what she had wasn’t a marriage-shaped hole at all. Maybe it was simply…grief. The kind she had to walkthrough, notaround. Nothing was going to replace the spot her parents had filled. She no longer had the safe space that her mom’s hugs and long talks provided. Or the feeling of her dad always looking out for her future with his overly detailed but well-intentioned advice. No love could bethatlove. Finding a guy wasn’t going to patch that.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t have additional space for other kinds of love. The love of her friends filled her with joy. The sweet doggie kisses from Mabel lit her up with delight. The passion for her job filled her with purpose. She had so much.

And maybe one day she’d find a guy who added to those wonderful things, but she was no longer interested in forcing it or worrying about it or bending over backward to fit into some guy’s detailed relationship rules. Beckham’s issues were his to own and deal with. She cared about him, maybe even loved him, but she wasn’t his therapist. It wasn’t her job to fix him, especially when he didn’t want to be fixed.

She also didn’t need him to fix something inherlife. She was fine all on her own.

No. More than that.

She was frawesome.

She followed her friends into the kitchen, passing the couch where she and Beckham had first curled up together to watch Star Wars. She glanced at the ghost image of the two of them, mentally releasing her grip on the hope that they had something special, and she let him go.

Goodbye, Beckham Carter. May the force be with you.

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