Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
I blinked. I swallowed hard before I snorted, which even that sounded sad. Wasn’t that exactly what I’d told him months ago? When he’d been upset with his dad?
Rhodes must have known exactly what I was thinking because he gave me a gentle smile. “You could use the fresh air.”
I could. Even my old therapist, whose number I’d found a couple days ago and had only hesitated for about an hour before calling—she remembered me, which wasn’t surprising considering I’d gone to her for four years—had told me it would be good for me to get out. But I still hesitated before glancing back down at the journal in my hands. Rhodes had been beyond great, but I’d been feeling all kinds of ways. He’d been there enough for me lately; I didn’t want to push it either.
Rhodes tilted his head to the other side, watching me closely. “Come on, Buddy. If it was me, you would tell me the same,” he said.
He was right.
And that alone was enough to get me to nod and get dressed.
Before everything that had happened, I’d told him I wanted to try snowshoeing someday. And part of that pierced through my mood, reminding me of how lucky I was to have him. Of how lucky I was for a lot of things.
I had to keep trying.
Rhodes didn’t leave; he sat on the bed while I changed my pants right there in front of him, too lazy to even bother going into the bathroom. He didn’t say a word as he nodded at me to ask if I was ready, and I nodded at him back that I was, and we left. True to his word, he didn’t talk or try to get me to either.
Rhodes drove toward town, turning left down a county road and parking in a clearing that I was familiar with because I’d driven by it before when I’d gone for hikes. Out of the back of his Bronco, he pulled out two sets of snowshoes and helped me put them on.
Then and only then did he grab my hand and start leading us forward.
We moved quietly, and at some point, he handed me a pair of sunglasses he must have had in the pocket of his jacket because the only things he’d brought in his backpack were bottles of water and a tarp. I hadn’t even noticed I was squinting with the sun reflecting off the snow, but the sunglasses helped. The air was so crisp it felt cleaner than ever, and I filled my lungs with as much of it as I could every chance I had, letting it soothe me in its own way. On we went, and maybe if I’d been feeling any better, I would have appreciated more how well the snowshoes worked or how pretty the field we were going through was... but I was trying my best. And that was all I could do. I was here, and some part of my brain was aware that that mattered.
About an hour later, we finally stopped at the top of a hill, and he stretched out the tarp on top of the snow and gestured me onto it. I had barely sat down when he took the spot beside me and said in that husky voice of his, “You know I wasn’t around for any of Amos’s firsts.”
I crisscrossed my legs under me and looked at Rhodes. He was sitting with his long legs stretched out before him, hands planted a few inches behind him, but most importantly, he was looking at me. The sunlight was reflecting off his beautiful silver hair, and I couldn’t think of a single man I’d ever seen that was more handsome than him.
He was the best, really, and that made my throat hurt in a way that wasn’t bad.
“I wasn’t there for his first word or the first time he walked. The first day he used the toilet on his own or the first night he didn’t have to wear diapers to sleep.”
Because he’d been gone, living on a coast far away from Colorado.
“Am doesn’t remember, and even if he did, I’m not sure if he’d care, but it used to bother me a lot. It still does bother me when I think about it.” The lines across his forehead deepened. “I used to send money to them—to Billy and Sofie. For things he might need, even though they both said they had it, but he was mine too. I used to come and visit him every chance I had. Every vacation, any time I could swing it, even if it was only for a whole day. They told me I did enough, said I didn’t have to worry about it, and maybe that should’ve been good enough for me, but it wasn’t.