Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
I had no idea who most of those people were, he’d never mentioned them.
But if they had a hand in making Cap, I couldn’t wait to meet them.
It was the next morning and we were sitting outside Elsie Fay’s church watching the congregants drift away.
We’d hit up Bosa on the way there, and sat eating the donuts we bought as we waited for the services to end.
My stomach was tied up in knots, and I was rethinking my decision to do this, my decision to talk Cap into taking me to do this (he thought it was unnecessary and worried it would be too much for me, which wasn’t surprising, considering the last time we faced this, I cried in his arms for an hour), and the added decision to stuff my face with fried dough before doing this, when Cap asked a pertinent question.
“Are you sure about this?”
The reverend had already clocked us (two people munching donuts in a Porsche was hard to miss).
But that wasn’t it.
I searched my feelings, and yes. This was about pride and some shame. I felt badly about how I’d reacted in front of Ben and Emily. They had no way of knowing I was triggered. But they were dealing with so much, and I walked into their house and threw a drama. So I wanted them to know why I did.
But most of me was beginning to realize that maybe me being highly selective about who I deemed worthy to know about Macy wasn’t healthy.
I’d told counselors how I’d dealt, and I’d had one who’d cautioned I should be more open. I’d had another who said I should go with my gut, not force myself to deal in ways that didn’t feel comfortable.
I’d been doing the last.
Maybe I needed to talk about it.
Maybe I needed to cry about it.
Maybe I needed to allow myself to feel it.
It hurt, but it was a hurt that would never go away. Hiding in my Citadel and shutting it out was a coping mechanism.
But maybe it was time to ride Cinnamon over the drawbridge and into the unknown, carrying memories of Macy with me, including the fact we lost her.
It was more, though.
There were going to be dark times Ben and Emily would have to navigate. They snuck up on you even when you thought you had it covered. Friday night was proof of that.
And even though my story wasn’t theirs, and not only because they got Elsie Fay back, I wanted them to know that it was a horrible, twisted kind of luck, but they were lucky all the same, with how their story ended.
I turned to Cap. “I wanna do this.”
He tipped his head to the steps of the church. “Then let’s do this.”
I turned back to the church and saw the congregants were gone, but the reverend was waiting for me at the top of the steps, his wife beside him.
We got out, and Cap didn’t take my hand when he hit my side.
He slung his arm around my shoulders.
I slid mine along his waist.
As he seemed wont to do, this made me feel better.
Attached, we climbed the steps.
“Rachel, Julien, what a pleasure to see you again,” the reverend said as we let each other go, and he shook both our hands.
“Reverend,” Cap murmured.
I smiled at him and his wife, then I requested of him, “Can I take a little of your time to speak to you? And ask a favor?”
“Of course.” He motioned to the doors. “Would you like to come in?”
I shook my head. “You have a busy day and this won’t take long.”
He settled in.
His wife (I was so hazy when I met her, I forgot her name, though I was sure someone told me), wrapped her fingers around her husband’s arm, totally feeling my vibe.
Welp.
I was here, no going back.
So I launched in.
“I want you to know that, yes, what happened to Elsie Fay was a lot. But the reason I reacted the way I did was because my sister Macy was taken when she was six.”
“My dear,” he whispered, his body jolting at hearing this news.
His wife’s fingers visibly started clutching his arm, and it occurred to me then how his job had a lot to do with helping people navigate the shitty parts of life.
In other words, he had to bear some of that weight, and considering how much of it he probably had to take on, that weight must feel like he was carrying around a mountain.
It sucked I had to add to it, but at the end, they’d see the light.
Though, I had to give him more weight first.
“She was never recovered,” I went on.
The reverend moved, like he was going to grab hold of me, probably to give me a hug, but he stopped himself.
Yeah, he knew how to do this.