Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Being lonely, so damn lonely.
For years, really. Maybe always.
I went straight for the door, phoning Remy as I did. “You busy?” I asked when he answered.
“Hey, no. I always have time for you. What’s up?”
“You wanna go for a little hike before I have to work this afternoon?”
“Sure. I’m at Sunrise now.” Sunrise was the café Law owned. “I can head over and meet you at our spot.”
I smiled. “See you there.”
Remy was maybe the kindest soul I’d ever known. He was gentle, liked his space and his thoughts, but would always be there for a friend. Since he’d come to Havenwood, he’d talked to me a lot about his anxiety and depression. He was quiet and easy to talk to.
When I arrived, he was already at the small, graveled section off the side of the road. There were other trails along bigger lots, but this one was a little out of town, fit only about ten cars, and there was only one other there now besides mine and Remy’s.
He had on a flannel shirt, old jeans with holes in the knees, and beat-up work boots. You would never look at Remy and know he was a famous musician—well, these days he focused mostly on song-writing, but still.
“Thanks for coming,” I said as I approached.
“Anytime. You know that.”
We headed for the leaf-covered trail that went through the middle of the dense area of trees. We knew it by heart. It wasn’t anything long or difficult, but being out in nature in the fresh air always helped.
“Everything okay?” Remy asked.
“Yeah.” And it was. Everything was great, for the most part. “Did you like it? Traveling the world?” I found myself asking.
“That’s a hard question to answer. In a lot of ways I did. I grew up extremely poor and a little isolated. It was amazing to see so much of what’s out there, to experience other cultures, great art, new foods and music and the like. But it also triggered my anxiety a lot. I’d worry about being recognized, or hell, even worry about things that were unlikely to happen, like getting lost or stuck in a foreign country. My brain played a lot of tricks on me. Have you done much traveling?”
“We went on vacations every summer as a kid—road trips and theme parks, that kind of thing, but not as an adult. When I went off to college, that was the first and only time I didn’t live in the home I live in now.” I thought about my trip away with Josh and how rejuvenating it had been. “I think I’d like to check out some more places, though. Little trips, ya know? Nothing big, but…” What did I have stopping me other than my bar? Yeah, Griff’s meant the world to me, but my trip with Josh was the only real trip I’d taken since I opened the place. Miguel was a great addition. I could take more time off. I deserved more time off. “Yeah, I think I’d like to do a little traveling.”
Just something different from my usual routine. It was strange to acknowledge the restlessness that had always lived right under my skin, just beneath the surface, where I could pretend it wasn’t there, pretend that as long as I had my bar and Kellan was happy, I had everything I needed.
“You should do it. You deserve that, man. I can’t remember if I told you, but my dad left when I was young. I’m the oldest of my siblings, and like I said, we didn’t have much. I spent most of my life thinking I needed to be responsible for everyone else, that I didn’t need anything for me, except maybe my music. That as long as I had that, I could keep taking care of everyone else and not take care of myself. It wasn’t until I met Law the first time that I did anything that was for me. He…fuck, he changed me. He opened up my world and made me want more for myself.”
“But you guys separated?”
“We did then, yeah. I wanted it, but I didn’t have the courage to go for it yet. It wasn’t until I moved here and found him again that I really found myself. Not because of him. Love can help lift you up, but you still gotta do the work, ya know? But loving him made me want to do it, made me want to make changes and to…hell, to really live. What I was doing before Law wasn’t living, it was surviving.”
Remy’s words knocked around in my chest. Had that been what I spent my life doing? Just surviving? It didn’t make sense. I didn’t grow up the way Remy had. I didn’t have anxiety or depression. I’d had a two-parent home and never wanted for anything. And I’d always had Chase too. But as we kept walking, I thought maybe those things didn’t matter. What did was on the inside and…Christ, I never really let myself live, did I? I just kept surviving, kept trudging along, working and watching my friends’ and my brother’s lives move on without me. I’d known some of that before, but the truth felt different as it played through my head today.