Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to let them go,” she told Tanner as though he’d been keeping up with her inner thoughts, her inner struggling, “because it feels like letting another part of you go too.” She let out a shaky sigh. “But sometimes I wonder if it keeps us all stuck, in a way. Sometimes I wonder if that ringing of the phone each month is just a reminder of the pain, and maybe, in a way, they dread it.”
Or maybe I do.
Maybe those calls had started feeling like an anchor to the pain and she’d wanted to unmoor herself and create some distance. She wanted to know what that shore looked like from a different vantage point. Maybe if she drifted for a little while, the sunrise would come into view.
She shifted so she was sitting on her hip and brought her legs to the side. “Work has been intense though, Tan. You’d laugh so hard if you saw me walking around crime scenes and standing over dead bodies in the ME’s office. Remember that time I almost passed out when you sliced your foot on a piece of glass at the beach?” She let out a huffy laugh. “I’ve changed a lot since high school. I wonder how you would have changed. I miss you, you know that?” The rawness of grief had faded, but sometimes, even more now than when she’d begun healing, she’d feel a wave of it. It felt like losing him all over again when she considered who he’d be now. Because she—they—hadn’t only lost Tanner when he was nineteen; they’d lost him at every age he’d never be. And so in some sense, the loss never stopped. In many ways, it deepened over time.
She’d never forgotten the way the lights buzzed that night. A dying bulb, an electricity short; she had no idea what had caused it. But she did remember the loud buzz and the tremble of light and dark that had washed over his face the last time she saw him alive. And even now, when the sadness overcame her, in the background she heard that never-ending electrical buzz.
God, they’d have been married for almost a decade now, if their plans had become reality. They’d probably have a couple of kids. They’d have gone on that honeymoon to Tahiti. She’d have used the passport that, instead, had expired in the back of her sock drawer. That version of herself felt so far away suddenly, a dream within a dream, a movie she couldn’t remember the name of. A song she still knew the melody for but could no longer sing the words.
The thought made her picture the songbird Ambrose had spoken of, the one that had appeared so vibrantly in her mind, the notes of a misty song trailing from its beak as it welcomed the dawn. The image had been so beautiful, and she’d only been told the story. What must that have been like in person?
Her finger paused over the last letter of Tanner’s name as Lennon realized she’d been thinking about Ambrose while sitting in front of Tanner’s grave. Ambrose, who hadn’t even called her since they’d slept together. Ambrose, whom she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.
What are you doing here, Lennon?
“Anyway,” she said quickly, moving her mind from that question. “I’ve been partnered up with an FBI agent. And . . . I don’t know how to describe him. It’s like he’s jaded and innocent and gruff and soft. He walks around crime scenes and fights drug-fueled psychos, but then he also tells stories about songbirds and blushes when my mom says he smells good. I’m not sure what to make of him. You know how I am. I like straightforward. I like black and white. I’m not good with shades of gray.” For whatever reason, she pictured Ambrose Mars eating that fruit cup, examining each piece of fruit as though it was a tiny marvel. And then she saw him telling the story about the man who’d been saved by the sea lion, his soft voice enthralling an entire room. The way his unusual eyes had hung on her and the way she’d felt held captive. In the end, stories are all we have.
“He’s hard to describe,” she murmured. “But I trust him—professionally, anyway. He proved that he has my back when things go south. I’m going to make sure he’s not put in that position again. I’m going to be much more careful. I promise, Tan.” She brought her hand to the bruised eye that she’d pretty successfully—she thought—managed to cover with makeup. “This won’t happen again . . .” She trailed off. As if she needed to reassure Tanner of her safety.
“What I really came here to say is that I miss you. I don’t want you to think that I don’t. No matter what. I . . . if I don’t come here as much it’s not because I’ve forgotten. I never forget. I carry you with me, and I always will.”