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“For talking to a friend in the way that I was, it felt almost flirty. Too friendly,” I admit, as the guilt swirls around in my stomach making me feel nauseous again. Then I feel bricks drop into my heart, weighing me down, settling in and cementing that guilt.
“Do you think you like David more than in a friend way?”
I shake my head. “No,” I say honestly, although something feels wrong with that answer. “I mean I didn’t think so. I don’t think so. I thought…I just don’t know.”
“Do you feel like you could potentially like him as more than a friend?”
I pause. “Maybe that’s how it felt for a minute, before I realized what I was even doing.”
“How did it feel before that realization?”
I take a deep breath, trying to take some of the pressure off. I try to stop biting back the words and to just speak truthfully even though the words hurt. “It felt like I was having fun. I really enjoyed talking to him.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” she asks quietly.
YES! I want to scream. But I sit in my thoughts for a minute to try and find the right words. I can’t help but feel that pain in my chest, that cinching feeling that rips the air out of my lungs. I try to focus on my breathing but keep slipping into the guilt. The grief.
“It felt right for a minute. Until I remembered everything. And then I realized I had forgotten.” I reach up to wipe a stray tear away quickly. “I had forgotten about the grief for awhile. This past year, the grief has been my closest companion, I guess? It’s easy to slip into it. I guess it’s where I feel close to him. It’s a reminder that I had this love that was so incredible.” I choke on my words. “The grief is a reminder that it was all real. I don’t want to not feel that anymore because it would be like I’m forgetting him,” I say, my voice breaking once more before I whisper, almost inaudible, “And I can’t forget him.”
“Ana,” Naomi says, her words coated with warmth and kindness, “letting yourself feel something other than the grief does not mean that 1. You are betraying, Hayden.” My heart tightens at the sound of his name. “And 2. That you are going to forget him.”
She continues, “I didn’t know Hayden, but from what I’ve learned of him from you, it makes me confident in saying that he wouldn’t want grief to be your closest companion. He wouldn’t want you holding onto grief because it’s how you feel closest to him. I think that would break his heart. The bond you two shared wasn’t forged in that grief, it was forged in the love you had between each other. Love can change and look different over time, it grows when we grow and walks with us through the different seasons of life. But just because he is gone, doesn’t mean that that love ended or has to end. Moving forward and healing from grief does not erase his memory or the love you have for him. You will carry your love for him with you for the rest of your life,” she says kindly, gently. “One day you’ll notice that it won’t make you quite as sad…but happy to have that love with you every day.”
The tears stream down my face quickly now, and I don’t bother wiping them away.
“Opening up your heart again is not a betrayal to him or his memory. But living in the guilt is,” she says.
I look at her, my mouth parted slightly as I absorb her painfully honest words. I can't help but feel the truth in them. I want to get defensive and tell her that she’s wrong. But as I wait for those words to come to the surface, I find them missing.
Instead I say, “You’re right.” A tiny spark flutters in my heart, so small I almost don’t notice it. I swear I hear a breath of relief from that tiny voice in my head.
Hayden was an incredibly emotional person. He was so in tune with his feelings and the ones of those around him. He exuded compassion and kindness. His sensitivity was one of his greatest strengths. He saw me in ways no one ever had, in ways I never dare let anyone else see. He knew my innermost being, the depths of my heart. I’d like to think that I knew his in the same way. I knew that if he were to see my past year it would utterly break him.
A sob bubbles up my throat and slips through my lips. Then another, and another. As I begin to lose myself in something that feels almost like a dam breaking open, a chasm crumbling around me, I feel Naomi move towards me and put something in my hand. Tissues. I press the tissues into my eyes in an effort to stop the tears but they just keep coming, and coming.
“He would want you to be happy, Ana.”
I sob harder, my heart feeling both achingly heavy and lighter than it has in over a year. I find myself nodding my head. “I know,” I say before I can realize what I’m saying, and then again, “I know.”
I cry for several minutes as Naomi sits next to me and offers me silent support, handing me tissues as I need them. When I calm down enough to stop crying and take a deep breath, I look over to her.
“I know it may not feel like it at this moment, but this is a huge breakthrough. This is a victory.” She nods her head towards the tissue still trying to mop up the remainder of my tears. “You don’t have to do it today, or tomorrow, but let yourself start to accept joy. Let yourself start to feel joy without feeling guilt. Because Hayden would want you to live a full life, with love. Nothing can erase the love you have for him and will always have for him. Let yourself feel joy and hope. Whether that is through David, or someone else. Just let yourself try.”
TWENTY-THREE
THEN, FALL, 5 YEARS AGO
I finally introduced Hayden to Maddie, which meant Elliot also. I didn’t have much of a choice since Maddie was taken with him immediately. I knew she would be. He’s impossible to dislike. I think Elliot likes him too, but he might be a little uncomfortable with Hayden’s ‘Hayden-ness’. He is just so comfortable in his skin, around other people, with everything. Basically the opposite of Elliot. But even in the short time Elliot has been around us in this new way, I’ve seen a lot of growth in him. Maddie always manages to bring out the best in people.
The four of us actually get along really well. We’ve only hung out together as a group a few times, but each time has been incredibly entertaining. Hayden and Maddie are so animated, it’s funny to watch them get into it together. The other night as we sat in our living room, they had an argument about the conspiracy theories of Frozen and The Little Mermaid. Elliot and I had no idea what they were talking about. But we watched them, rapt in entertainment for the whole forty-five minutes they debated.
“The shipwreck that Ariel finds is Elsa’s parent’s ship. They died in a shipwreck,” Hayden argues animatedly.
“Their ship went down, but they didn’t die,” Maddie counters. Hayden gives her a ‘what the hell are you talking about’ face. “The ship went down but they survived and then they got stranded on an island and had another baby, but then they were attacked by a cheetah…” We’re all looking at Madeline like she has actually lost her mind now, “and the baby lived and became Tarzan!”
“WHAT?” Hayden says so dramatically, the word drawn out hitting several different octaves with his face so twisted in disbelief that I burst out in laughter.
He’s standing now. “You’re insane!”
