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They all took a collective deep breath when she went off to college, when she was safe from any of this ever coming back to impact her again. She'd spent too much of her childhood chewing her nails after being shuffled away to a safe location when the club's dealings made the wives and kids possible targets.
And while it couldn't be said that I breathed any easier when she was gone—since it was the exact opposite—I knew it was the best place for her.
I knew that if she got involved with me—with anyone in this sort of lifestyle—it would force her to become a new person. And I couldn't stomach the idea of that happening.
She was too perfect for that.
Pushing her away was a form of protection. It was something I had to do for her best interest. Even if she hated me for it. Even if she would never forgive me.
I would just have to learn to live with that.
Chapter Ten
Andi
Change came slowly, then all at once.
I am not ashamed to say that after that whole... whatever it was between Niro and me, after I sobbed in my father's arms like I was a little girl again, I got in my bed and barely came out of it for three days.
I was not good at "pushing through." I was someone who, when they felt something, had to feel it, had to go through it. Then, slowly but surely, I would get to be okay again.
I was still waiting for it to be okay.
But things weren't as ugly in my mind, in my heart.
I'd considered moving right back out of town after, not wanting to run into him, to be confronted with all that ugly again. It was my mom and Hope who talked me into staying, reminding me of all the people I had here who had my best interests at heart, even if Niro was no longer one of those people.
They were right.
And once everyone found out I was back—and I suspect Hope told them what had happened—they'd all been coming over, bringing me dinner, taking me out to coffee, reminding me all the love I had left behind when I'd left town years before.
So, in the end, I decided to stay.
But also that I needed to get my life together.
I figured if I had other things to focus on, it would help make moving on easier for me.
I got myself a job at the local vet's office, simply lucking out that the current vet was looking to semi-retire but wanted his practice to go on. And since he'd known my mom for years, and me my whole life, he'd taken me on without question. I was hoping to be able to buy him out one day and make the practice completely my own.
By the end of the next month, I was re-packing my little car, driving it a small way into town, and setting up my new apartment.
I tried like hell not to let my mind flash back to setting up my first apartment, to seeing Niro bringing my life up piece by piece, and helping me debate where to put things, eating Chinese take-out on the floor because I didn't have a couch yet, to both of us having one of our last sleepovers there—him on my Papasan cushion, me on my mattress on the floor beside him.
Memories like that, they didn't help.
I was hoping that one day I would get to a place where I could look back on all those earlier days, and even some of the end days, without this black cloud of misery hanging over it.
Until then, though, I forced the thoughts away.
It was easier that way.
And once my father and Uncle Cyrus moved all my stuff in, including the stuff they'd gone up to New York to get out of my storage locker, I was left to put my place together by myself.
Or so I thought.
Until Hope showed up with Billie and Gracie, with a couple of our other childhood friends, filling my apartment to the brim with laughter and too many opinions.
My heart almost, just almost felt complete again.
That last little piece, well, it might always belong to Niro. I might just have to learn to accept that my heart was no longer going to feel complete again.
"Hey you," a newly familiar voice called as I crossed the street from the vet's office.
It had been a late night.
Tuesdays and Thursdays were surgery days when the office stayed open until eight to allow all the animals to have time to come out of anesthesia before their families came to take them home and love on them. I'd been on my feet for thirteen hours.
Everything was aching.
I missed Nugget who I left with my parents on the days with long shifts so he wouldn't be alone.
