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She moved to the floor and sat down, patting the spot beside her.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going to take a minute to slow down. Now come on.” She lay down and grabbed her phone. Within seconds the song “Chasing Cars,” by Snow Patrol, began to play. She tilted her head in my direction and gestured for me to join her.
I did as she said, lying down beside her as the music played. We lay shoulder to shoulder, and she laced her hand with mine, sending that wave of warmth through my system.
How did she do that?
How did she help make me slow down my madness?
The song played on repeat, over and over again, as my thoughts began to slow.
She tilted her head to look at me, I tilted my head to look at her, and I swore somehow I felt her heartbeats.
“Thank you, Emery.”
“For what?”
“Existing.”
26
OLIVER
“What were some of your victories this past week?” Abigail asked at our next meeting together. I took comfort in knowing that after my meltdown on the set, I’d be able to work through some of the bullshit in my head with Abigail. It helped knowing that each week, I had someone assisting me in unpacking my heavy baggage.
Each week, before we dived into my mind, she asked me that. She said it was a way to switch the narrative in my head that every week was a bad week. It was a way to rewire my mind. Some weeks it was easy to come up with the good things that had happened to me. Other times, like said week, that felt almost impossible.
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
“You do. So tell me.”
I blew out a cloud of hot air and sat back on the couch, searching my thoughts for any positive thing that had happened in the past week. Still, I struggled.
“I finished a song.”
Abigail’s eyes widened with joy as she wrote that down in her notebook. “That’s fantastic. What else?”
“Nothing.”
She smiled warmly and shook her head. “No. What else, Oliver?”
She never let me get away with simply one good thing. It was kind of annoying, honestly. “I left the house and didn’t have a complete panic attack when I went to the store, thinking people would spot me.”
“Even bigger than the first thing. What else?”
“Kelly has been eating regularly. Something she hadn’t been able to do since Alex passed away.”
“Good. This is so good, Oliver. What else? Just one more victory.”
“Emery.”
Abigail’s eyes flashed with instant comfort as she paused her pen. “Anything specific about her?”
“No . . . just her as a whole.”
“Beautiful,” she breathed out as she wrote down Emery’s name. She sat back in her chair and reread the good things that had happened to me. My miniature victories. “See? No matter what, there’s some good. Even in the worst times, we have some victories.”
“Can we talk about the failures of the week now?”
“No failures. Just opportunities to learn about yourself and your triggers more. But yes, do tell me.”
I told her about the interview. About how Cam had made it her mission to ruin me out of spite due to me ending our already failing relationship. How I was making everything harder for everyone on my team. How I felt like every time I tried to step forward, I’d stumble back.
“Alex would’ve handled it better than me,” I told her as I reached into my wallet and pulled out his heart necklace. “He would’ve never gotten himself into that situation to begin with.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps, he would’ve handled it worse. Who’s to say? Regardless, it’s not your job to compare yourself to your brother. You shouldn’t be comparing yourself to anyone, because at the end of the day, even though we are all human beings, none of our situations are close enough for us to even compare. Not even you and your brother’s lives were the same, because you were both living uniquely different realities based on perspective. It’s like comparing Picasso to Van Gogh. They might both be artists, but their work is solely theirs. The good, the bad, and the painful. And one doesn’t cancel out how great the other is. There’s space in the world for everyone to be extraordinary.”
“But with Alex—”
“How many times a day do you do that?” she asked, interrupting me. That was the first time Abigail had ever cut me off.
“Do what?”
“Compare yourself to him?”
Too many times to count.
She shifted around in her seat and crossed her legs. “Do you think your brother was better than you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
“Where do I even start?” I snickered sarcastically. “There’s a million reasons.”
“Just give me a few.”
“He was good with people. He always knew what to say and how to handle a situation. He never twisted his words or thoughts and fumbled them during interviews.”
“Do you think you were a burden for him?”
