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Page 5
Dani doesn’t talk, but her silence encourages me to finish.
“I wasn’t a wild child. Not by a long shot. I was the silent one that flew under the radar and hid in the shadows. Jack was one of my only friends and by far the closest. Had we not grown up next door to each other, I’m sure we wouldn’t have even been friends. I was that much of a wallflower. But Jack, despite where we lived and how we grew up, was destined for greatness. The most popular boy in school, captain of the football team, class president, you name it and that was Jack. ” I smile and look over at Dani, meeting her sympathetic eyes. “My parents were shit, Dani. Not like yours. Nothing like yours. Home wasn’t a safe place for me. I’ll spare you the details of that because really, you don’t want to know. When I got pregnant with Molly, Jack left all those huge dreams he had and joined the Marines, married me, and gave me the promise of a safe and happy love. He knew that he had nothing to offer me with just a pocket full of dreams and by enlisting, we might not have a future he had imagined for his life, but he did what he felt he had to do to protect me. Having Molly turned a love we had as friends and it grew into one that we had as husband and wife. ”
“I don’t know what to say, Megan. I know a bunch of ‘I’m so sorry’s’ aren’t going to make it better, but I’m glad that you were able to get out—make a better life out of a bad start. Did he . . . um, did he regret it? Not following his football dreams?” I can tell she doesn’t mean this in a nosy way, but just to better understand what Jack and I had.
“Never. Jack wasn’t built in a way to ever regret the path his life took. He believed that everything happens for a reason. Although, I’m not sure he would feel the same way now seeing as he died jumping on that new path he dug for his life. ”
“You miss him,” she states without any doubts in her tone.
She would understand, as a wife of an ex-marine she knows what it feels like to live without someone, even though her husband came home, you still feel that emptiness when they’re gone. The physical void, as well as the cold hard fear that they may never make it back.
And Jack . . . he never made it back.
“Every day. ”
And I do. Not just because the physical loneliness, but losing him—someone that I had had by my side every day since I was in preschool—was one hell of a hit to take mentally too.
She nods, reaches her hand over the table separating the love seat from the couch and takes my hand. She doesn’t speak, just gives me a gentle squeeze and looks back at the television. I’m sure neither one of us are even watching the reality show rerun that’s playing on the screen. I’m lost in my thoughts and I’m sure she is too.
It’s hard to believe just how much my life has changed in the course of six years. I went from being a single teenager without much care to what happened in my future, to married with a newborn in what felt like seconds. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change having Molly in my life for a second, but losing Jack has changed me. At first I struggled with the will to live, sinking into a depression so deep that I’m shocked I made it out. Molly helped with that. She was my will to live. But even now, after all of these years, I still have days that I sink right back into that dark place. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve never had to be alone, aside from him. Now it’s like I’ve had to learn how to not only live without him, but to live essentially alone.
For the last three years I’ve been in some sort of limbo. I’ve come so far from where I was when he first died. Instead of thinking I would never have good days, now I know the bad days come few and far between. His birthday, our wedding anniversary and the date he died are still, and probably always will be, dark days. Moving forward, one foot in front of the other, in the process of moving on. Even though the thought of ‘moving on’ is still, to this day, laughable. To move on, I would need something to move toward, and it’s really hard to focus on the beauty in life when you’re stuck living a haunted one with the memory of someone who has been dead for years. Back in the shadows. All those moments that once brought a smile to my face and gave my heart a reason to beat a little quicker, gone. I was reminded, while Dani and Cohen completed that fairy tale for the record books that is their love, how beautiful life can be and as I watched them dance on their wedding night, I found myself wanting that. Craving for a love that deep that I physically ached for it.
And for one night I let myself forget the weights that have held me down.
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For one night I lived in the now. I allowed myself to open up and feel all of those things that I have always been convinced I would never have.
For one night I felt the promise of more and it scared the crap out of me with the power of those emotions.
Those are the moments that all feel like lead in my gut now. The ones that make it hard for me to push myself past drowning when I dwell on them too long.
Before Jack died we had created a beautiful life. It was a life that held so much promise.
I was, after we were married and left our old lives behind, a phoenix being reborn from the ashes we had left from all the burning pain of our old lives.
All that fire and all that pain, washing away memories we never wanted to have again.
We had been married for two years before he died. It took us a while in that time, to find our way. To feel that promise of a beautiful life. And in that two years I held something beautiful in the palms of my hands. I felt alive.
Reborn.
I didn’t live in the shadows around me, meekly praying that no one would notice me.
We were alive and gloriously happy.
I believed with my whole heart that every hardship I ever felt served a purpose because it brought me a happiness that was out of this world perfect.
Until it was gone.
And in its place I was left with a pain that burned so bright I just knew there would be no ashes left for me to be reborn again.
Once again I was stuck in those shadows—that cold place where I was just existing and not living—Molly being the only bright spot in my darkness. It’s a painful place to be and it wasn’t until Dani and her gang of friends came along that I was able to start clawing myself out of that depression I had sunk into.
So, yeah—it was hard after all that to even think for a second that I would ever feel that promise again. We had come so far and lost so much.
But one night with Liam, I felt it instantly.
That is something I’ve been struggling with since.
I shiver with the thought and look at Dani, focusing my mind back on our conversation.
“I don’t want to be that person I was when we first met, Dani. ”
She looks back up, her hand jolting against mine, and shock etched in her face. We haven’t talked about how I used to be. How bad I was when we first met.
“When I first saw you, at Cohen’s going away party, even when I knew what happened to you, all I could see was the sadness. It brought it all back, that night I mean? Made you remember Jack?”
I nod, “It was hard sometimes. I wasn’t in a good place back then. ”
She doesn’t speak at first, her thoughts clearly something she is struggling to piece together.
“You’re still struggling, I know, Megan. I see it. It hurts me as your friend to not know how to make it better for you. ”
I smile softly, “I have my bad days, but they’re coming far less frequently than they used to. Jack was a huge part of my life and even if we didn’t have the same kind of love that most couples do, I loved him more than life. Maybe because he was all I had in mine besides Molly. There isn’t a single memory from growing up that doesn’t have him in it. I think that’s what makes it so hard, when I think about life without him in it now, it’s painful to know that the new memories will never have him in them. ”
“Is that why you won’t date? Because of that love you both shared?”
r /> I laugh, this time with humor. “No. Jack isn’t why I won’t date. ”
She clears her throat, adjusting herself so that she’s more comfortable, and looks down at Owen. “I couldn’t imagine my life without Cohen in it. It hurts to just think about it. Even having Owen as a reminder of him would be painful, but a pain I would be happy to have if it meant I held just a small part of him. ”
Her words rip through me, each one searing me deeply and I fight the gasp that almost escapes. She has no idea how painful her words just were. And of course she wouldn’t because even if she is the closest person in my life right now, that doesn’t mean I’ve let her all the way in. God if she only knew.
“But,” she continues and I focus back on her, “I know Cohen would never want me to be alone. He would want me to find love again, even if just the thought makes me sick, I know deep down he would be right. You, Megan—you have so much love to give. ”
“And I give it . . . to Molly. ” My tone comes out harsher than I meant it to and I can tell that Dani felt the sting of my snapped words.
“You deserve happiness, babe. ” She smiles, but it doesn’t even come close to hitting her eyes. My pulse picks up with the look she gives me next and I know where she’s going. Where she’s been dying to go since her wedding reception. “I thought for a second you could have found that with Lee. ”
