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“She’s a great teacher.”
“Of course she is. She’s a great everything. I could not have dreamed of a better child. She’s done everything right for twenty-one years. And then came you.”
“I feel shitty about it.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m thankful for you.”
I arched my eyebrow, confused by his words. He gave a slight grin and threw another rock. Another crack.
“Just because a person always does the right thing, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for them. The last time I saw my daughter break down was when we lost Rosa. That was until she showed up at my house completely heartbroken after you ended things with her.”
That made me feel like utter shit.
“Thank you for that,” Eric said. “For making her break.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My daughter has been a perfectionist her whole life. Even more so after Rosa passed, and that scared me a bit. I believe we don’t need to live a perfect life to be happy. We only have to live a real one. We aren’t searching for perfection…we are searching for truth. You, Milo, have made Starlet finally reveal her reality. And even though it hurts right now, I know she’ll be able to grow from this. So I thank you.”
I picked up a rock and tossed it into the water.
Crack.
I picked up another and threw it again.
Crack, crack.
“I love her,” I confessed.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “Kind of hard not to.”
“Can I ask why you came to meet with me, though? Especially since Starlet and I ended things.”
He smiled before clearing his throat. “Because when she fell apart, she told me you would come and sit here to think a lot since your mom passed away, and she was nervous that you’d have to sit alone while you’re going through everything you’re going through. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want you to have to sit alone.”
Well, shit.
What a good person.
“I see where Star gets her heart from,” I told him.
“Nah. She got that from her mother.” He waved me off. “But her good looks? I like to take credit for that.”
I snickered a bit before growing quieter. Even during Starlet’s heartbreak, she was worried about me. I didn’t know love for a person could keep growing, even when you were separated from them. It felt unfair because I knew what was about to happen to me. I would spend the remainder of my life falling in love with Starlet Evans, even if I never saw her again.
I wasn’t yet certain if that was a blessing or a curse.
“I’m sorry about everything you’re going through, Milo.”
I stared down at my hands clasped together. “How did you do it?” I asked. My voice was shaky and timid. “How did you get over losing your wife?”
Eric’s brows knitted together. He rubbed his right hand against the back of his neck and contemplated my question for a moment. “You don’t get over it,” he started. “You get under it.” I raised an eyebrow, confused by the answer, so he continued. “You get under the grief, you feel the pressure, and you begin to drown in the sadness. People say to do things and put yourself back out there into the world, but I think that’s bullshit. You can’t outwork grief. Sometimes healing comes from the allowance of darkness.”
“The allowance of darkness?”
“Yes. Think of grief as a beast. A strong, big animal that you think you’re supposed to defeat. So you fight against it, push and pull to try to regain some normalcy back in your world. Because that’s the messed-up part, right? Everyone else around you will move on a lot faster than you. Everyone else will smile when they think of the person while you still want to cry. Everyone goes back to their mundane everyday lives as if the person who passed was never there, to begin with. They are able to do it so effortlessly, too, because the person who passed wasn’t their person. The person who passed was yours. They were your heartbeats, and it feels like they were robbed from you. You’re angry and pissed that everyone around you gets to move on while you’re still drowning. So you try to act like them and fight grief. You push against it. You kick, you scream, you punch, and you fight until all you have left is depression.”
Yes.
That’s it…
Every word he said rang true. It was as if he crawled into my mind and read my list of greatest fears.
I lowered my head.
I felt Eric’s eyes on me. His stare didn’t feel judgmental, though. It felt familiar, as if he were staring at a person he once used to be. “Are you depressed, Milo?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay,” he said. “Now, sit with it. Stop fighting.”
I glanced up as I fidgeted with my hands. “What do you mean?”
“You asked me how to get over losing a person, and I said you don’t get over it. You get under it. That means instead of fighting the monster, you sit with it. You invite it to join you for tea. You mourn, cry, and scream but don’t fight it. You don’t swing. You drown in it for a while and allow your emotions to take over. You don’t shut off your feelings. You dig deeper into them. You keep going, too, because your loved one wouldn’t want you to stop. The only thing more terrifying than feeling all your feelings is feeling absolutely nothing at all. Trust me. I know.”
