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My feelings are the same, though. His…maybe not. Despite sitting so close to me on the pier and basically telling me he hasn’t stopped thinking about me, he shot me down when I wanted to join him in his studio. And boy, does it sting my heart.
I grab a bottle of water and take it into the living room. Seeing my favorite throw blanket draped over the back of the couch is like running into an old friend. Curling up at the end of the couch, I pull the blanket over me. The scent of burning wood from the fireplace mixed with Lily’s perfume and Alex’s cologne clings to the woven fabric. Closing my eyes, I bring the blanket to my face and breathe in its comforting nostalgia. I wish I’d been able to take this blanket with me when I left years ago. I think it would’ve helped me through many sleepless nights.
Shadow jumps up on the couch and lays his head on my lap. I almost cried when he came trotting up to me earlier today. The last time I saw him, he was just a tiny, bouncy puppy, and now he’s a big, poofy bear of a dog with a sweet, teddy bear expression and a personality to match. It saddens me that I didn’t get to watch him grow up. As I run my fingers through his plush fur, my gaze wanders over the wall of photographs. I was fascinated with them when I was a little girl. Every time I entered the house, I stared at the black-and-white wedding photos, captivated by Brianna’s veil blowing in the breeze and Alex’s smile as he leaned in for a kiss.
I can hear the laughter, feel his lips on mine…
Goose bumps scatter over my arms.
Ripping my eyes from the photos, I shake my head and mentally correct myself. I heard nothing. Felt nothing. It’s simply a photo—a beautiful snapshot in time—that I have absolutely no connection to.
The sound of the back door opening and closing, then the familiar thud of his boots, invades the silence.
“I thought you were going to bed,” he says quietly from the doorway.
I move the blanket away from my face to smile at him. “You said I should get some sleep. I never said I was going to.”
Laughing softly, he sits on the far end of the couch. Yesterday, three thousand miles separated us. Today, it’s a cushion and a furry dog.
“I thought you were working.”
He shrugs and kicks off his boots. “I was going to, but I changed my mind.”
“I can go upstairs if you want your living room to yourself…”
“And disturb the king here now that he’s all comfy sleeping on you?” he teases, petting Shadow’s back.
“You’ve got a point. I might be trapped on your couch all night under this mound of floof.”
“That’s a very real possibility. But even if you weren’t trapped under my dog, I still don’t want you to go upstairs. I’d rather spend some more time with you.”
My stomach flutters. “Oh.”
He turns toward me, bending one leg under him and resting his arm on the back of the couch, and I drink in this new version of him. The crisp T-shirt stretched over shoulders much broader than they were four years ago. The sinewy muscle of his arms. The way he brushes his fingertip across the left side of his forehead above his new eye—a motion that seems to have replaced straightening his eye patch.
“Tell me where you’ve been, Penny,” he says, and I’m immediately caught in the net of his soft, gravelly voice. “And I don’t mean in Cali or at that treatment place. Tell me where your mind has traveled. Tell me about your writing and paintings. Tell me what kept you away for so long. I want to hear what your dreams are now.”
A nervous laugh bounces from my throat. “That’s a lot.”
One dark brow arches up. “I’ve got time.”
My mind whirs like a pinwheel and lands on a random starting point. “It’s kind of funny,” I say. “While I was at Tranquility, I thought I’d do lots of writing and painting. The doctors really want us to use creative outlets to express ourselves; get the emotions out, and all that. But I couldn’t write or paint at all. I’d just sit there and stare at a blank page or canvas for hours. It’s like I was broken.”
He nods. “Been there. That’s the shittiest feeling.”
“It really is. Writing and drawing have always been the things that made me feel better. Not being able to find that comfort zone, especially when I needed it the most, was scary as hell.” I pause and run my fingers through Shadow's fur. “But when I finally got my head together, it’s like a dam broke and all the emotions I went through just poured out into my art and my words. I finally felt alive again.”
