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I turn on the sink and reach for my toothbrush as I hear a door downstairs shut. I smile a little as I finish brushing my teeth, then shut off the light and walk back into my room, quietly closing the door. I lay down in bed, curling up on my side and pulling the blankets up to my chin. I yawn heavily and reach for my phone on the nightstand beside me.
Lucy:It’s a lot easier to fall asleep with your arms around me.
I stare at my phone, waiting for the little bubble with three dots to appear. They do, almost immediately, only to disappear again. A few seconds later, they’re back.
Wyatt:Go to bed, Lucy.
Lucy:I tried. It’s not working.
Wyatt:Try harder.
Lucy:Will you please just come up here and hold me? Just until I fall asleep.
Wyatt:We both know I’m so tired right now, it wouldn’t be just until you fell asleep. I’d be there all night.
Lucy:Would that be such a bad thing?
Wyatt:Not bad, but dangerous.
Lucy:*sigh* you’re so dramatic.
Wyatt:Goodnight, you dork. I’ll see you in the morning.
Lucy:Goodnight. I hope you can’t fall asleep and are forced to come up here and snuggle with me.
I hear his laughter from upstairs and put my phone face down on the nightstand beside me, smiling.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Lucy
Iwakeupearlythe next morning and walk out onto the beach. I watch the stars twinkle out as the sun paints the sky in reds and oranges. And I smile.
Grief is a funny thing, and, as cliché as it sounds, it really does come in waves. Some you’re able to stand and watch as they come and go. There are waves that catch you by surprise, that hit you out of nowhere and knock you down from their sheer force. Those are the ones that take a minute to recover from. Then there are the ones that you see coming, you prepare yourself a little and can ride them to shore. And there are times when you crave the safety of shore, the waves continuously knocking you down before you’ve had a chance to recover from the last. These leave you battered and bruised and broken. Each wave, each stage, is different from the last. But each one has a purpose, and in the end, each one gets you closer to the shore. With each wave I endure, I am learning that loss will always be a part of me. But it will not define me.
Wyatt sits next to me quietly, kissing the side of my head. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, tugging me into his side. As I watch the sun creep up, lighting everything in its path, I can’t help the tears that fall. I think about the man whose lips brush my forehead and tuck my hair behind my ear. I have spent so much of the past year focusing on the things I lost that I have forgotten about the things I’ve found.
I will always miss my father. I don’t think there will ever be a day I don’t. And if I could turn back the clock, I would bring him back every time. But I can’t, and I also can’t spend the rest of my life dwelling on that. At some point, I have to get up and start to live again. Loss can be an all-consuming thing, but I refuse to let my father’s memory be a tragic one. He wouldn’t want that. He lived a wonderful life. He had a family that loved him more than life itself. He laughed so much more than he cried and had more smile lines than frown ones. His life might have been cut short, but it was a life of joy and laughter.
As ridiculous as it sounds, you never know when you’ll see your last sunrise. We aren’t promised forever, we aren’t promised any amount of time. Every hour, every minute is a gift we should cherish. We’re given such a short amount of time on this planet, in the grand scheme of things, and I think we spend far too much of that time wasting it. We think of happiness as a destination, but I think we’re missing the point. It’s not in the destination, it’s in the journey.
I sigh and take a deep breath, breathing in the salty ocean air.
“Hey, do you mind if I do something?” I ask Wyatt, leaning back from him a little.
“Of course, do you want me to come with you?”
I stand and shake my head sheepishly. “I think this is something I need to do on my own, if that’s okay. Something between me and my dad.”
Wyatt nods and stands, dusting off the seat of his pants. He slides his hand underneath my hair and presses his lips against my forehead.
“Take all the time you need. I’ll be up at the house when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Wyatt walks back toward the house, and I turn toward the sunrise, wrapping my arms around myself. I stand in silence for a few minutes, before taking a deep breath and closing my eyes.
“A piece of me will always be missing. The piece that you gave me the day I was born. A piece of me will always be just a little bit duller than the rest, not quite as shiny. You said that I was your sunshine, but Dad, you didn’t realize that you were mine. And with you gone, it was hard for me to find that light again. To find a reason to want it back. It seemed fitting that, without you, my life would be just sort of gray. Void of any color. But I found the one who brought it back. Or, rather, I guess I found the one who brought the light out of me.”
