I was tired of it as well. But I couldn’t get out of this hole. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t let him go.
I was seeing a therapist, and she said it would take time, but nothing felt different. Another day I hid my pain and agony. I pretended I was okay. An endless Groundhog’s Day of faking I was alive.
One of our dental patients, an elderly woman, told me not long after his death, “You’re young and beautiful. Don’t worry, you’ll meet someone new.”
A woman I worked with hinted her brother was newly single. She wanted to fix me up.
I curled up, staring at his clothes still in the closet, his razor still on the sink, the pillow that no longer smelled like him.
Could I even be fixed? Or was this how it would always feel?
Just empty darkness in front of me.
Chapter 4
Emery
3 years later
“I said you should move out of this house, not out of the state!” Harper trailed after me, following me into the kitchen, where I had boxes, tape, and bubble wrap covering every inch of the counters and floor. “Em…” She folded her arms. “Don’t you think this is a bit extreme?”
“Funny, you accused me of being stagnant, keeping myself sheltered in my own misery. Now I’m over the top?”
“I meant get your own apartment across town, not move out of state! This house is keeping you stagnant.” She motioned around the house. “Look around you, Em… you haven’t changed one thing. You live in a tomb.”
The dagger went straight to its target, and I nearly hissed as I spun around.
“Don’t tell me you don’t. I know his clothes are still hanging in the closet.”
“So?”
“It’s been three years.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I supposed to stop loving him now? Be over it?”
“No.” Harper sighed. “Of course you won’t stop loving him, but this is not healthy. You can’t move forward if you’re set on living in the past.”
I fiddled with a packing box, my teeth gritting together. She sounded exactly like my therapist.
“Is this about Matt from your office? I’m sorry I canceled on him. I didn’t feel good.” I bristled, focusing on bubble wrapping a plate.
“This isn’t about Matt, though he is cute, nice, and really likes you.” Harper tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. She was right. He was cute and nice, but I felt nothing for him. “This is about every date any of us try to set you up on. You find a reason not to go or not to like them.”
“I keep telling you I’m not ready.”
“Okay, but someday you need to be.” Harper exhaled, trying to control the blunt comments I could see growing daily on her lips over the past year. “You can’t live like a dried-up old widow forever.” She held up her hand, stopping my rebuttal. “I know you loved him, Emery, but he is gone. And we both know Ben would not want you wasting your life, ticking down the days until you die.”
My head bowed, the truth sinking in and burning up the back of my throat.
She wasn’t the only one who thought I should be moving on by now. All my colleagues at work had tried to set me up with their single guy friends. This forty-something widowed man kept coming in to get his teeth cleaned. They would all elbow me, their eyebrows wiggling, as though I should leap at the chance to go out with him just because we both lost our spouses. As if it was kismet or something. We clearly were meant to be because we were both widowed and single now.
I felt nothing for him either. I was a wasteland.
The few times I felt sexual lately, I would close my eyes and try to pretend my vibrator was Ben. But I could no longer picture his face clearly, just the featureless man I had in many of my fantasies even before Ben passed. The fact I could no longer see my husband above me, feel him around me, inside me, made me feel sick and horrible. I’d end up in tears, curled into a fetal position, feeling worse than I had before.
I had been on two dates with good-looking, nice enough men, and I wished to be anywhere else the whole time. It scared me that no one stirred anything in me, and I had dried up at the age of thirty, as if my life was already over.
This realization was what made me decide to leave everything. I couldn’t do it halfway. I needed a fresh start. A place no one knew my story, no one knew me as Ben’s wife—or Ben’s widow. As much as my friends wanted me to find someone new, I knew all the people associated with Ben would secretly judge me if I did. Ben’s ghost would always be with me here.
“It’s why I decided to move.” I twisted around, leaning against the counter.
“But why so far?”
“Because it’s where I found a job.” That was true. No one in this area was hiring dental assistants. The job offer was only four hours away, close, but far enough away to feel as though no one would know me. “Plus, it’s not just this house. It’s this town. Everywhere I go is a reminder of Ben. Where we got married, where he proposed, where we loved to go to dinner. Where he died. I constantly run into his friends, his parents, all the people from the golf club, who stop me every time to talk about him. You tell me I need to move on, but I can’t here.”
I was terrified to let him go, to leave this house, but deep down, I knew I would waste away here if I didn’t. I would never move on.
Harper rubbed at her face, her own problems weighing on her shoulders. “I don’t want you to go. I need you right now, Em.”
“I know.” I blinked the tears away. “But I’ll only be a few hours away.”
“What about Addison?”
I exhaled.
In the last three years, Addison had become out of control.
In this last year, Harper and Joe filed for divorce. It was ugly. As much as Harper was trying to protect Addison from Joe’s petty vengeance, she couldn’t keep her from all of it. Her father was a real S.O.B.
Addison had completely lashed out. She stayed with me more than not, claiming she hated her parents, especially Harper right now, blaming the divorce on her. Addison was an angry teenager who had gone through a lot and was not handling it well. She hurt her mother because her father was never around to punish.
“She got kicked out of school. Permanently.” Harper fought back tears, her cheek twitching. She didn’t cry much, except when it came to her daughter. Harper was trying so hard, but the more she tried to help Addison, the more her daughter pushed back. “I don’t know what to do with her. I’m at my wit’s end. She snuck out again the other night. She’s going down this destructive path, and I can’t seem to reach her.”
I wrapped my arms around my waist, an idea bubbling up. “What if Addison moved with me?”
“What?” Harper stiffened.
“She can’t go to school here anyway. This might be exactly what she needs too. A fresh start for both of us. A new school, new friends.” I emphasized, knowing how much Harper hated the group Addison had started to hang around with. “You said it yourself the other day. You wish you could keep her from all this divorce crap.”
“Yes. But she can’t go with you.” Harper wagged her head.
“Why not?” I countered. “Don’t you want your own fresh start? Not dealing with an uncontrollable teenager? You know I’m strict. She’d have to follow my rules.”