Page 102 of Heartbreak Bay

What haunts me now isn’t Penny’s horrific, pathetic death. Or the innocent eleven-year-old whose death—accidental or deliberate—started this deadly avalanche.

It’s the shots I fired in a blind panic, in pain. The shots that I only barely missed. In a way I think that, too, was Jonathan’s plan, to make me blindly kill my friend, and it’s only luck that saved me.

But I’m alive. Kez is alive. Her baby is a new and beautiful future for her and Javier. And in the end ... Jonathan chose how to lose his own game.

I have to try to be content with that.

Coming home on crutches feels strange. Like I’ve left something important behind. I tell Sam I love him, and I mean it; there’s nothing but joy in my heart when I see him, and joy when I greet my children again. I should feel better.

Iwillfeel better. Therapy isn’t fast. But it does work. Step by step, I’m coming back. Step by limping step, I will walk out of this darkness and back into the light, where love is waiting for me.

Because Jonathan was absolutely wrong. Love isn’t greed. Greed always wants more. Love is rich enough in itself, by itself. It doesn’t need more.

I have enough, with Sam and my children. Enough of everything.

Jonathan would never understand that at all.