Page 9 of Paw Prints in the Sand (The Northern Shifters #2)

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Dear Mum

I’ve been home for a week, and life is very much the same. With the exception that, for the time being, I have a little bit more patience with Connor and Niamh.

I think I’d convinced myself that because you came back from your road trip feeling ready to take on your future, that I might feel the same. But I’m as scared as ever.

Da says I’m like the ducks at the pond, always seeming calm on the surface but kicking like mad under the water. I think he might be right.

Even though you couldn’t be there in person, it meant the world to take that trip with you. To see the places you’d been, to experience what you had. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I took a bit of a detour after I met a boy. But I think you’d approve. “Cuts and Scrapes heal Sammy, but you can’t take back the moments you miss,” as you always used to say. In one of your diary entries, you said that it was Da who always had a funny little phrase for everything. I wonder if you got that from him?

I miss you as much as I always have, Mum. Maybe even more. Like I’m preemptively missing you in all the future moments you won’t be here for.

But there were times while I was away that I swear I could feel you right there. (Hopefully not in Ethan’s bedroom, I like to think that you’d still respect my privacy in the afterlife Mum.)

I better wrap this up, Da is calling me down for tea. He misses you, too—more than he’s able to hide despite his best efforts.

Thank you for joining me on my road trip, Mum. I did as you said, I did things that scared me and lived a little.

I hope this isn’t the end. I hope that through the many steps I take in life, that if I look closely enough, I’ll still be able to see the ghost of your paw prints in the sand.

Forever next to mine.

Love

Your boy, Sammy x