Page 35 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)
“I forced myself to skip past the scalding anger that comes with losing someone. The part where you wish the whole world would swallow you up with it so you don’t have to keep going.
This time, because I knew I’d get there eventually, I made myself live better for him.
More meaningfully. Because at some point, you’ll see the awful, gut-wrenching, life-altering, mindfuck of a gift that it can be.
You see what can happen when you stop taking each day for granted like you did before losing them.
Knowing they never got a February 28th, or a June 2nd of that year, but you did. ”
“What’s so special about June 2nd?”
“Everything.”
She furrows her brows.
“The simple fact that you get to wake up each day with air in your lungs when someone else that should have didn’t makes that day extraordinary,” I tell her.
“You’re not living and breathing just for yourself anymore.
You’re doing it every day for them too. Twice as hard.
For the people you loved that don’t get to. ”
She wipes a lone tear from her temple as it slides off toward the bed.
I’ve never talked like this to anyone.
“Silas Davenport,” she says quietly. The saddest smile creeps across her face. “I never pegged you as such a deep feeling, little softy.”
“Even assholes have feelings,” I say, tapping gently under her chin.
She finally laughs at that, sniffing back future tears.
“I think that’s what Grant has been alluding to in all his letters,” she admits. “Like he somehow knew that I’d need you. But not just that, it’s almost like I need . . .” She pauses, trying to find the right word.
“Permission?” I finish for her.
“Exactly. Permission to enjoy my life again. Which is why these letters have been so cathartic, I think.”
“Permission from who though? If Grant’s already giving it in these letters?”
“Maybe from other people. People who knew him. It’s like I can be myself around total strangers or anyone who has no idea what happened because they just see me as another normal person functioning out there in the world.
People who don’t know me don’t see me as a victim of my circumstance.
But everyone else who knows what I’ve gone through looks at me like I should be eternally broken.
Like they’re so damn happy to see me crack a smile because they believe deep down that I shouldn’t be smiling at all.
Like it’s against the moral code of grief or something.
It feels suffocating being around that all the time. ”
I know exactly how she feels.
“How do I get past that without having to move away from everyone I’ve ever known, just to get away from that awful look in people’s eyes when I try to be me again?”
“It’ll get easier with time,” I tell her. “And in the meantime, you go on living exactly the way you want.”
She watches me for any sign of disgust or judgment about what she’s just admitted, but I know she won’t find any. Not with me.
“Jules, if you need a formal invitation to rejoin the world again without a hint of judgment, then please, by all means. You have it.”
She sits up on the bed.
I sit up too so our knees are touching while we face each other.
The beginning of a smile curls the edges of her lips, but she straightens her mouth into a thin line when I start to speak, saying the exact words I wish someone had said to me after I experienced my first loss so long ago. As ridiculous as it is.
“Juliet Hart,” I begin and she sits up straighter.
“Would you please, by all fucking means, not just honor his memory, but honor the amazing woman that you are by laughing until you snort, smiling until your face hurts, and making those godawful jokes that you love without reserve, or fear of judgment from people who think you should spend the rest of your life crying over something you had absolutely no control over?”
The smile on her face finally breaks through the mask of uncertainty she’s been hiding behind, like the sun itself starts pouring out of her. Soon, she’s beaming. Nodding.
“As stupid as it sounds, I think I’ve needed that,” she admits.
“God knows I will always miss him, but sometimes missing him feels like all four walls are closing in. Part of me hated that you were joining this trip because I was so ready to turn over a new leaf and feel like myself again, without judgment from anyone that knew him. Having you come along meant that I felt like I had to sit and continue suffering in silence, to continue actively mourning him every moment of every day, just because I knew that’s what you’d be expecting me to do. ”
“You don’t need to explain it,” I tell her, and she nods.
“This whole trip can be a safe place for you to come back to yourself. You don’t need my permission in order to do that, but I’m here for it anyway.
I pushed everyone away after my dad passed in order to get that space to heal and grow past it, which was the wrong way to do things. I know that now.”
“But I don’t have to push you away in order to be me again,” she says.
She leans toward me, wrapping both arms around my neck, hugging me closer to her while digging her face into the crook of my shoulder. Then she exhales the weight of everything she’s just revealed.
I close my eyes and we sit like that for a minute before she slowly lets me go, happy that we’ve finally managed to break down whatever walls we’d both built around ourselves and each other.
She brings the back of my hand up to her lips and plants a kiss there before pressing my palm into her cheek.
“I’ve missed this,” she says, smiling. “This version of you. Promise me you’re not going to morph back into that other, out-of-control Silas the second we get back home.”
“Other out-of-control Silas is gone,” I tell her. “This might come as a surprise to you but I kind of hated that version of myself, too.”
She laughs and starts to pull my hand away, but I hold it there.
“And Jules?” I pause, waiting to have her undivided attention. When I do, I lean in another inch so I know that she’s listening. “I’ve missed you too. Welcome back.”