Twelve

HER NEWFOUND PURPOSE sustained her during the drive to Scott’s house, but as she turned up his street, it faltered. The fractured memories of her panic attack the night before swirled through her mind, and her stomach roiled in response. How would she ever explain it to Scott?

A knot of nausea threatened to undo Abby’s determination as she made her way up the porch steps. She knocked, then clenched her fingers, waiting for Scott to answer.

The door swung open, and it took all her willpower to meet his eyes. To still herself. To breathe.

“I’m... sorry.” Her voice cracked.

His eyes didn’t waver, the intensity of his glacial blue gaze searing.

She dragged in another breath. “I have some anxiety. I had a therapist for a while. She called it PTSD. When I get...” She stopped before the next word slipped out.

Not upset . He hadn’t upset her with his gifts, with his declaration.

He’d scared her. “Scared. When I get scared, it’s hard to control.

And then, after... I thought you’d think I’m crazy.

Or broken.” She couldn’t explain it any better, and Scott still stood in the doorway, eyes hard and unwavering.

Gen, at her feet, leaned against her leg.

Whatever he said, Abby drew comfort from the dog’s steady presence.

He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, then stepped to one side. “Want to come in and talk about it?”

Abby exhaled and Gen popped to her feet, mouth dropping open in a doggy smile. “Yes, I do.”

She stepped inside, releasing Gen to go find Dylan.

“I made coffee.” Scott waved toward the kitchen, then froze, expressions flitting across his face too fast for her to follow.

“I could definitely use some coffee,” Abby said, following him as he turned.

He pulled two mugs from the sink—their mugs—washing them quickly, then filling both, spooning sugar and pouring creamer into hers before handing it over.

When had he learned how she preferred her coffee?

She leaned back against the counter, blowing gently across the surface to cool it, then sipping.

And how had he gotten it perfect without even trying?

Clutching the mug, she welcomed the heat as it scalded her fingers, breathed in the scent as it rose on curls of steam, awakening her senses and securing her to this moment.

“I thought I’d gone insane the first time I found myself curled in a ball on the kitchen floor.” The sensory memory of her raw throat and aching chest washed over her. “I told myself the grief, the pain of losing...Will needed an outlet, and it would get better with time.”

She took another sip of her coffee, eyes darting up to meet Scott’s, then back down again.

One hip leaned against the counter, he waited patiently while she picked her way through her thoughts. Through the story she needed to tell, and the paralyzing fear that knowing it, he’d turn away. He had a son, after all, while she had a matched set of emotional baggage.

“It didn’t. A few weeks later it happened again, then again the next week. Pretty soon, it was every couple of days, then daily. I hadn’t gone out much, not since Will’s death, but I stopped completely, scared it would happen in public.”

She’d seen the homeless people on the corners in the city, eyes wild, screaming at ghosts, or huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth and keening. Once, she’d judged them. Now, she was them.

“Cara kept coming by, checking on me, making sure I ate, even if only a few bites. I...” She trailed off, then took a fortifying breath, her words a raw whisper through a throat half-closed in both denial and the relief of admitting a truth she’d never shared with anyone else.

“I wanted to die after losing Will. Eventually, even Cara couldn’t reach me. ”

She’d drifted, unmoored and aimless. No hope, no future, nothing but one long day bleeding into the next, empty and destitute.

“What about your family?”

Scott’s voice captured her, anchored her, drew her back from the vacant threshold that threatened to sweep her away again, though it had been three years.

“They... tried.” She couldn’t give a better response. “They didn’t understand why I couldn’t move on. ‘Life knocks you down sometimes, but you pick yourself back up’,” she mimicked, her voice more bitter than she’d intended.

Perhaps Will wasn’t the only one she harbored anger toward.

They came from a different world, a different generation, or they simply wouldn’t meet her where she’d found herself, drowning in grief, but either way, after suggesting she be committed to a psychiatric hospital if she couldn’t pull herself together, they’d left her to Cara’s increasingly futile efforts.

“I don’t remember much from that time. My therapist said it’s pretty common,” she shrugged, but the gaps in her memory bothered Abby.

What had happened in those weeks and months after Will’s death? Who had come to his funeral? What had the eulogist said about his life? She couldn’t recall, even when she tried.

“Then, Gen.”

Like sunrise after the longest night imaginable, a warm, fuzzy weight in her arms, a rough tongue on her cheek, puppy breath in her nose.

“I was in bed. Or maybe on the couch? Cara plopped this soot sprite of a pup into my arms and told me I had a dog, now, so I’d better take good care of her.” Abby smiled at the first happy memory she had after Will’s death, and it gave her the courage to raise her eyes to Scott’s.

He watched her, mug abandoned at his hip, his intense gaze boring into her, peering into her very soul.

“She grabbed my hair in her little mouth and pulled,” Abby laughed, wrapping a lock around her index finger and tugging.

She’d always wanted a dog, but Will had been so busy with school, and her shifts were never regular. It wouldn’t be fair, he’d said.

She’d clutched the warm, wriggling puppy to her chest. Well, she had time, now.

All the time in the world. An empty lifetime unspooled ahead of her, bringing with it an unending sense of existential exhaustion.

A dark wave rose up, threatening to pull her under again, but before it could, those teeth had latched onto her hair again, pulling and growling.

“For weeks, every time I drifted away, she’d grab my hair. It didn’t matter how many times I pried her little jaws apart and told her to cut it out, how many obedience classes we took, how many dog training books I read—nothing would stop her. Eventually, I gave in.”

“But she doesn’t do it to Dylan,” Scott said. “Do I need to be worried?”

Abby shook her head. “She’s never done it to anyone else. It’s her one bad habit, and honestly, I don’t mind. Not anymore. Gradually, the attacks tapered off for the most part. I still have one sometimes, but not often. Usually only when I’m...”

“Scared,” Scott supplied.

Abby dropped her eyes from his gaze. “Yeah. Scared. Or... upset.”

She hadn’t wanted to use that word, but she owed him the truth, and she’d all but wrenched her heart out through her chest for him already; she might as well finish the job.

“Last night you were... upset.”

Abby swallowed hard. “Not at you. At... me. I don’t know how to do... this .”

Scott crossed the kitchen floor, crowding into her space, and though she eased back, the counter pressed into her spine, preventing her retreat. Stopping, he towered over her, but despite his close proximity, he didn’t touch her.

“Don’t know how, or can’t?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “Because I’m willing to wait, if it’s what you need, but I can’t fight a ghost. That’s not fair to either of us.”

She nodded. “Or to Dylan.”

A flash of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but not enough to bring out his dimple. “You’ve thought about this.”

“Of course. And...” She swallowed again, then stepped closer, closing the last bit of space between them, laying her forehead against his chest and looping her arms around his back. “I don’t know how to do this, but I think I want to try.”

His arms came around her shoulders, pulling her in. “Good. Me, too.”