Take Your Time (Fate and Circumstance #2) (27 page)

I smiled to offer her some comfort, knowing she didn’t need to worry about me. With her hand in mine, I squeezed and nodded. “I swear, Bree. You’re right—if I die tomorrow, I don’t want people talking about how pathetic I was.”

“And just remember that this won’t happen overnight. Don’t get down on yourself if you’re still struggling next week. It takes time.”

I became lost in what she said.
Take your time
. That’s what Bentley had told me the night we met—the night he’d gone to the bar to find me. It was the night that had changed everything for me. But I couldn’t focus on that now; I had to deal with the pain over losing my mom first. I only hoped that once I did that, I’d realize my love for Bentley was real. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle knowing it wasn’t.

Bree helped me clean up the mess in the kitchen and then went home. I called Marlo, knowing no one else would’ve been at the salon so late in the evening. I kept up with my lie about having a stomach bug and told her I wouldn’t be in the next day, either. Her tone seemed more compassionate than it had when I called earlier, and she told me to let her know how I felt the next day.

And then I was left alone with my thoughts.

I felt better after my conversation with Bree, but once I was left alone again, the silence became suffocating. I went into my bedroom and stood helpless in the middle of the room. It seemed so large and empty without Bentley there to help fill the space. But I couldn’t allow that to take me down. I had to find some strength, come up with some way to get me through this without him.

Opening one of my dresser drawers, I found one of his T-shirts. Since he’d stayed with me for a couple weeks, I had a lot of his clothes at my house. His toothbrush sat next to mine by the sink in my bathroom, and his bottle of body wash was still in my shower. Looking at it made it seem like he was coming back, that maybe he had only run up to the store for a minute. But that wasn’t the case, and deep down, I knew it. I couldn’t start pretending this hadn’t happened. Living in a fairy tale never solved anything. I never thought I would get my happily ever after, but the possibility had been there with Bentley.

I grabbed his shirt and headed to the bathroom for a shower. Bree made a good point about not worrying about Bentley yet. I needed to spend my time healing first, and then deal with everything else. But I needed one more night to feel close to him, so I used his shower gel, sprayed his cologne in the air, and then dressed in his T-shirt before climbing into bed, using his pillow to curl up with as I imagined it was him next to me.

But sleep evaded me again. I hadn’t realized how dependent on Bentley I’d become until I couldn’t fall asleep without the sound of his heartbeat beneath my ear—the sound of my
mom’s
heartbeat. Realizing that made me think of the times I’d press my ear to his chest and immediately calm down. From day one, that soft, rhythmic beat offered me peace and safety. It was like my heart knew where his had come from. Like his heart knew me. Was it possible that people could live on through their donated organs? I thought back to the night he’d taken me painting, and how his manatee was flawless despite having never picked up a paintbrush before. I wondered how much of my mom was in him.

Finally, while morbidly contemplating whether or not Bentley had some sort of otherworldly connection to my mom, I fell asleep. My dreams that night were so real they felt like memories. But I knew they couldn’t have been because they were about Bentley
and
my mom together. My subconscious had somehow morphed the two of them into one being until I didn’t know where one ended and the other began.

After moping around the house for a few hours the next day, I decided to get out and go to the store. I found a book about the grieving process, and while I was out, I picked up a cheap phone and had it hooked up to my number. I didn’t want to spend a lot on one, considering I hadn’t really lost mine—it was only over at Bentley’s. But I didn’t want to go over there to get it, either. And I guess part of me held on to the hope that he’d eventually come to me. I won’t lie, it really hurt that he’d asked Bree to check up on me instead of doing it himself, but I couldn’t hold it against him. After all, I was the one who’d told him to stay away. It was a selfish thought to expect him to reach out, especially knowing it wouldn’t do any good if he did. At least he cared enough to have
someone
check up on me.

Instead of going home, I drove to a park and sat on a bench beneath a tree. It was hot and humid out, but I didn’t let that get to me. I needed to go through this book and allow myself to learn from it, and in order to do that, I needed to be out in a neutral setting while still alone. No better place than a park.

The introduction in the book immediately calmed me and gave me a sense of comfort as it explained not everyone will experience all stages in the same order, nor does everyone go through all five of them. The important thing to remember is getting to acceptance and returning to a normal way of living. That was my goal. I knew I’d never be the same person as I was before my mom died, but at least I had hope for a new kind of normal, a new life worth living.

Denial
. I read through the explanations and then skimmed through the work-through exercises. I didn’t feel I needed those considering I’d moved past denial a long time ago. I thought back to how I was during that stage of grief, and remembered the times I’d stand in the shower until the water ran cold before even washing myself. I’d just stand there, staring at the tiles on the wall, convinced it hadn’t been
my
mom that died. It was someone else’s mom in that hospital bed, another woman who’d lain there comatose and brain dead. It wasn’t my mom—it was a stranger. It was a bad dream I’d wake up from. It was nothing more than a sadistic prank. But then it’d hit me that it
was
real, it
was
true, it
was
my mom. And then I’d lose it all over again until I had no tears left to cry, becoming deadened inside and convincing myself all over again how it wasn’t true.

Anger
. I didn’t need to read about that, knowing all too well what it meant and the effects it had on the people around you. So as my eyes scanned the words on the pages, I reflected to the time at the beginning of the year when I went through everything the book explained. I thought about how angry I became toward my sisters, resulting in me pushing them even further away. How I’d allowed my own emotions to cast the blame on everyone else. I somehow convinced myself that it was everyone else’s fault I was alone. They moved on without me. They’d forgotten my mom and didn’t care that she was gone. Clearly, that’s not what they did, but in my mind, it was true. And I believed that because anger had blinded me. Even though I didn’t need the book to explain how wrong that was, or why I’d even felt that way, I did find the exercises useful. I read the questions and answered them honestly to myself, accepting my part in being alone.

Bargaining
. This wasn’t something I thought had affected me until I started reading about it. The
what ifs
and
only ifs
were a very real obsession I never got over. I still wondered what would’ve happened had her doctors performed more extensive tests and scans when her migraines became worse. I wondered how different things would’ve been had the insurance company given the okay for more scans instead of saying they wouldn’t cover them unless she suffered an actual head injury. I couldn’t go one day without questioning if she’d still be alive if we’d taken her to the hospital that morning instead of me telling her to go lie down. What if I’d checked on her? Gotten her to the hospital sooner? So many times I’d think about these questions, knowing full well I’d never find the answers. But I couldn’t stop finding ways that might’ve saved her life. The book said the bargaining stage was a lot of making deals with God…if you heal my loved one, I’ll be a better person. But I couldn’t relate to those bargains, because I didn’t have days, weeks, months to prepare for my mom’s death. I had no time at all. So the only bargaining I could do was to obsess over everything that had gone wrong in leading up to her death, and all the ways she might’ve been saved if… The exercises on that one helped a little, but I doubted I’d ever stop wondering how things could’ve turned out had the insurance company not denied diagnosis procedures.

Depression
. I read the passages and explanations, and even went through the exercises, but I knew this stage all too well. It was clearly the one I had never managed to make it through, and I knew it would take a lot of time before it could get any better. I didn’t allow myself to contemplate it too hard, not wanting to break down while sitting at the park. This one would have to be something I worked at every day, and would probably need a lot of support. The book suggested reaching out to a professional, and I knew Bree would agree, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to sit down and talk to a stranger with a yellow, lined notepad quite yet. But before I left the park, I made a vow to myself that if I couldn’t get it under control on my own, with the help and support of my family, I would reach out to someone better qualified to handle depression.

Acceptance
. The last stage of grief. All about accepting the loss of someone you love and learning how to move forward in a positive direction. I read about it, yearning to get there one day, but it didn’t do anything for me yet. I wasn’t mentally ready to listen to what it had to say or to start applying the exercises to follow in my life to gain acceptance. But I understood it, and the thought of acceptance did appeal to me. However, I couldn’t jump ahead, otherwise I’d do myself a disservice if I didn’t give my all to working through the depression. That had to be my number one priority.
Take your time.

So I took my book and my new phone and went home to reflect on everything I’d learned about grief and finding a way to live a happy life. In the end, that’s really what I wanted. But I still had Bentley at the forefront of my mind—therefore, when I pictured this happy new life of mine outside the grief, it had him in it. And I couldn’t think about that. Once again, that would be skipping ahead and taking away from my healing process. If I truly believed in fate, and if I honestly thought he was it for me, then I’d have to be patient and trust that we’d find our way back to each other. I couldn’t allow myself to put any more pressure or thought into it. Instead, I’d trust in the power of fate.

Before I got ready for bed, I sent Marlo a text, letting her know I’d be back at work the next day. I had to start living my life again, no matter how slow of a start I had. I couldn’t sit still, waiting for this illusion of happiness to come find me. I had to make it happen. And that started with getting up and doing something about it.

Over two weeks passed since my meltdown and subsequent talk with Bree, which had ultimately put me on the path of healing. Although I felt a thousand times better, I knew I still had so much more work to do. I talked to my sisters all the time, and had even made it over to my dad’s house a few times to see him. As it turns out, he had fallen victim to the depression quicksand like I had. We coined that term together the first night we discussed it. He said it was like walking through life, and then, all of a sudden, feeling weighted down, making it harder to keep going and taking more effort to get up each day. I explained it as a feeling of something gradually pulling me down, further and further the longer I stood stagnant. We agreed it was depression quicksand.

I enjoyed talking to Bree and Clarissa, but I found more solace in the conversations with my dad. I was aware that my sisters knew how I felt, understanding they had been there, too, but I found it easier to confide in someone who still seemed stuck in that same place with me. Don’t get me wrong. I was beyond elated that the girls hadn’t allowed their grief to control them, and that they’d found their way to the other side, but nothing made you feel more like a burden to someone when they were trying to be happy and all you wanted to do was cry on someone’s shoulder. And for me, the shoulder I needed happened to have been my dad’s, just as my shoulder was there for him.

I’d actually gone to his house the weekend following my talk with Bree. He had gone through my mom’s closet and asked if I wanted to keep any of her clothes or shoes. I knew most of her things probably wouldn’t fit me, or even be my style, but I couldn’t pass it up knowing anything that wasn’t taken by us girls would be donated. For a split second, I became pissed that he wanted to get rid of her belongings. How dare he get rid of everything she had? But after I stopped and practiced an exercise from the grief book, I was able to take a step back and see things from his point of view. It’d been six months since she’d passed away, and he had no reason to keep her clothes hanging in the closet as a constant reminder. I’m sure it was harder for him to see them every day than it would’ve been to let them go. It was easy to be angry with someone for decisions they made, when in reality, making those decisions was the tough part.