One of his big hands cupped my hip, and I could feel the steady beat of his heart against my nose. “I thought we’d decided your ex was a moron,” Rhodes murmured. “I hope someday that if I’m gone, someone loves me enough to miss me for the rest of their life.”
He killed me. He really, absolutely did. I snorted a little into his throat, sagging even more into the warm wall of his frame.
“My dog, Pancake, died a few years ago, and I still get choked up when I think of him. I tell myself I can’t get another dog because I’m not home enough, but between us, considering it in the first place makes me feel like I’m being disloyal to him.” I’d swear he brushed his lips across my forehead as he held me even closer. “You don’t ever have to hide it—your grief. Not from me.”
Something painful and wonderful pricked my heart. “You don’t either. I’m sorry about your Pancake. He was the one in the picture I gave you, right? I’m sure he was amazing. Maybe, if you ever want, you can show me some more pictures of him. I’d like to see them.”
Rhodes’s voice got tight. “He was, and I will,” he promised.
I pushed my face even closer to his throat, and it took me minutes before I could get more words together. “My mom would want me to be happy, I know that. She’d tell me that it wasn’t like I didn’t already know she didn’t want to leave me. She would tell me not to spend more of my time being upset and live my life instead. I know it. I know in my heart that whatever happened was an accident and there’s nothing I can do to change it. And I really am happy with where I am now. It’s just hard…”
“Hey,” he said. “Some days you pick up eagles like they’re chickens, and some days you run screaming away from innocent bats. I like you both ways, angel. All ways.”
A choke that was a mixture of pain and laughter exploded out of me, and I’d swear his arms got even tighter.
I couldn’t help but hug him tight right back. “I just… I really just wish… I hope she knows how much I love her. How much I wish she was here. But also, that if all these shitty things were supposed to happen… I’m glad they brought me here.” My fingers curled around his forearm. “I’m glad you’re here, Rhodes. I’m so glad you’re in my life. Thank you for being so good to me.”
His hand stroked my hair, and his pulse beat under my cheek, and I could barely hear him as he said, “Any time you need me, I’m here. Right here.”
I clung to him and lowered my voice, “Don’t tell Yuki, but you’re my best best friend now.”
His throat bobbed against me, and I didn’t imagine how hoarse his voice came out as he said, “You’re my best best friend too, sweetheart.” His next swallow was just as harsh, his voice even more rough, but his words were the softest, most genuine thing I’d ever heard. “I really missed hearing you talk, you know that?”
And it was then, with my face against his throat, his body warm beneath and around mine that I told him about some of my fondest memories of my mom. Of how beautiful she was. Of how funny she could be. Of how she hadn’t been scared of anything, or at least it had seemed that way to me.
I talked and I talked and I talked, and he listened and listened and listened.
And I cried a little more, but it was okay.
Because he had to be right. Grief was the final way we had to tell our loved ones that they’d impacted our lives. That we missed them so, so much. And there was nothing wrong with me mourning my mom for the rest of mine, even as I carried her love and her life in my heart. I had to live, but I could also remember along the way.
The people we lose take a part of us with them… but they leave a part of themselves with us too.
*
In the days that followed, with my grief still curling around my heart but with a knowledge and strength that I’d pulled from the bottom of my soul, I tried my best to keep my chin up. Even if it wasn’t easy. But every time I started to feel that drag pulling me down to a place I’d been at before, I tried to remind myself I was my mother’s daughter.
Maybe I was a little cursed, but it could be worse. In some ways, I was one of the lucky ones. And I tried not to let myself forget it.
The people I cared about and loved didn’t let me forget it either, and I was pretty sure that’s what helped me the most.
When the time came, I had my mom’s remains cremated and spent a lot of time thinking about what to do with them. I wanted to do something to really honor her spirit.