Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I’m not going to lie. At the time, I thought about it. But after seeing a therapist over the past three years, I’ve healed in many ways, and I’m happy for the most part.
I have a loving family, a great career, and I’m as content as a woman can be who lost her husband and baby. I enjoy visiting art museums, cooking, and baking. I’ve been going to the health club more often lately. I keep busy. I don’t know why I didn’t die that night, but I don’t want to waste the second chance I was given living a life filled with negativity.
“Okay, good,” Mom says. “I’m making breakfast if you want to join us.”
“I’ll get dressed and head over.”
Once she’s gone, I open my bag of goodies and groan when I find, right next to the adorable stuffed Baby Yoda, a black box that reads Passion Kisses—the online sex toy shop my mom buys her toys from. It should be weird that my mom bought me a vibrator of some sort—and it kind of is—but she’s also my best friend, and she knows I haven’t had sex since Brandon died, so it’s also kind of sweet and thoughtful.
At some point, I’m going to have to figure out my sex life because I don’t want to be abstinent forever, but it’s hard when the last guy I was with was my husband and he was who I thought I would be with for the rest of my life.
Leaving the toy in its packaging, I open a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, pop it into my mouth, and then get ready for the day. My dad wanted me to take off work, but I compromised by shifting my appointments to the afternoon. The last thing I want to do on Valentine’s Day is stay home and wallow. I know Brandon wouldn’t want this for me. He would want me to move forward and be happy. He loved me too much to want me to be unhappy. But it’s easier said than done.
FOUR
Shane
“Dad! I need you!”
My seventeen-year-old daughter’s panicked voice has me setting my coffee on the counter.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, stepping out of the kitchen to meet her in the living room as our dog, Becky—a German shepherd Lab mix we rescued a few years ago—jumps up from the couch, wagging her tail and begging for attention.
Since Taylor only ran out the door a few minutes ago for school, I can’t imagine what’s happened to cause her hysteria in that short amount of time. But one thing I’ve learned from being a single dad to a teenage girl is that the things we wouldn’t expect to cause stress seem to.
Wrong hair color, a pimple on her forehead, can’t find the right shoes to match the dress—doesn’t sound like any of that would be the end of the world, right? Wrong. Every one of those is serious enough to cause a breakdown—trust me, I’ve experienced it firsthand.
“My tire is flat, and I’m going to be late to school, and we have a pep rally today! If I miss it—”
“Breathe,” I say with a laugh, thankful her outburst wasn’t something serious.
“Dad!” She groans.
“Let’s go.” I nod toward the front door. “Today, you’ll learn how to change a tire.”
“But I’m—” she starts to complain as she follows.
“Late. I heard. What would you have done had I not been here?”
“Called you to come home.”
I chuckle. “And what if I were on a call?”
“I would’ve asked Pop.”
“They’re out of town,” I remind her.
My parents live next door, but since they officially retired a few years ago and my daughter is now old enough to stay alone overnight while I work my shifts at the station, they’ve started to travel more often.
“Fine, let’s go,” she says, knowing I’m not going to budge.
Since I work twenty-four-hour shifts as a firefighter paramedic, I always want to make sure my daughter is capable of handling things if I’m not available. I hate having to leave her, but thankfully, when she was younger, while I was saving for a place of our own, we lived with my parents, who helped tremendously. It also helps that we live in a small town and the station is walking distance from our house on Main Street.
“Look, it’s right there,” Taylor says, crouching in front of the tire and pointing out the silver screw wedged into the rubber.
“We’ll put a spare on, and I’ll bring it by Ron’s garage later to get it plugged.”
After getting the spare and jack out of her trunk and explaining how to raise her car properly so she can safely change the tire, I go about doing so, walking her through each step until the spare tire is on and her flat one has been thrown into the back of my truck.