myself. “Today is about Rose.” I sat back and rubbed more SPF 50 all over as the sun made mincemeat out of me. Twenty minutes later, mind racing with thoughts I didn’t want to deal with, I turned on my outdoor sound system and walked over to the running waterfall. The reservoir was far too small to take a dip in, but I pushed my hands through the running stream and splashed the chemical filled water all over my body.
“You’re being ridiculous!” I said as I eyed the pond like a cartoon animal would a juicy steak. Larry, Curly, and Moe, my pet ducks, floated across the beckoning oasis in mocking as I splashed around the recycled water, desperately trying to cool off. Even the running water had no chance in this type of sun. It was lukewarm at best. I walked out to the edge of the water and dipped a toe in.
“Rose, maybe you’ve convinced yourself you are incapable of love right now, or even worse, not worthy of it. Don’t let one dickhead cheat you out of what every single person on earth deserves.”
“And what’s that?” I whispered, completely leveled by his kiss.
“Love, baby, love. It’s your time to be loved, and I’m the one who’s going to do it.”
When I moved in, I’d promised myself when I would ask the family over, have barbecues, and teach little Grant and Annabelle how to fish. I swore I wouldn’t use the house as a museum or a shrine to the life I was supposed to live with the man who helped me dream it up. But those invitations to my family had yet to be sent. Grant and Anna’s fishing poles remained in the packaging untouched because I had failed to treat the house I lived in as anything other than the boneyard of dreams it was.
It was so fucked up because, in so many ways, I wanted the carpet stained a bit. I wanted a little wear and tear to show some signs of life in a house that was built with so much love and meaning behind it. I wanted to make it a home. In my mind, I could never leave it, but in reality, I couldn’t live fully in it... not yet.
I’d recently read in a book properly named A Love so Tragic that “just because the person died doesn’t mean the love does.” Those words had never been truer for me. And that’s how I’d lived for the past few years: in love without the object of my affection. Death had taken him away but what I felt for him remained. At first, it was a type of safety net for me, a way of keeping the promise to myself that I would never forget him. I made a conscious effort every day to remember every detail of our relationship. It kept Grant and I close, yet he was impossibly far away. Now, it was a ritual I cherished. The emotions that went along with remembering how it felt to be with him and to surrender to that type of love came with a pain so intense, it resonated with my breaths, and bliss so unique, it was impossible to explain.
I’d found something so rare with Grant Foster. It could never be replicated or replaced. Our life together was small in measure, though in my lifetime, it remained the most important piece. I hadn’t thrown my career or goals away when he died, and of that fact, I was proud. But as I lay on the deck, the thought occurred to me, as it did often, that I wouldn’t ever be whole unless I resumed the other part of living, the part that included a personal life, and one without Grant. It seemed a daunting feat even years later.
Unable to face the truth I’d presented to myself, I gave up on my pursuit of sun and took up residence on my bed, sorting through my Kindle, looking for a distraction. Medical journals, romance...erotica. I browsed through the smut-filled pages as I thought of the sex toy Jules had given me for my birthday. She’d shoved it in my locker at the hospital with a large bottle of Maker’s Mark, my favorite poison. The toy was still wrapped in plastic, and for a brief moment, I entertained the idea of self-gratification. If I thought I’d had a dry spell before Grant came and went, I was in an all-out drought at this point.
My phone