I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,102

voice broke. It went back to not working, and I had to wait a moment. One breath, two, three, and then I could speak again. “I wish I had seen more than I had. I wish I had talked to her, but I was wrapped up in myself. I could only see what I was dealing with, and I never thought—”

My voice stopped again. I had to wait longer this time. Thirty seconds, and then, I tried again. “It wasn’t supposed to be her. I wasn’t supposed to be the one to go on and shine. That was always her role.” I repeated again, “She never talked. I am talking now.”

Naomi sat up, a look of horror on her face, but I grabbed her hands before she could sit back in her seat, and I finally told her what I’d been hiding from everyone else.

“I don’t know how she found it. I don’t know why she had it with her, but she didn’t write that note. I didn’t read Willow’s suicide note because it wasn’t hers.” I let go of Naomi’s hands and sat back, finally, finally feeling some peace as I shared my last secret.

“It was mine.”

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Dear Reader

I have never written a book that changed me.

There were books in my past that changed a part of my life, where they moved my career forward, etc. That’s happened. I’ve had books be so loved by readers, and I’ve also written books that seemed like a grimace, but I’m always proud of every single novel I write. I grew or learned some lesson with each one.

But Ryan’s Bed is different.

I began writing Mackenzie’s story when I would travel for book signings, and I think there’s something so lonely about hotel rooms that it crept into me and then through Mackenzie. I remember writing some chapters and thinking in the back of my head, “Where am I going with this? What am I doing?” And that’s how I felt for the first eight chapters, but I didn’t want to take the book into a path that I didn’t feel was right. I didn’t want to be careless with this book because there was something more with Mackenzie and Willow.

I’m glad I waited.

When I started writing it again, I felt Willow wanting a voice and I don’t know if she would’ve had one in the beginning if I just pushed through. And then as the book started to unfold, I heard Ryan’s voice more and more and then his storyline unfolded too.

This book was so hard to write, not in the way where I felt like I was taking a chainsaw to a glacier, but in the way where I cried almost every time I wrote it or worked on it.

A friend talked to me about how taboo suicide is, and how teen suicide is even more so, and that conversation really affected me. I agonized over if I should dare write this book. I thought about parents I know who lost a child, friends I know who lost their siblings to suicide, and even the ones I know who have gone. And when I really considered putting it aside, telling people it was abandoned, I couldn’t do that. I honestly couldn’t. I felt a huge cry inside of me that it was wrong to shove this book back down and ignore it.

I even talked to friends about writing Ryan’s Bed. I remember having conversations saying that I didn’t know what I was going to do with the book, if I would just finish it for myself and not publish it. I was that scared to write this one and publish it, but I kept writing it because there was something in Mackenzie that wanted out.

I know, I know. If you’re not a writer or an artist, you may not understand this and it makes me look crazy, but I kept writing this book because I had to. That’s the ultimate truth. I felt it was more wrong not to finish it so I started writing it again.

I wanted to respect Willow. I wanted to respect the loss Mackenzie had about losing her twin. I wanted to respect grief itself, acknowledge it, and not have it shoved under a rug. I wanted to write about Mackenzie’s relationship with Ryan, but I also wanted to focus on Mackenzie herself.

I always felt something dark with her, something that she was hiding from, even herself. It drove me nuts, trying to figure out what I was