start with. So she can tackle each thing. One by one. And it doesn’t have to be positive. I’m not going to ram that down her throat. We need to face the good and the bad. All the time.”
I leaned forward and saw the page.
Just five blank lines that were numbered.
My eyes then met with Grace’s.
I knew exactly what she was going to say next, but I was saved by her phone ringing.
“There’s my call,” she said.
She stood with her notebook and mug of tea. She hurried down the hall to her bedroom.
I glanced over at my notebook and sighed.
I leaned to my left to make sure Grace was out of view.
That’s when I made my first mark in the notebook.
A list of one through five.
“A list of five things on my mind today,” I whispered.
What do I write now?
Why am I so afraid to write?
Who is Delaney?
Who is Josh?
Who is Delilah?
I stared at the list and shook my head.
So many different things…
Yet they all felt like they were connected.
I’ve touched your tears, whether you know it or not. I’ve touched your pain. I’ve gotten so close to it, I could feel the pain too. There was this dream I had of you. I had this beaten up car. A real piece of junk. But it always started on the first try. It had an engine. Some gas. Some music. And one night I started that car and came to get you. You were waiting for me, sitting on your front steps. Your knees were gently knocking together as you bit on your nails, worried about me not coming. You weren’t worried about leaving. Just about me not showing up.
Your bag next to you.
That was it.
That was your life.
And now it was going to be my life.
We had nowhere to go and nobody to go find.
It was just us.
The road.
Burning gas.
Singing songs at the top of our lungs, sounding horrible, but it didn’t matter.
When we’d go down hills, we’d hold hands then you’d put your hands into the air and yell like it was a roller coaster. Over bumps, I’d speed up, so you’d lose your stomach. I didn’t need those bumps though. I felt that way each time I looked at you.
On the highway you’d roll down the window and let the wind play with your hair.
You looking at me, laughing or singing, the wind messing with your hair, that was the closest to heaven I could possibly ever get.
Touching you. Loving you.
It was just us. Just us being free.
That was the dream, Delilah.
And it ended, like it did every single night.
“Hey, are you coming back to work or what?”
I stood up and folded the letter. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“You okay?”
Mitch raised an eyebrow.
He had the bushiest eyebrows ever and took his job as shift manager way too seriously.
“I’m good,” I said. “It’s not even that busy in there tonight, Mitch.”
“Yeah, but you have two tables.” He stepped back and grabbed the door. “Oh. And before I forget. Mags said something about needing your help at the bar.”
“The bar?” I asked. "For what?”
“Someone there is looking for you,” Mitch said. “It’s slow tonight. So, if someone is here to see you and is willing to sit, drink, and pay…”
“Tell Mags I get the tips then,” I said.
He laughed. “You two can work that out yourselves.”
Mitch went back inside.
I may or may not have thrown him the finger.
Yeah, I threw him the finger.
The sight of Josh at the bar, sitting there with Aaron, made me freeze in my tracks. The second Mitch said someone was looking for me, I should have known exactly who it was.
Josh had been very quiet since he had taken me to the cemetery and told me about his life. And I had been just as quiet since that same day. I still played the moment in my mind when I dropped to my knees and started to clean off that little headstone, thinking I had somehow solved a puzzle that was none of my business.
Plus, the letter I found - and Delilah - that was something very serious. Whoever wrote that letter was in love with Delilah in a much different way than a person would love a young child.
Mags worked the bar, knowing she was the only one making any real money.
She was washing a glass when she saw me and hurried to nod in Josh’s direction.
“Brooding hot guy and his fancy friend are asking for you,” she said. “Took a drink from me but refused