окремі книги, які можна читати незалежно. Але герої у них перетинаються, просто фокус на інших. Історії зачіпають психологічні травми. Але це дуже добрі історії - з happy end-ами )
Part of Your World
…it was like Neil wanted me to have the illusion that I needed him, that I couldn't be alone. I had to be taken care of. I couldn't manage a house. I'd never eat that quiche again unless he made it for me.
I peered up at Daniel waiting for him to shame me for my lack of kitchen skills, like Neil always did. But he just shrugged. "Okay, let me show you."
I felt my face soften.
"How did you learn to cook?" I asked.
He smiled. "You have to know how to cook here. We can't always afford to go out to eat. "Okay," he said, standing shoulder to shoulder with me after I washed my hands. "You're going to peel the potatoes, like this. When you're done peeling, you cube them. Like this." He took the knife and showed me. "We're cubing them so they cook faster. Since we're making soup we're taking the skins off, but I like to leave them on for mashed potatoes…"
As we went, he explained everything this way. Not just how to do it, but why. I liked this. It was the same way I trained my residents.
He was so patient—and standing as close to me as possible. It was really obviobvious and very, very distracting.
His fresh scent teased my nose, and I found myself leaning into it while I was supposed to be working.
He must have noticed, because he turned to look down at me and our faces were suddenly very close together—and then something happened inside of me that hadn't happened in a very long time.
I got butterflies.
"What?" he asked, smiling.
I swallowed hard and just blinked at him
He nudged me. "What?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I just find you distracting is all." I looked back at my cutting board, feeling a little shaken. Like something big had just happened that was completely out of my control.
I didn't get butterflies. I was too old for butterflies. Shouldn't I be completely beyond the age of crushes and puppy-dog love at this point?
I felt him smile, even though I wasn't looking at him. "Are you going to be able to focus on this task at hand, Doctor?" he teased, nuzzling his nose into my hair. "Because I'm going to need your undiundivided attention, and it seems like you're a little preoccupied," he whispered.
Butterflies again.
Oh, my God, no. I wasn't going to be able to focus.
I angled my head up and let him give me a kiss, feeling a little insecure about this new development
He was so charming. And handsome. Devastatingly handsome. He was the kind of man who took my breath away—and it was because he was good. Kind and thoughtful and patient. Generous. And so easy. Nothing complex about him at all.
Neil was like a Russian nesting doll whose good qualities got smaller the more you uncovered him. But Daniel was the opposite. The more I knew, the better he became.
I liked that he took care of Popeye. And I understood why the town had declared him their mayor—not because he was a Grant, but because I had a feeling the Grants were a certain type of people. Diplomatic and well liked. And I knew this not because he told me, but because of the way other people treated him.
Liz spoke highly of him the day I met him. Brian spent two hours of his night sitting in a projection room at a closed drive-in just so Daniel could take me to a movie. Doreen called him because she knew he would go check on Pops. Then he drove Pops to the doctor all the way in Rochester after his fall, and installed that bar in his shower
If you looked at the way the people around Neil treated him, you might come to the same conclusions, that he was well liked. Neil had a prominent seat at everyone's table. But the difference was, nobody relied on Neil like they did with Daniel. Any relationship that Neil had was based on a shallow connection of status signaling. Nobody ever needed anything from him other than the grace of his presence and his fake bravado.
If Neil was at your party, it meant you were important. You were someone he wanted to be seen rubbing shoulders with. But if you ever had to rely on him, he'd let you down.
If Daniel was at your party, it meant you were a good person. It meant you were someone who had earned his affection. And I was starting to realize that his affection equaled a level of devotion that I don't think I'd ever known outside of maybe Bri and Derek. And it seemed to encompass a whole town. Like this cloak of loyalty was big enough for everyone.
And then I realized, almost with awe, that I must have somehow earned his affection too. He must like me, and not just in a sex way, or why else would he spend so much time on the phone talking to me and want me to be his girlfriend?
I started chewing on the side of my lip as I peeled my potatoes.
I remember feeling so important when the chief of surgery took a liking to me. I think I was so dazzled by that and Neil's false charm that I didn't see the red flags waving in my face. I brushed it off when he was rude to our servers or his nurses didn't like him
With Daniel it was the opposite. I was so dead set on being certain I couldn't be impressed with him, that it was almost startling to discover that I was…
…I had an eerie premonition of relatives going through my belongings after my funeral, just like we'd done a few weeks ago for Aunt Lil. They'd find this rock and wonder why it was in the single shoebox I'd taken with me to the retirement home.
I wondered how many of the little trinkets I'd found in Aunt Lil's box were like this. The remnants of small moments in her life that stayed with her forever. Proof of a thumbprint on her soul.
It's amazing how someone can touch you, even if you only know them for a moment in time. How they can change you, alter you indelibly.
Daniel had altered me. I was already better for knowing him. Which made leaving him all the more bitter…
…"Yeah. I realized when you hit zero fucks, that's when negotiations begin."
"What does that mean?" A small smile in her voice.
"It's just that I didn't care if they sold or not. When you don't care, everything's on your terms. They can take it or leave it. It doesn't matter to you, so ask for whatever the hell you want."
"Ahhh. Well, I always thought you were undercharging. I'd pay that for one of your tables."
"Yeah, well, you're a Kardashian, so…"
She gasped. "I am not a Kardashian."
I smiled a little. "Have you seen your house?"
She made a playful indignant noise
"You even have a surgeon living in the basement."
She let out a laugh. The sound made me feel happier than I'd felt in weeks.
It amazed me how easily we just started again. But then it didn't. Because if I didn't see her for twenty years, it would still be like this. It was like this from the moment I'd met her, and it would always be like this between us. This was part of it. This is what made it easy.
This is what made it hard…
Yours Truly
…I rested my elbow on the car door and put my head in my hand. I felt myself calming down. My best friend always de-escalated me. Sometimes I hated that about her. There were times when I just wanted to be pissed off, careening forward on the strength of my pure rage. I was grateful for my ability to stay furious, especially over the last year. Anger is a powerful fuel. It can be very motivating. Fortifying.
The only problem with anger is that it burns hot and fast. It doesn't tend to burn long.
Sadness burns long. Grief. Disappointment.
I realized that's what I was afraid was going to happen on the nineteenth. My divorce would be final, my rage would finally burn out, and I'd be left with what was left of me.
And that wasn't much…
Just for the Summer
…"What if he smells weird?" I asked. "Have you ever had that happen? You meet someone and everything about them is perfect but the way they smell? Like, they don't smell bad or anything, they just don't smell… attractive?"
"Yes! Why is that a thing?" She opened her soda with a pith.
"I don't know. Pheromones maybe? I hope he smells good. I have to kiss him."
"Look at you, doing charity work," she said sarcastically.
Even Maddy with all her cynicism couldn't deny that Justin was very attractive.
"Would you do more with him?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't even know if he smells good."
"Well, do you like him? Like, like him like him?"
"Yeah I like him. I wouldn't be here if I didn't."
"But?"
I glanced at her. "But we're dating to break up? I'm not really sure what the rules are. He might just want to get through the dates and be done with it."
She made a Come On face. "Really? You don't think he's going to try and see if there's something there with you two?"
I laughed. "Why would he? I mean, the next girl is supposed to be The One. He probably wants to get to that. And I'm only here six weeks anyway."
"I think if you like him you should give him a fair shot. Don't just treat him like a checklist."
I gave her a look. "We're just doing this for fun, Maddy. He's not giving me a fair shot either."…
…"You have a lot of ice in Minnesota, right?" she asked.
"Yes…"
"What happens when water gets into a crack and it freezes?"
"It expands," I said. "Makes the crack bigger."
"Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks. You don't know how broken she was or what she was trying to do to fill those cracks. Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make good choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal."
"I've… I've never thought of it that way," I admitted.
Emma tucked her leg under her. "I think the thing that always got me through the stuff with my mom was knowing that she didn't want to be the way she was. Nobody wants to be the villain, Justin. If you start there, it's easier to get how people end up who they are and where they are. My mom put me through a lot. She hurt me. A lot. But she's full of more cracks than I can ever comprehend."
"So how do you reconcile that?" I asked. "How do you learn to forgive her?"
She shrugged. "You don't have to forgive her. You really don't. You can still love someone that you've decided not to speak to anymore. You can still wish them well and hope for the best for them. Choosing a life without them doesn't mean you stop caring about them. It just means that you can't allow them to harm you anymore. But if you don't think your life would be better without them in it, then accept that they have cracks. Try to understand how they got them and help fill them with something that isn't ice." She peered at me. "If you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy, Justin. It's so much healthier than anger. For both of you."
I wanted to respond, but I didn't even know what to say.
It was weird but it had never occurred to me that maybe Mom had been changed because of what happened with Dad. I mean, she always seemed to keep it together. She didn't miss work, she didn't stay in bed for days at a time or lose a bunch of weight or stop brushin
But maybe she did fall apart. Maybe she just didn't let us see it. Maybe that was her way of protecting us from more cracks.
I felt a small lump form in my throat. Because when I reframed it this way, I started to wonder if I'd failed her. If I hadn't felt like someone safe that she could be honest with and lean on. I hadn't met her where she was.
Emma was right. My life had been gentler than hers.
I studied the woman sitting next to me. Imagine someone who went through what she did, turning out the way she had. Able to give grace to someone who'd let her down so badly. Emma was a better person than I was. And my life had been gentler than hers too…
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