Page 61 of Believe In Us

“It will be,” she said. “You know what it means to lose someone.”

“I do,” I said, my words low as I held my mother’s gaze.

“Those losses make the people you love all the more precious. It’s like they sharpen your lens on what matters. Even though it hurts, they make your heart more open,” she said softly.

Just then, voices reached us from the hallway. Asher and Grady. We had just enough time for me to gather myself. I took a slow breath.

“I promise,” my mom said. “It’s worth it.”

I took her words to heart, or tried to. They echoed in my thoughts over the following days.

* * *

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* * *

Three nights later

* * *

I woke the way I always did. The nightmares were never clear, never had been. At first, in the aftermath of the fire, I’d been almost numb for a little while. That masked them in a haze.

In the time I’d been gone and fighting fires, trying to convince myself that those fires were nothing like the one that had destroyed our resort and taken Bree from us, the nightmares had come. At first, they were blurs, snapshots flashing by quickly, the old kind that clicked. My dad had one of those old cameras, and I loved playing with it, loved the distinct clicking sound and looking at the images after they developed.

Maybe that was why my memories of that night, my nightmares, were like those kinds of images. Never perfectly clear and matched with that loud clicking sound from one frame to the next.

It had been such a profound relief not to have nightmares at all for a little while. But they were back with a vengeance. This night, I snapped awake, my heart pounding so hard it felt as if I’d been flung through the air. I felt the sharp bite of adrenaline, my breath short, as I fought my way out of sleep to break through the nightmare.

Chloe woke with me. “Lincoln?” she asked. I was sitting bolt upright in bed. “Are you okay?”

I glanced toward her in the darkness. I didn’t even know how we’d been sleeping. Usually I curled up behind her because I loved holding her close.

“I’m okay,” I managed, but my voice was tight and ragged. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew I couldn’t.

Her hand fell to my forearm, tense from my entire-body clench. “Lincoln?” Her tone was laced with concern.

“I’m okay. Just a nightmare.”

“What can I do?”

She proceeded to get up with me, walk me down to the kitchen, and make me hot cocoa. I thought my heart was going to break from all of it. Chloe did help, just by existing. And yet, the doubts began bouncing, as if in a tennis match with the hopefulness I’d clung to since Chloe. Because maybe I couldn’t shake this, maybe this darkness would rise again and again.

While I didn’t fall back asleep, I felt better. A little.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chloe

Snowshoes

My ex-friend stopped texting completely. Of course, after so much time wishing she wouldn’t text, a part of me missed it. No matter what happened, she had once been my closest friend. Even if I could look back now and question so many things about our friendship, she’d had a place in my heart.

I didn’t like that I wondered about her. The bitterness laced inside all of my questions was so disconcerting. I never wanted to be her friend again. I never wanted to be back with my ex. All of my emotions around that were a tangle of ugliness and pain.

In the midst of her texts going silent, Lincoln had another nightmare. After that nightmare, I could feel more distance from him. I could also feel that he was aware of the distance. It felt as if a thin curtain shifted in a soft breeze between us. I had some epic issues with trust. In this case, it wasn’t that I thought Lincoln would cheat on me. That was so antithetical to who he was I didn’t even worry about that for a single second, which I supposed should’ve given me some comfort.

My other doubts that were bigger and louder. Maybe I wasn’t worthy of love. Maybe I just wasn’t enough. When someone tells you that point blank, it might as well be burned across your heart like a brand. Not enough.