Losing the carousel was breaking my heart.I’d taken to carrying Hunter’s key around with me.Even if I didn’t make it over to Carousel park, just knowing I could if I wanted to was a great comfort.
Once it was gone, I didn’t know how I could ever go back.
I left Daire at home, looking as sexy as ever, surrounded by construction paper, scissors, and ornament templates, as well as the green construction paper trees I helped him cut out for his class the night before.
The beach was cold, but I needed to clear the fog from my head and there was no better place for me than here.
For once my eyes were trained on the horizon rather than the shore, and I marveled at the difference in my outlook over the past several days.
The facts as I once knew them had not changed.I was still petite, curvy, sassy, bossy, and softly rounded.
The fact remained that I dipped out of an errand that ended in my brother’s death.
I could not change the facts, but I could see them through a different lens.
I was worthy of love.
Despite my failings.
And my mistakes.
I closed my eyes, my brow furrowing momentarily at the sharp stab of pain I suspected would stay with me as long as I continued to breathe.
But that did not change the fact I was no less worthy than anybody else.
Hunter taught me that.
Perhaps I would have to borrow Hunter’s lens until I managed to discard the one distorted by my wounds.Because my greatest weakness lay in my lack of faith in myself.
It’s amazing how the human mind seeks to validate its own beliefs.And I latched onto every scrap of evidence I could gather to support my belief in my inherent unloveliness.
I would give anything to have him back.
A tear slipped down my cheek, but unlike all the others I’d cried, this one was not heavy with guilt.
It was grief.
And love.
In all its bittersweet duality.
I took a deep breath and looked out over the crashing waves.Somewhere out there, Hunter’s wish lay nestled among the sand and rocks at the bottom of the lake.
And waited for me at home.
Somewhere out there, Hunter cheered me on as he always had.
Though he couldn’t tell me himself, I believed that with every piece of my once shattered heart.
A heart no longer made of glass, nor stone, but something much more malleable.
Something that beat harder when Daire walked into the room.
Something that squeezed tight at the deeper lines fanning out from the corners of my parents’ eyes.
Something that thudded with anticipation, fluttered with happiness, skipped with joy.
Wept with grief.
