What signs had I missed that there was something deeply wrong?
Why Anchorage?
Why had we run into each other now?
Was she still in Anchorage?
How long had she been here for?
Where was she going to next?
Did she miss me?
Was the fear on her face when she saw me again, purely out of self-preservation, or did I read her wrong?
Did she even want to see me again? Or had I forced the whole encounter?
Was she happy now?
Was she in a relationship? Had she moved on? Had she forgotten about me?
The questions were endless. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t function at work, was barely even able to hold a conversation.
And everybody could tell that something was wrong after my whole shop had witnessed my psychotic break. Thankfully, they seemed to be avoiding mentioning it to my face. Except for Ford, who thanked me for getting him out of having to climb.
But when I couldn’t take the unending curiosity, I took off during my lunch break to find her. I just wanted to confirm whether or not she was still in town, and that she was still real. That she wasalive. I hadn’t planned to even speak to her, but then I saw her walk outside with Jae and the confusion had me following them around the corner.
That was the start of this uncomfortable rift. One we hadn’t felt in close to a year since we began rebuilding our brotherlybond. But as much as Jae had argued, he wasn’t able to convince me to stay away. Not when I was absolutely positive that this whole encounter was a gift from God. There was no other explanation. I didn’t believe in coincidences, and even if I did, this was one hell of a fucking coincidence. Alaska, of all places, at an event that wasn’t even originally planned to be at the location or on that day at that time.
It was God.
And I wasn’t going to take this opportunity He’d given us for granted.
But I’d already sent Jae into overprotective dad mode, and there was no going back. Jae was hovering. He followed me everywhere, watched me eat, raided our house from top to bottom to check for alcohol and I couldn’t take a shit without him asking where I was going and why I was closing the door. The guy was convinced that I was going to relapse. What little trust I’d gained from him in the last ten months was crumbling. Especially after I broke the promise I’d made and went to see her and gave the impression that I was intent on starting something.
Not that he had the right to dictate whether or not I pursued a relationship with her.
He’d even looped in my sponsor, Rick. Jae had called him behind my back, voicing his concerns that I had gotten in touch with an ex-girlfriend who’d been a catalyst for my drinking in the past. Rick had taken Jae’s side, and I’d been forced to tell Rick that we weren’t dating again. Although, I wished that we were.
I felt like everyone was waiting for me to screw up. The only reprieve I got was when I went to church this morning and finally found a moment of peace. At least my church friends were none the wiser and treated me like a sane person. Well, minus Rick and Jae, who always attended church with me.
I knew I should’ve just been grateful that I had people who cared so much about me, and I was, but it’d been a week ofsmothering concern, and I was sick of the lack of personal space. Regardless of Jae’s opinion, I wasn’t going to throw my ten months of sobriety out the window when Shiloh was here,alive. Even when I thought I was having a break from reality, I didn’t have the urge to drink.
I didn’t understand how or why Shiloh had to fake her own death. And, yes, a large part of me was hurt that she left the way she did. She said it wasn’t her idea, but the suicide nearly killed me. It was hard to reconcile with the notion that she made me, made us all, believe that she had taken her own life.
And we had to find a way to keep living without her.
A nearly impossible task for a very long time.
And now…now she was here, she was alive, and my heart ached to pick up where we had left off. Nothing she told me would change the way my heart beat for her.
Nothing.
But I couldn’t exactly tell her I loved her still when she was right, to an extent. I didn’t know much about her life now, but I wanted to. If I had to deal with being in the friendzone for an undetermined amount of time, then so be it. I could wait to tell her how I felt about her until she was ready to hear the words. Shiloh could barely believe that I cared about her still, like time would erase her and everything she meant to me.
But she was dead set on leaving, and I didn’t even know if she had the option to stay here in town or not. It was killing me to think that this might actually be goodbye.
I felt the burn of Jae’s stare on my head.
