Dear Malibu
My Malibu
I had hated that nickname. Until I didn’t. What I wouldgiveto hear it just one more time.
“Please,” I whispered, not really sure to whom I was pleading. “Please, don’t take him from me.” I hugged the letters to my chest, “Please. Just let him come home. I need him home.”
The tears came then. Sudden, fat drops. I had thought I had cried myself dry but the sobs that began to wrack my body proved otherwise. One of the drops fell onto the papers in my hand, smearing the ink and I threw them in a panic, desperate to not ruin the last piece of him I had. The letters scattered around me. The one that landed nearest to me just so happened to be the last one I had gotten.
Chapter Thirty-One
? Holly ?
Everyone told me to take time off.
“Don’t push yourself.”
“School can wait.”
Take time off. Try yoga. Try journaling. Grief isn’t meant to make sense.
Yeah, well. We could at least agree on that last bit.
One night, I was on the phone with Mom. Back at my apartment, staring at the ceiling, and ignoring the textbooks beside me.
“Honey, your dad and I have been talking. There is this really great therapist-”
“No. No shrinks.”
“It might help.”
“It won’t.”
She didn’t argue further, just changed the subject and I did my best to play along until she hung up the phone. I stared at the dark screen. Therapy? The thought of sitting in some dull room while a stranger dissected my pain made me want to throw up. I’d done that dance before. Years ago, after the thing I never spoke about. The mandatory counseling sessions. The clipboard. The pitying looks that saidpoor broken girl.
Never again.
So I went back to school. Because movement meant survival, and stillness meant remembering.
The first week was fine. I showed up. Turned things in. Slept when I could. My professors treated me like I might burst into tears mid-sentence. Everyone around me overcompensated with awkward cheer. People I barely knew came up to me with murmured apologies. I was going to launch myself off Rooker Hall if they kept this shit up. But I learned to smile and say, “I’m ok,” until the words stopped meaning anything. Dalton was a constant, steady presence and eventually stepped into his role as a natural buffer. Everything was fine. I was fine.
Then the fog hit. I found myself staring at the same paragraph until it blurred. My brain wouldn’t focus; my heart wouldn’t stop racing. I willed my eyes to focus. To just get to the end of one sentence. But my body wouldn’t obey. I felt trapped in my own skin.
Some guy in my study group offered me an Adderall. “It helps me lock in,” he said.
I hesitated but took it back to my apartment with me. Maria texted me. A cute picture of Jewel, concern disguised in what was supposed to be a carefree message. Wishing me luck on my next test. The study guide for said test taunted me, and I eyed the Adderall. Just to help me focus, just this once. I swallowed it dry.
It worked.
The noise in my head straightened out. The ache dulled. I cleaned the apartment at 3 a.m. and finished three essays I barely remembered writing. I didn’t cry once.
Progress, right?
I passed that test with flying colors. My professor looked at me with more than a little surprise. It felt good doing something wrong, proving someone wrong. The next night, I took another.
Then two.
Dalton noticed before anyone else. “You look wired,” he said one morning, holding out my usual coffee like it was peace.
