Page 260 of Breathe Like Hell

“I want to sit outside and see if Bug is around,” I said.

“That works. Do you want a slushy or something?”

“Not today.”

I left through the back door and sat on the curb, but Bug didn’t come.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

DAKOTA

Nine Months After

Mason entered Micah’s home office while I rifled through drawers, gathering things into my arms in a teary mess, my brain running in an endless loop. I wondered how many times a person could retrace the same memory before they finally wore a hole through it. Wondered how many times I could cling to the stupid hope that maybe I still could fix this.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Trying to find an object that had meaning to him. Something special. But I don’t fucking know what to take,” I cried. “I tried other things and they didn’t work. I think I just had the wrong things.”

I never got to know him as well as I wanted to.

I thought I understood what was important to him, but I was learning now that I’d been wrong.

“I just⁠—”

“Dakota,” Mason cut me off, shaking his head. His face was solemn.

“What?” I questioned, eyes wide.

Mason looked away from me, out the window. “The Syndesmos leader told me this wouldn’t work.”

“They could be wrong!” I sobbed. “I didn’t try everything yet!”

“I don’t want you to⁠—”

“I didn’t try everything!” I screamed, dropping the papers and random items that I had in my arms. “You don’t know for sure that this won’t work! Nobody can know that!”

“I do know that!” Mason shouted at me. “You need to fucking stop doing this shit. It’s not going to work, and I genuinely cannot stand to see you keep giving yourself false hope like this. It makes me fucking sick to my stomach.”

I just stared at him, tears still pouring down my face, sobs catching in my chest.

Sometimes I couldn’t tell anymore whether we stayed together because we loved each other or because neither of us could endure losing one more person.

“Please, just stop,” he repeated, his voice lower now.

I could see all the pain in his brown eyes, see all the ways I was hurting him by doing this. Every time I dragged Mason out to that tree, forcing him to mourn all over again because I’d been wrong for the hundredth time.

Mason had loved Micah long before I’d ever known he existed. Long before I existed myself.

I’d only lost months with him. Mason had lost a lifetime.

There were entire versions of Micah I’d never get to know, and Mason carried every single one of them. I was being unfair by asking him to do this for me over and over.

I just couldn’t stop. I’d become selfish in my grief. I kept telling myself I was doing it for Micah, but maybe I was only doing it because I couldn’t survive finally letting go.

“Can we please just try for one more day?” I asked, my voice barely audible in the silent room.

“Okay. Today is the last time. And you were the most important thing in the world to him. Not any of this,” Mason said, gesturing to the mess I’d made of Micah’s home office. “Get the shark teeth he found for you. They’re still in his nightstand drawer. If that doesn’t work, nothing will. He loved you more than anything else.”