Page 28 of Still Afraid

“So you don’t believe he’s actually doing better?”

“Do you?”

“No. He reeked of alcohol the other day.”

Gabe waved his hand in front of his face as if to get rid of the smell.

“I really hope he comes.”

“Me too, squirt.”

She tossed the shirt at Gabe’s face. “You know better than to call me that.”

He chucked the shirt back to her. “Apparently, I don’t.”

He winked and left the closet.

She’d labeled the stuff that needed to go to Josh’s today and what needed to wait, so everyone was able to get to work without much more direction. She continued in the closet. She only needed a few clothes for the next thirteen days. And with predicted highs in the upper eighties, she really didn’t need her sweaters or sweatpants.

After she finished packing a few of the boxes, leaving behind a suitcase for the rest, she started removing a few totes down from the shelves. One of the totes was labeled simply mementos. Maybe that sketchbook was in there. Might as well pull it out and show Josh.

She took the tote to her bed and lifted the lid.

This wasn’t the random box of keepsakes from years of her life. No, this was her Owen box.

How could grief feel so fresh after nearly fourteen years? Especially since she’d “moved on.” She was getting married to another man after all.

She lifted a Third Day t-shirt out of the box. The one the search-and-rescue K9 had used to find him.

Sitting down on the bed beside the box, she held the shirt to her nose and inhaled. The smell of the boy she had loved had faded greatly over the years, but it was still there, jettisoning her into the past.

Owen had died too young. And a part of her had died that day too.

She’d worked through so much of the grief over the years, and allowing herself to learn to love Josh had been the biggest piece of her healing. Why did her heart still hurt at the thought of Owen?

She poked through the box. Movie stubs. A little plastic ring he’d bought her from a gumball machine. Letters they’d written to one another. She even had the ones she’d written him. His mom had given them to her when she helped her go through his room.

So many memories, reduced to a box of mementos. Is that all his life had become?

A soft knock sounded on the door to her room, bringing her back to the present.

Josh stood in the threshold. “Everything all right?”

She nodded and patted the bed next to her.

He sat and ran his hand up and down her back.

“I found my Owen box.”

“Ah.” He scooted a little closer. “Show me?”

“Are you sure? Is it weird?”

“Owen is a part of your past. You can’t erase that, nor would I want you to.”

Poirot bounded into the room and came straight to her. He sniffed the shirt, barked, and then sat.

Josh said, “See, even Poirot knows Owen is part of who you are.”