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I let all the ugly truth out and it doesn't feel wrong.

It feels...

Good.

Not because the pain is gone.

It isn't.

Damiano is still dead and I still miss him so much I don't know what to do with all the years I'm supposed to live without him.

But for the first time, I'm not fighting the pain, I'm feeling it.

Losing Damiano changed me.

The woman I was before I lost him is gone. I've spent fourteen months trying to find her, trying to understand why I can't be her anymore.

But maybe I'm not supposed to be.

Maybe this broken, lost, bleeding soul is part of me now.

Angry.

Hurting.

Lost.

Still fucking bleeding.

And I'm allowed to exist like this.

I'm allowed to take up space like this.

I'm done hiding myself behind closed doors because my pain makes people uncomfortable. I'm done drowning it in alcohol and pretending it isn't there. I'm done trying to make my grief smaller so the rest of the world doesn't have to look at it.

I won't make myself smaller ever again.

I close my eyes and drag in a shaky breath.

Then another.

And for the first time in what feels like forever, breathing doesn't feel quite so hard.

Jude is still sitting beside me, holding me.

He hasn't said a word.

After a while, he loosens his hold on me, but he doesn't move away completely.

“You okay?”

I look around the room.

“I think so.”

He nods once. “Come on.”

I push myself to my feet, my legs still unsteady beneath me. Jude reaches for the bat, but I stop him.