He nods. “Quite positive. It’s just déjà vu, I guess.”

I let it go, even though it makes me uneasy. If I don’t shield Finn from distress, he could have an episode. Obviously, I couldn’t shield him from losing mom, but I do my best to protect him from everything else. It’s a heavy thing to shoulder, but if Finn can carry his cross, I can certainly carry mine. I unfold another sweater, then toss it in the Goodwill pile.

“After mine, we’ll have to do yours,” I point out. He nods.

“Yeah. And then maybe we should do mom’s.”

I suck in a breath. While I would like nothing more, just in the name of moving forward, there’s no way.

“Dad would kill us,” I dismiss the idea.

“True,” Finn acknowledges, handing me a long sleeve t-shirt for the Keep pile. “But maybe he needs a nudge. It’s been two months. She doesn’t need her shoes by the backdoor anymore.”

He’s right. She doesn’t need them. Just like she doesn’t need her make-up laid out by her sink the way she left it, or her last book sitting face down to mark its page beside her reading chair. She’ll never finish that book. But to be fair to my dad, I don’t think I could throw her things out yet, either.

“Still,” I answer. “It’s his place to decide when it’s time. Not ours. We’re going away. He’s the one who will be here with the memories. Not us.”

“That’s why I’m worried,” Finn tells me. “He’s going to be here in this huge house alone. Well, not alone. Surrounded by dead bodies and mom’s memory. That’s even worse.”

Knowing how I hate to be alone, and how I especially hate to be alone in our big house, I shudder.

“Maybe that’s why he wants to rent out the Carriage House,” I offer. “So he’s not so alone up here.”

“Maybe.”

Finn reaches over and flips on some music, and I let the thumping bass fill the silence while we sort through my clothes. Usually, our silence is comfortable and we don’t need to fill it. But today, I feel unsettled. Tense. Anxious.

“Have you been writing lately?” I ask to make small-talk. He’s always scribbling in his journal. And even though I’m the one who’d gotten it for him for Christmas a couple of years ago, he won’t let me read it. Not since he showed it to me one time and I’d freaked out.

“Of course.”

Of course. It’s pretty much all he does. Poems, Latin, nonsense… you name it, he writes it.

“Can I read any of it yet?”

“No.”

His answer is definite and firm.

“Ok.” I don’t argue with that tone of voice, because, honestly, I’m a bit nervous to see what’s in there anyway. But he does pause and turn to me.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you for not running to mom and dad. When you read it that one time, I mean. It’s just my outlet, Cal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

His blue eyes pierce me, straight into my soul. Because I know I probably should’ve gone to them. And I probably would’ve, if mom hadn’t died. But I didn’t, and everything has been fine since then.

Fine. If I think hard enough on that word, then it will be true.

“You’re welcome,” I say softly, trying not to think of the gibberish I’d read, the scary words, the scary thoughts, scribbled and crossed out, and scrawled again. Over and over. Out of all of it, though, one thing stood out as most troubling. One phrase. It wasn’t the odd sketches of people with their eyes and faces and mouths scratched out, it wasn’t the odd and dark poems, it was one phrase.

Put me out of my misery.

Scrawled over and over, filling up two complete pages. I’ve watched him like a hawk ever since. He smiles now, encouraging me to forget it, like it’s just his outlet. He’s fine now. He’s fine. If I had a journal, I’d scrawl that on the pages, over and over, to make it true.

“Hey, I’m going to go to Group again today. Do you want to come with? If not, I can go myself.”

This startles me. He normally only goes twice a week. Have I missed something? Is he worse? Is he slipping? I fight to keep my voice casual.

“Again? Why?”

He shrugs, like it’s no big deal, but his hands are still shaking.

“I dunno. I think it’s all the change. It makes me feel antsy.”

And shaky? I don’t ask that though. Instead, I just nod, like I’m not at all freaked out. “Of course I’ll go.”

Of course, because he needs me.

An hour later, we’ve walked down the hallways filled with our mother’s pictures, past her bedroom filled with her clothes, and are driving to town in the car she bought us. We both pointedly avoid looking at the place where she plunged over the side of the mountain. We don’t need to see it again.

Our mother is still all around us. Everywhere. Yet nowhere. Not really.

It’s enough to drive the sanest person mad. No wonder Finn wants extra therapy.

I leave him in front of his Group room, and watch him disappear inside.

I take my book to the café today for a cup of coffee. I’ve grown accustomed to the rain making me sleepy since I’ve lived in Astoria all my life. But I’ve also learned that caffeine is an effective Band-Aid.

I grab my cup and head to the back, slumping into a booth, prepared to bury my nose in my book.

I’m just opening the cover when I feel him.

I feel him.

Again.

Before I even look up, I know it’s him. I recognize the feel in the air, the very palpable energy. I felt the same thing in my dreams, this impossible pull. What the hell? Why do I keep bumping into him?

When I look up, I find that he’s seen me, too.

His eyes are frozen on me as he waits in line, so dark, so fathomless. This energy between us… I don’t know what it is. Attraction? Chemistry? All I know is, it steals my breath and speeds up my heart. The fact that he’s invading my dreams makes me crave this feeling even more. It brings me out of my reality and into something new and exciting, into something that has hope and life.

I watch as he pays for his coffee and sweet roll, and as his every step leads him to my back booth. There are ten other tables, all vacant, but he chooses mine.

His black boots stop next to me, and I skim up his denim-clad legs, over his hips, up to his startlingly handsome face. He still hasn’t shaved, so his stubble is more pronounced today. It makes him seem even more mature, even more of a man. As if he needs the help.

I can’t help but notice the way his soft blue shirt hugs his solid chest, the way his waist narrows as it slips into his jeans, the way he seems lean and lithe and powerful. Gah. I yank my eyes up to meet his. I find amusement there.

“Is this seat taken?”

Sweet Lord. He’s got a British accent. There’s nothing sexier in the entire world, which makes that old tired pick-up line forgivable. I smile up at him, my heart racing.

“No.”

He doesn’t move. “Can I take it, then? I’ll share my breakfast with you.”

He slightly gestures with his gooey, pecan-crusted roll.

“Sure,” I answer casually, expertly hiding the fact that my heart is racing fast enough to explode. “But I’ll pass on the breakfast. I’m allergic to nuts.”

“More for me, then,” he grins, as he slides into the booth across from me, ever so casually, as though he sits with strange girls in hospitals all of the time. I can’t help but notice that his eyes are so dark they’re almost black.

“Come here often?” he quips, as he sprawls out in the booth. I have to chuckle, because now he’s just going down the list of cliché lines, and they all sound amazing coming from his British lips.

“Fairly,” I nod. “You?”

“They have the best coffee around,” he answers, if that even is an answer. “But let’s not tell anyone, or they’ll start naming the coffee things we can’t pronounce, and the lines will get unbearable.”

I shake my head, and I can’t help but smile. “Fine. It’ll be our secret.”

He stares at me, his dark eyes shining. “Good. I like secrets. Everyone’s got ‘em.”