Luc-ass said he’d have everything packed up and moved by the next day.

I didn’t tell him, but I was going to release the tape anyway. I was just waiting for the right day.

The internet needed to know about the likes of Newt.

? ? ?

“You’re okay staying here until you find a place?”

Bless Sophia’s heart. She had no idea how to make things right for me.

It was past the weekend now. Time was coming back to me. I was starting to adjust to this new life, but I was a zombie.

Still numb.

But I knew I was five days post-Reese.

He would’ve had his away game, then gone to New York.

“Did he win?” I asked Sophia.

She swallowed. She knew who I meant.

“They lost their Wednesday game, but won against New York.”

Good.

That was good.

? ? ?

“We have a retreat this weekend,” Owen was saying to Grant.

We were at a staff meeting, going over budget and planning. Why was I there? They still didn’t quite trust me to be alone.

A month had gone by.

Nothing felt better.

I’d left him because of that, right? Didn’t I?

Things were supposed to feel better by now. Be better.

Why did I feel so wrong?

“I think I fucked up,” I said to no one in particular.

? ? ?

I was packing again, throwing things into my bag in a mad rush.

I had an audience at the door.

Hadley took a breath. “Oh boy.”

Grant frowned. He rarely didn’t frown when he saw me now. “Are you sure this is a smart idea?”

Owen flinched in pain, rotating his shoulder over and over again.

Sophia leaned forward, her eyes bright and shining from unshed tears. “We can call Trent. He said he was doing some traveling this weekend. Maybe he could meet you? So you have a friend there, unless you want one of us to come along?”

“No.” I was firm. I’d made up my mind.

“Oh boy,” Hadley said again.

“Charlie. I don’t know…” Sophia began.

Grant cursed, stepping into the room. “This is not a smart idea. Remember what you said to me? You wouldn’t recover? Now you’re going to him. Charlie, I don’t think—”

I whirled to them. “I don’t care!”

I stopped, my chest heaving.

Time and thought and me—all of it slammed back into place at once, and suddenly I was in my room at Grant and Sophia’s house. My friends were standing in the hallway, scared to come and talk me down, but also worried about letting me go.

They were terrified—of me, but for me.

And that was on me.

I had done this. To myself. To them. Me. No one else.

“I fucked up,” the words regurgitated from me, full of disdain for myself. “I’ve made a mess of everything. And I’m better. I’m okay, but I have to do this. You guys don’t have to worry about me. I promise. I will be okay. I just—I have to do this before I move on.”

“But going and seeing him. I mean—”

I cut Hadley off this time. “I have to let him go. I never did before. I need to do it this time or I’ll never be able to move on. I have to do this.”

I zipped up my bag, pulled it onto my back, and faced them.

No one moved aside.

I let out a sigh. “I’m really okay. I promise.”

I wasn’t, but I would be.

That was a promise.

I woke the next morning in a hotel.

I felt damn good, and there was a sadness with it because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like this—like I knew what I wanted in life, I knew what I needed to do, and I was filled with hope. With Damian, I’d lost hope.

That’s the saddest part of grieving someone—whether they’re still with you or not, whether it’s a relationship or not. You’re fighting to keep hope, but when the last of that string is cut, that’s where you get lost.

That’s where I’d been for too many years, but not anymore.

I knew. In all the madness and confusion and wackiness, clarity had come to me, and once I got it, it was a ray of sun breaking through the clouds. I clung to it, and the longer it stayed with me, the stronger I got.

This. This was what I needed to do first. I got out of my car and went inside the Silver Shores Assisted Living facility.

Damian’s mom met me at the door. Her hair was cut short, a dirty blonde similar to Damian’s when we’d first started dating. She had the same angular, long face, and the same blue eyes. She watched me cautiously, which stopped me in my tracks.

Jesus.

Damian had lost some of his looks as the dementia progressed. He’d lost the muscle definition, and the freshness of youth I hadn’t started to appreciate until later in life. His hair was greasy half the time, and uncombed the other.

But seeing his mother now, a wave of memories flooded me.

“Hi. I’m Damian, and I suck at hitting on women, but I still wanted to come over and try with you. So consider this my lame pick-up line.” He had smiled, holding his hand out in the middle of a busy bar, as if we were meeting in a boardroom.

His eyes had twinkled.

Sandy brown hair in a crew cut, a golden tan from the summer months, and a form that showed he lifted weights on the regular—I’d been taken aback. Not by him, not by the simple pick-up line, but because he’d laughed after he held his hand out.