The kiss ended all too soon. Rider shifted off me and sat up, lifting my legs so they were in his lap, and I sort of lay there, arms lax at my sides as I stared at him. A goofy smile split my lips, and I didn’t care. I was thinking about how we could utilize the remaining fifty minutes.
“How’re things with Dr. Taft?” he asked as he shifted his legs, spreading them a little. “I didn’t get the chance to ask you yesterday.”
Huh? I started to frown. I was over here thinking about getting back to kissing and other stuff, really nice stuff, and he just mentioned my therapist’s name?
Rider smacked my leg lightly and chuckled. “Focus.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but focusing was hard when my body felt like I’d been out lying in the sun. “It was...good. We talked about how I was feeling and how I was...handling stress.”
I’d started seeing Dr. Taft once every two weeks again. Mainly because I felt like I needed someone who wasn’t a part of everyday life to just...talk things out, because I still had work on myself to do. It had been really depressing at first, because it had been two years since I’d spent time in his office. Like I’d somehow gone back into the past instead of progressing forward, but Taft drilled something into my head that was so important. Something I’d already known, but really needed to understand.
The past never went away and it was not designed to do so.
It would always be there, and it should be acknowledged. Dr. Taft insisted that attempting to erase the past would only lead to a crisis in the future, and he was right. My past could not be surgically cut out of me. It couldn’t be removed from Rider. What happened to Jayden couldn’t be forgotten.
My past was a part of me and it molded who I was today, but it was not the sum of who I was to become. It did not control me.
Rider leaned over and found my hand. He threaded his fingers through mine and squeezed. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest and I squeezed his hand back. I thought with Jayden dying, it had Rider on his toes. Having mortality smack you in the face would do that. “You won’t.”
“Good.” Rider smiled as he tugged me up into a sitting position. His other hand cupped my cheek, and he kissed me once more, sweet and soft. He pulled back just enough so that his warm breath danced along my lips. “I think I want to kiss you again.”
“I’m more than okay with that,” I told him, and I smiled.
Truthfully, I was okay with...with myself. I wasn’t a hundred percent, and that was okay, because I was a work in progress. There were moments when things felt too much, like the other day when I had to stand up and deliver another speech. There were other situations, especially when I thought about the fact that I’d be in college in less than a year. Or when I found my mind wandering to Jayden. Death was frightening and overwhelming. Sometimes, when I thought about what Ainsley was facing in the future, I stressed out for her.
I still had a lot of work to do and that was my work to complete and it was my voice that needed to be heard when I needed to speak. No one else. It was me who had to carry myself over the finish line, and all I needed to remember when I felt like not trying was that that feeling wouldn’t last forever.
Forever.
I used to believe it didn’t exist. One word had terrified me as a child and haunted me. But now I knew, in many small ways, that it was real, but it didn’t scare me anymore. Forever wasn’t the little girl cowering in the closet. Forever wasn’t the shadow sitting in the back of the class. Forever wasn’t doing what I thought Carl and Rosa wanted instead of what I needed to do with my life. Forever wasn’t believing I was some kind of replacement daughter and that I was letting them down. Forever wasn’t being the one who needed protection.
Forever wasn’t pain and grief.
Forever wasn’t a problem.
Forever was my heartbeat and it was the hope tomorrow held. Forever was the glistening silver lining of every dark cloud, no matter how heavy and thick it was. Forever was knowing moments of weakness didn’t equate to an eternity of them. Forever was knowing that I was strong. Forever was Carl and Rosa, Ainsley and Keira, Hector and Rider. Jayden would always be a part of my forever. Forever was the fire-breathing dragon inside me that had shed the fear like a snake shedding skin. Forever was simply a promise of more.
Forever was a work in progress.
And I couldn’t wait for forever.