Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
I laughed, but then his mouth grew more commanding, and I knew the talking was done for the night. I was okay with that.
I was happy.
• • •
Reese was right. Life happened after that. A lot of life.
His father emerged from rehab six months later sober and he remained that way. Reese got his dad back. It wasn’t quite the same with his mother. She was treated for chronic depression, survivor’s guilt, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Through the years, she had ups and downs, but she continued to struggle the rest of her life. She was in and out of mental hospitals, but she tried. She really tried.
As for Damian, the first day he met Reese, he beamed from ear to ear. He ate all of his meals. The nurses marveled at how happy he’d been. By that time, he’d already forgotten about me. I was his friend who watched sporting games with him, and then I became Reese Forster’s woman.
I always got a little sad when he called me that. He never understood why, and I never shared. It was easier to go with the new name. It was the happiest for him. He was proud to know me.
He forgot AJ, but not Mickey or his mother. He remembered both to the end.
He passed in his sleep, five years from Roman’s death. The nurses never heard his bed alarm. When they checked on him for their three am rounds, he was gone.
My family came around, but it wasn’t a happily-ever-after ending with them. They were excited to meet Reese, but I was never able to get past what had happened with Damian. A piece of my heart had died, and though I tried to put it back, it never filled again. I was on polite terms with my family. Polite, but distant, and it stayed that way even while I worked close by in marketing for Echo Island Camp.
I remained with the camp for two years, going back and forth from Seattle.
I only needed to be there half the time, when I was in charge of photo ops and had to document all the busy camp schedules. Reese came with me if he wasn’t training in his off-season, and during my off-season at work, I went where Reese was.
I put in my resignation when I was ready for a career change—and remember that book I said I was going to do for therapy? I finished it.
I published it.
And I’m pretty sure two people bought it: one was Reese, and the other was Stan.
Reese offered to post it on his social media, but I didn’t want that. I wrote that book about Damian and me. It was our relationship, and I enjoyed knowing it was out there in the netherworld of sales. Over the next six months, three more people bought it.
Thank you, whoever you are.
As for Reese and I…
“I’m going to murder you!”
I was holding on to his hand in a death grip, my thighs spread wide, and it wasn’t his head between my legs. A fucking basketball was coming out of me.
I know, I know.
I would love the little basketball. I would adore it. This twenty-two hours of pain would be worth it, or so I’d been promised. The outlook wasn’t pointing that way, but then the doctor looked up. His face serious, his mouth in a perpetual firm line, he said the three most heavenly words that made me want to profess my undying adoration of him.
“One. Last. Push.”
Well, I pushed.
I heaved.
I tried to punish Reese by breaking his hand, and he was cringing, but I knew it wasn’t because of me. His gaze was fixed firmly on that doctor too, and then, with a last shove—I was trying here, so bad, but the epidural was working wonderfully—thank goodness—then the basketball was out of me.
I paused, holding my breath, tears streaming down my face.
The doctor lifted up our little basketball, curled up in a fetal position, all wrinkly and purple, and he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“She’s a girl!” the doctor announced.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Reese was crying. I was crying, and a heartbeat later, she was crying. See. We were the most perfect family there was.
We named her Echo, call me a sentimental mess, but that’s where Reese and I met. Echo Roman Forster, and yes, her last name matched mine because Reese and I tied the knot a year ago.
Holding Echo, holding Reese’s hand, feeling a swell of feelings, I couldn’t help myself. With the doctor still there, and a roomful of nurses, I asked no one in particular, “Thoughts on why we don’t set toilet paper vertical instead of horizontal?”
THE END