If anyone had told me I’d make it a year without Reid without the aid of prescription medication, I’d have told them to get their head checked. I spend Reid’s birthday with his mother. We make brownies and talk about how mad he would have been that we ate them all. Then I carry a card to his grave.
I stare at the ring on my left hand as I approach the familiar headstone. The aroma of fresh-cut grass surrounds me as I lie on the plush, green bed and stare up at the afternoon sky. People walk by and stare, but I don’t care. I feel closer to Reid this way, as if the soft blades of grass against my skin are his way of offering me comfort. Sometimes I come here just to lie down in silence and soak in his presence. Today, I spend most of the afternoon gushing about how much I love my new nursing job at an after-hours clinic close to our apartment. And how I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to go back to school. I imagine him responding with his signature smile and sarcastic humor. A lone tear falls from my eye and slides down my temple when I realize I will only see that smile and hear that voice in my own mind from now on.
“God, I miss you,” I whisper as I stand to leave.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop missing him.
The rest of my summer break ended up being pretty uneventful. I’m ready for class when the semester finally starts. It’s been said that the Bachelors of Science Nursing, or BSN, is the toughest among all undergraduate degrees—according to the 2011 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, anyway.I find myself repeating that fact over and over as a mantra that I can do this.
I made it all the way through high school—well, all the way until the night before graduation—a virgin with a 4.0 GPA while practically raising myself after my grandma died. I survived four years of the toughest, most challenging education money can buy, all while working a part-time job and maintaining a long-distance relationship. I’ve managed to keep my heart beating after it was shattered to a million unrecognizable pieces.
I can handle this.
I can handle anything.
There have been the occasional dark days when I’ve considered throwing in the towel and dropping out. There have been days when I’ve been utterly overwhelmed by the amount of work involved—from attending clinical, to the piles of classwork, to maintaining a very demanding job. At the end of those days, I ultimately realize I'm doing it because I love it. I want to be the best nurse I can be and help as many people as I can. When a patient tells me that they’ve never had a doctor listen to them this way before and how they truly appreciate being heard, it makes it worth it. And when the little widow comes in with a cough and wants to give me a hug because she has no other form of physical contact—yeah it's heartbreaking, but totally worth it. So, when I am weary and doubtful, I remind myself how strong I truly am, how strong I have to be.
From the outside it might look like I’m overdoing it or pushing myself too hard, between work and school. But inside those are the things that drive me to keep waking up every morning and do it all over again. I can do this. I am doing this. All on my own.
And in two days, I will sign on the dotted line to purchase my very first home. I couldn’t keep staring at these walls, at that front door, and wishing he would walk in. Reid is everywhere. He’s in the kitchen grinning a devilish grin while he grabs a beer and walks up behind me while I do dishes. He’s in the shower, lathering shampoo in my hair then watching the suds travel down my body. He’s on the sofa, telling me I study too much and work too hard.
When I finally move in the new house, I consider taking all our things and placing them exactly as they were when Reid and I lived together. It doesn’t take much to make me reconsider. Instead, I put all his things in one of the spare bedrooms. I’m not ready to get rid of them yet, but I can’t bear to look at them every day. I use our old furniture but decorate so that it looks nothing like the memories that torment me. I’m in the middle of hanging pictures on the wall when I come across a black and white photo Brynn took of us. It’s the photo he gave me for my nineteenth birthday. We’re at the beach, holding each other, both of us topless with our tattoos on full display. It’s always been my favorite picture of us, but today I can hardly handle looking at it. I place it on the nightstand next to my bed to keep it close to my dreams.
Then, before I know what I’m doing, I’m sitting topless in front of Raven at the same tattoo place Reid brought me to for my eighteenth birthday.
She offers her condolences and even tears up for a brief moment when I tell her what I want her to do.
“Are you sure, hun?” she asks as she prepares my skin for her proficient needle.
I glance down at the diamond ring on my finger—the ring I wear every single day and always will—and blink back a tear. “I’m sure.”
Twenty minutes later I leave with an additional two letters, “S” and “T” inscribed over my ribs alongside the original “L” and “O.”
Because that’s what I am without him. Because he’d once told me I was a hidden treasure, but he had found me.
Now he’s gone.
And I am lost.
By the end of the day I’m growing weary of my pity party of one, so I do something I promised Carlos I would. I find my way back to my comfort zone, the one place I have always felt like I belong.
I go to Suppato’s.
The minute I walk through the door, I feel at home. So many times, this restaurant has brought me solace when I couldn’t find the strength to take another breath. I’ve made so many friends over the years, and the one I value the most is watching me with a grin as I make my way to the bar.
“I was wondering when you’d come crawling back,” Jaxon teases when I finally take a seat in front of him.
“What can I say? You’re a tough habit to break.”
He wipes down the area in front of me with his white bar towel then slings the terry cloth over his shoulder. “What happened? Couldn’t take hanging out with those stuffy doctor types?”
I chuckle and roll my eyes at him. “Can’t a girl just order a drink without getting the third degree?”
He clears his throat and squares his shoulders, addressing me in an overly dramatic, formal manner, “Yes ma’am. What can I get for you this evening?”
“I’ll take a cosmo. Extra vodka.”
“Rough day at the office?” Jaxon asks as he flips a martini glass right-side-up.