When she found the day’s date, she sucked in her breath. He was there. In New York City. Playing that night at City Winery.

She had to go.

She couldn’t go.

Could she?

xxiii

I’d been seeing Dr. West for six months, crying in her office about you, about your dad, about my mom, about all the things that would never be, could never be, when she suggested I start a journal. I could write it to someone I missed—maybe to my mother, she suggested—and tell my story, get everything out, get it all down, how I felt, what I thought, and in doing so, I could figure out a way to keep my whole life moving forward. I bought a notebook thinking I would write to my mom, but instead, once I sat down, I started writing to you. I’m still not sure why. But it has helped. It really has.

Though I guess this is as much for me as it is for anyone. In some ways, I’ve been writing to myself, telling myself my story, looking at the details and making sense of them through a lens of distance and time. That probably was Dr. West’s intent all along.

Now I only dream about your father sometimes, instead of every night. And I dream about you even less. I cringe to write that, but it’s true. I didn’t think I’d feel guilty for healing. But I guess, in some ways, I do.

31

Emily stared at the computer screen. The show was starting in half an hour. Maybe she could go, stand in the back, leave before it was over. He’d never know she was there. She’d get to see him perform, get to hear him, and then, her curiosity satisfied, she could go.

And if it was too hard, if it made her think too much about the life she didn’t lead, she could leave even earlier. After one song. That would be fine, too.

Emily made a deal with herself. She’d call the box office for tickets and if one was available, she would go. Put it in the hands of the universe. Her mom’s voice popped into her mind then: Everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen. She’d see if this was meant to happen.

As she called, she wasn’t sure what she wanted the outcome to be. Would she regret it if she didn’t go? Regret it if she did?

“I’d like a bar stool ticket to Austin Roberts’s show tonight,” she said. “If there are any still available.”

“You’re in luck,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “We’ve got two left.”

“I only need one,” Emily replied, and gave her name and her credit card information.

The universe had wanted it to happen.