It’s crazy to think that one session with her made me talk about deeper feelings than any therapist did when it all happened. But maybe I just wasn’t ready back then. Or I didn’t have as big a reason as I do now to finally let it go and heal. Which is sad really, that I didn’t want to heal enough for just myself, but now I’m letting some woman beat the hell out of me so I can become the woman I want to be for Forrest.

Sipping on the last of the amber fluid in the glass, I know this will take time, but I feel hopeful.

Holding my phone in my hand, the constant itch to message Forrest is there, but it’s like I’m testing my willpower by not doing it.

Instead, I open up my photo app and start to scroll through my camera roll of all the pictures from last weekend in St. Tropez. I don’t even realize that I’m grinning so hard. So many photos of us girls, shopping, drinking, and laughing until it hurts. Of course, there are ones of the guys playing volleyball, and Forrest might be the absolute hottest guy on the planet, but the other three aren’t far behind him, and I’m not afraid to admit that.

But my favorite photo is the one I snapped at the cooking class of Forrest plating his dish up and laughing with Flynn over the competition on who had cooked the best dish. He is in his happy place and finally starting to let his brother get to know him on a deeper level. Part of me is proud of myself because I did that. Pushing him to let me see the real him, and then encouraging him to share that man with his family and friends.

Putting my phone away, I wonder what he is up to now. Probably in his office working, trying to distract himself from how frustrated he is with me. Same, Forrest, I’m frustrated with me too.

Messaging for my car to be brought to the valet, I stand and walk to the front door of the bar with my shadow man in black behind me, and I just feel soulless. Yet I’ve lived with this hollow feeling all my adult life, but it took a grumpy, arrogant man to make me want more.

Sitting in the back seat on the drive to Flynn and Felisha’s apartment, I’m hoping that I gave them plenty of time on their own tonight. Flynn was in a terrible mood this morning. Not talking, it was more of a grunt, and he couldn’t look me in the eye. I never thought he was like his brother, but this morning, I could have sworn it was Forrest in the kitchen the way he was grumbling to himself.