“I don’t know. I mean, I bought my house, and I need to fix it up. I took a job that starts in September.” I shrugged.

“And past that? What about long term?”

“That is long term.” Anything past this week was long term as far as I was concerned.

Her brow puckered for a moment before she gave me an understanding nod. “Okay, and friends?”

“I have friends. There are a couple I’m still really close to, but the others…” I looked back out at the ocean like it had the answers I needed. “They moved on, and I’m stuck. Like someone pressed pause and I’m still waiting for him to come home from that deployment.”

She scribbled on her pad again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know whatever it was she wrote on that thing. “And moving here…was that looking to the future?”

Yes was what she wanted to hear. A healthy person would have said that moving here was their new start. That they were ready to wake up and greet the morning with the kind of optimism that simply didn’t exist for me.

“Be honest,” she urged, her eyes kind. “There’s no right or wrong answer. I’m just getting a feel for where you are in the process.”

“He was everywhere,” I said softly. “In Alabama, I couldn’t go anywhere without being accompanied by a memory of him. I couldn’t teach at our elementary school or eat at the same restaurants, because…he was everywhere. And everyone in our little town thought I should either be over him or setting up a shrine.”

“So you escaped.”

I nodded.

“How did your loved ones feel about the move?”

“My mother is pretty unhappy with me. She thinks a woman has no business living alone. Guess she forgets she was raising me on her own at this age. The friends I’m still close to are supportive. One of them is here, actually.”

“So you do have a support structure here?”

“Sam’s just visiting, and I can support myself.”

“And the others? The ones who have moved on, as you said?”

Guilt smacked me.

“I haven’t told them I moved. Haven’t talked to them in months, really. I can’t…I just need a break from them.” I finished the last part on a whisper. It was the first time I’d said it aloud to anyone but Sam: I couldn’t stand to be near most of my friends. My avoidance was more than declining a call once in a while. It had become methodical.

“And when is the last time you felt happy? Or at least weren’t thinking about your loss?”

Happy? I skipped right over that thought. But then again… “A few days ago, I fell through my landing,” I said slowly.

“Are you okay?” Her eyebrows rose.

“I’m bruised up, but fine. Thank you for asking.” I swallowed. “But this man—my next-door neighbor—he pulled me out, and there were a few minutes where the only pain I felt was from where I’d gotten scraped. I only thought about…Will when Jackson asked about his truck.” Heat flooded my cheeks as I twisted the cap of my water.