The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

I see you, darling. I love you.

The vehicle disappeared around the bend, and the sound of the engine gradually grew fainter and fainter, until all he could hear were the sounds of the birds chirping, the wind rustling through the trees and grass, the waves gently slapping against the shore, and his jagged breathing as he battled to keep the emergent, harsh sobs at bay.

In the end, the anguish of loss was just too unbearable, and he sank down onto the sand, clutched his knees to his chest and grieved.

Three months later

“Are you happy, Charity?”

Faith’s unexpected question threw Charity for a loop. They were in a bustling coffee shop, having their weekly brunch. Catching up on gossip. And suddenly this.

Why was she asking? Did Charity not seem happy? Did her family catch occasional glimpses of the loneliness and yearning she still felt for something she could no longer have?

When they had started family therapy, it had been with the understanding that there would be no more life-altering secrets among them. But Charity didn’t feel like she was keeping secrets. Her family knew about Miles. Knew how much he meant to her. Knew that she had to be missing him.

So technically there were no real secrets here. Just unspoken truths.

“Why do you ask?”

“I have it penciled into my schedule,” Faith informed her somberly. “The first day of every third month, ask Charity about happiness.”

Charity’s eyes widened. “What? Seriously?”

“Of course not, you ditz,” her sister laughed, taking a sip from her chocolate latte, before elaborating. “But I have decided that it’s something I need to ask you more often. To allow you space to…I dunno, talk. If you want to.”

“I’m fine, sis,” Charity said, offering Faith a small smile. “I’m doing well, I’m content. But…” She sighed and shook her head. “No. I’m not happy.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I m-miss him so much,” she confessed, stumbling over the words in her haste to get them out.

Faith wrapped her palms around her cup of coffee and sucked her upper lip into her mouth as she scrutinized Charity’s face.

“It’s funny,” she began, her tone of voice almost wondering, as she continued to stare at Charity like she had never seen her before.

“What is?”

“After Blaine died, I thought you were sad. Missing him. The usual things, you know? Grieving. But with the gift of hindsight, and seeing you as you are now…Charity, this is real sorrow. You had something special and you lost it. And it broke your heart. And I wish I knew how to make it better for you.”

“Talking helps,” she admitted.

“So why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“Because I feel like that person, you know? That person who can never be happy and content. Who always finds a reason to be miserable. I’m supposed to be happy. I have everything I thought I wanted…I have you all back. I’m starting my own practice. I have old friends and new. I don’t feel weighted down by my past anymore. I still have so much PTSD to work through after my life with Blaine…but it no longer feels like the sum total of who I am. I should be happy.”

“But you’re not. And that’s okay.”

“Is it? It was supposed to be a fling. Nothing more. I was never meant to be hung up on him.”

Faith snorted and waved her hand impatiently.

“You’re not ‘hung up’ on him. You’re in love with him. Big difference, sis. One suggests an impractical obsession with a past lover. The other indicates depth of feeling, a realness that cannot be casually dismissed.”

“He helped me overcome so much…but he was also the first man after Blaine, and I thought I was rebounding or something. He took me by surprise, you know. I always thought he was this aloof, terse, tense man with few friends, no hobbies and no concept of how to let loose and have fun. He always struck me as a guy with a giant stick up his butt.”

“He was none of those things, I take it?”

“One of the first things he did after arriving at the house for his convalescence was rescue a flea-bitten, skinny pup. I mean, she was a raggedy, sad looking little thing, but he thought she was the most beautiful freaking dog in the world. He named her Stormy, and they fell instantly in love and were inseparable from the very beginning. He lost his appetite at a farmhouse restaurant because some chickens wandered into the yard, and he was concerned that we were eating one of their offspring.