Page 1 of Letting Go at 40

Prologue

Present Day

September

On The Beach

[Mason]

As I stand on the shore of Lake Michigan, skipping rocks in the quiet morning hours, my heart is as full as my pocket. I’ve been down here on the hunt for heart-shaped rocks. Easy to spy when you aren’t looking; difficult to find when you are.

I never imagined I’d be where I am. The place. The position I’m in. The edge of everything I ever wanted.

I had been cocky and confident at eighteen, I never thought I wouldn’t get the girl. So many things had come effortlessly to me in my life, I hadn’t considered that she wouldn’t be the same. I thought she’d pick me.

I was wrong then.

She chose a better boy who turned into the best of men. They loved long and hard, and I’d give anything to have him back again.

We both lost someone two years ago. We both loved him.

However, I’ve been pining for her for twenty-five years. Mourning a different loss all this time. The perfect girl.

She might have only been grieving for two years, but her sorrow started the moment he was diagnosed. When the stopwatch started ticking, and there wasn’t a race to be won but one to be lost at the end.

Besides, there isn’t a structure for grief. No time limit or end date. Each person grieves in their own way.

In the peaceful minutes before the beach fills with friends and family, I stare out at a rock I skipped, hopping one, two, three, four times before dropping beneath the still-calm water.

Four summers.

Four directions.

Four friends. Zack, Logan, me, and Ben.

Staring up at the bright blue sky, the color nearly matches my lost friend’s eyes. It isn’t something guys might notice about one another, but Ben had the friendliest eyes. Laughter often in them; disappointment on occasion. Sadness and fear at the end.

If I could bring you back, man . . . The thought filters through my head, silently sent up to the heavens. While I was cock-sure and unflappable at eighteen, at forty-three I’m certain I do not have the power to return someone from the dead.

And Ben is dead.

The cold hard truth is my best friend died two years ago.

I didn’t plan for things to happen as they have. I never in my wildest dreams suspected I’d ever be here, standing on her beach, a pocket full of heart-shaped rocks, and my heart on the line.

I saw her growing old with him. We’d all grow old together. A family of friends, full of faults but filled with love, always love.

But Ben is gone, his life cut short too soon. Anna will live out her still-young days with someone else.

I blink in the growing brightness of a new day. Or maybe I’m just overcome with emotion.

“Thank you, man,” I whisper. Thank you for trusting me with your care in the end. Thank you for believing in me when I didn’t see it myself. Thank you for showing me the way when I was missing something, and I just didn’t know what that something was.

I’m more grateful than the spoiled eighteen-year-old I’d been when we met. More grateful than a man had a right to be, and I wouldn’t give any of it back.

Not the friendship.

Not the love.