Page 98 of Midnight Ink

What I have is now. It’s something tangible and fucking incredible. If I don’t stop living in the past, I’ll lose everything all over again. Maddox will always be the love of my life, but I know that’s not right either. Maddox isn’t there alone. Julian is everything good in my life. Every day I wake up just excited to see him. These last two weeks were the best moments I’ve ever had, and I know the truth.

I’m in love with Julian in the least platonic way possible. I love him so much, and I broke his heart. I need to see him, but he asked for space. I’m trying to respect that.

Everything is a mess and I only have my fucked-up brain to thank for it.

Why did I freeze like that?

I decide to get up and get dressed. In my kitchen I drop onto the breakfast nook and scrub my hand down my face.

What am I waiting for? Honestly.

I know grief looks different for everyone, but I think mine is slowly killing me. I’m done with this feeling. It’s like I’m stuck in wet cement while the world around me keeps on moving. It feels impossible to move my feet and take a step.

The hard truth is this.

Jules is right.

Madd isn’t coming home. There will never be another him. Not in this lifetime. I bury my face in my hands, sucking in a deep breath, just feeling it. I let it hurt and suffocate me. For the first time I just let myself feel it.

He’s never coming home.

He’s never coming back to me, or Anna, or Jamie.

He’s never going to tattoo or say horrible pick-up lines to me.

I won’t ever fall asleep with him beside me.

I won’t ever wake up to him snoring in my ear.

He’s gone, and my life with him is also gone.

I have to make some sort of peace with it. Maybe not peace, but understanding. I’m alive. I’m here. And if I don’t start treating the people around me right, I’ll be alone, and that’s the last thing on earth I want.

The shop is mine whether I wanted it or not. Tough shit. It’s mine. It’s my responsibility. I was twenty-one and terrified when Maddox bought this place, but that version of me is gone.

I’m not the same person I was before he died.

Back then I didn’t want this responsibility, but now . . . now I do. I want it to succeed. I want to honor him, but I need to do it my way.

No.

Our way. Jules’s and mine, because he’s part of this too.

I grab a spiral notebook off my table and flip it open. Ideas. Change. Things I want to do for the shop. Things I want Jules’s input about. I’m feeling stuck.

My gaze drifts to the ashes on the counter.

For years I’ve lived my life trying to do what I thought Madd would want, making myself miserable in the process. The truth is hard, but it’s reality. Maddox is gone. Anna is here. Jules is here.

I am here.

It’s our shop now.

I jot down immediate changes that can be done quickly with little money involved. We need to move the appointments for the rest of the month, and I hope Anna can take care of that on Monday. We need this month to reset. We can’t keep burning ourselves out like this. I can’t keep asking that of Julian. We need help.

We also need to hire people.

I pause, pen hovering over the page, then look back at the ashes. I don’t want to scatter them. He always wanted to visit the island, but I like to think he’d want to be here with me more. In the shop. Beside me while I tattoo.