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“Let me ask you something else instead then.” She waits until I look at her again. “Do you want to get better?”
I worry my lower lip. “Of course I do.”
“Then you have to start confronting the things that scare you.” Her hand rests lightly on the invitation. “I think you’re looking at it all wrong. Maybe this reunion isn’t a punishment, but a blessing in disguise.”
“You don’t know Fairhope.” I scoff.
“No.” She smiles sadly. “But I know you.” She watches me intently. “You’re stronger than you believe you are, Max. So much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Take this opportunity and see for yourself that old ghosts can never hurt you again. You are not that girl anymore.”
I lean back against the couch and watch the January snow dance past the window.
“You have nine months,” Dr. Roberts says quietly. “Nine months to prepare yourself. Nine months to decide whether you’re ready to go home.” A long silence settles between us. “I’ll help you every step of the way. Give you the right tools to prepare yourself for when the time comes. But the decision has to be yours. You alone have to decide to take that next step and face the world head-on.”
I continue watching the snow. “It’s funny. My publisher said something similar earlier today.”
“Similar how?”
“She insinuated that I spend too much time hiding from the world.” I swallow. “You all make it sound like the world is this big beautiful place—”
“It can be.”
I look over at her. “Not for everyone.”
“No,” Dr. Roberts agrees softly. “Not for everyone.” She lets the silence linger before adding, “But you’ll never know which version of the world is waiting for you… if you never step back into it.”
When she sees I’m not going to dignify that statement with a reply, she concedes. She always knows exactly where to push me, and when to fall back.
“No need to decide now. Like I said, you have nine months to think about it. Maybe you’ll feel differently by then.”
“Maybe,” I lie.
Hell has a better chance of freezing over than me ever going back to Fairhope.
Chapter 1
Saturday
Huh. So I guess hell did freeze over after all.
It’s the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for being parked on the empty road leading into Fairhope—the one place I swore I’d never return to.
Okay, maybe there is another reason I’m sitting here at the border of hell. One that has nothing to do with Satan putting on his ice skates.
And no, it wasn’t my psychiatrist encouraging me to face old ghosts so I could finally heal that got me here. Nor was it Cathie urging me to go to this godforsaken reunion so I could show everyone who made my life a living nightmare just how well I’ve done for myself. It wasn’t even my editor’s persistence that I should take baby steps back into the real world in the hope that I’d eventually agree to all the in-person events she keeps trying to convince me to attend. It was none of these things.
The reason I’m here comes down to two words no writer ever wants to say out loud—writer’s block. That’s what this stupid decision to drive eight hours from New York to Maine all boils down to. A severe case of fucking writer’s block. Brought on the very day I received that aggravating ten-year reunion invitation. Ever since then, I haven’t been able to write diddly squat. Not one word.
Well… that’s a lie. I have written words. Just none worth a shit. And no, this isn’t me being hypercritical. It’s the consensus of everyone I foolishly let read what I’d been working on since I finished Crashing Echoes.
Even Erin is worried, and that woman is a rock.
So here I am, in fucking Fairhope.
If touching that reunion invitation is what cursed me with the worst case of writer’s block I’ve ever had, then the only solution I could think of was to go straight to the source and break whatever dark juju my hometown has dumped on me.
Still, thinking of doing something and actually doing it are two very different things. Which brings us back to where I am now—parked in the middle of the road, staring at the sign welcoming me to my dreaded home.
Welcome to Fairhope
