Before You Break

“That’s why I responded that way, Qui

“I need you to leave me alone.” I started trekking down the hill toward the water.

“Don’t you see, Qui

I froze for a split second from the sheer implausibility of her statement. I was angry and embarrassed and miserable and I needed to get the hell away from her.

When I spoke to her, I didn’t think I’d ever heard my voice come out so quietly. “Please. Please just leave me alone.”

And she didn’t come after me. She just let me go.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ella

I watched as Qui

But there’d been something different about this Daniel. He had grown and healed, and he seemed almost numb to me. Maybe resigned. That last part hurt the worst.

I didn’t see how any of this could be resolved. Could even work between us. And now I understood why there were rules about this very thing in mental health facilities. Because it’s essentially a one-sided relationship. One person was the wounded and the other person was the healer.

Even still, there was always a give-and-take. After infusing someone’s sorrow inside your soul, it was nearly impossible not to come away transformed. And sometimes there was that one person who changed you so much, that you were altered for life.

Because you held their very essence—their very sanity—in the palm of your hand. And there was no way you could be left unscathed.

And I’d decided right in that moment what I absolutely, without question, had to do.

I needed to place my soul in the palm of Qui

I stood up, dusted myself off, and silently made my way down the hill. Qui

When he heard twigs snapping beneath my feet, his back stiffened. Even still, he didn’t turn around. I picked up the nearest stick and began marring the pebbled sand below me. Prepping myself for what I was about to say.

I moved closer behind him and then let my words flow out.

“The night that Christopher took his own life,” I began, and he twisted slightly toward the sound of my voice, “I was supposed to come home earlier from a party I’d attended with my high school friends.”

I had never before uttered these next words to anybody except my therapist, in the small confines of her office, over a box of Kleenex. I noticed how Qui

“But there was this guy at the party. Someone from another school,” I breathed out. “I’d seen him before and he was really cute and cool.”

I turned and stepped away even though Qui

Or your best friend lay sleeping in the backseat of your car.

“So I stayed at that party an extra hour, just so I could talk to him out by the bonfire,” I mumbled. “And while I was flirting and smiling and feeling all heated from his attention, my brother was killing himself.”

I turned back toward the water and noticed how rigid Qui

“I could have gotten home early and maybe stopped him or caught him or talked him out of it,” I said, louder now, using the anger that had lain dormant inside me. “Something—anything—other than being hot over some guy that I never saw again.”

Qui

“I’ve never told anybody that story,” I said with a very confident voice, so that he’d know how much I trusted him with my vulnerabilities. “Not one person. Except the therapist who helped me through my grief afterward.”

He moved closer. And then closer still. He was a breath away and I wanted him to envelop me in his strong arms. But still, I waited. I wasn’t sure what he was feeling. If he was begi

“We all have moments we wish we could take back,” I said. “Our actions may change the course of somebody’s life, without us even realizing it.”

And now we stood toe to toe, Qui

Even if I never got to spend any more time with Daniel Qui

“But you seem so with it. So together, Ella,” he muttered. And then a deep growl emerged from his throat. One of pain, frustration, and isolation. “How in the hell did you move on? Become the strong person you are today?”

He dropped to the sand, picked up a rock, and flung it across the water.

I sat down next to him but refrained from touching him. I didn’t know what he wanted from me right then—physically—so instead, I become his emotional anchor, again.

“First you talk to a professional . . . one who you haven’t kissed. And I can help you find the right one.”

He nodded but remained quiet.

“And then you have to allow yourself to truly feel everything. All the emotions. The anger, the loss, the shock, the sadness. Don’t run from it, become numb from it, or just go through the motions,” I said. “And don’t become somebody else. Whether it’s with noble intentions or not.”

He thrust his head in his hands. “Goddamn, how do you do that?”

My fingers raked through the sand. “Do what?”

“See inside me,” he whispered. “See me for who I really am?”

“This isn’t one-sided, Qui

“You don’t have to thank me,” he muttered. “It’s easy to be with you, Ella.”

I felt the knot that had been lodged in my chest loosen just a little more.

“You seem to have it all together,” he said. “And you’ve made me feel like maybe it’s possible for me, too.”

“It wasn’t always that way for me,” I said. “Sometimes, I still need to sit with my grief and let it shred me to bits and pieces over and over again. But I know that life is beautiful and I know that I’ve got so much to be thankful for.”

He squeezed his eyes shut like my words were too impossible to absorb.

“Those nights on the phone with me. You were already doing it, working through it,” I said. “And that’s why you’ve changed. I could tell the difference in your words, the tone of your voice.”

“Even still,” he said, his voice husky. “I’m afraid if I start . . . if I really start feeling everything—I won’t be able to stop.”

“No, that’s not the way it works. You’d get through it and come out the other side.” I reached for him, tentatively weaved my arm through his—and he let me.