Alec
Weekends at my parents' are what saved me. Without them, I would have worked myself to death. Instead, I ate my mom's cooking. I helped my dad build a deck. I coached Jack's baseball team and played football on the lawn with all the neighbor kids. I exhausted myself to the point that when I fell asleep, I was too tired to dream about anything but Navi's death.
Over and over and over.
I was so tired, that sometimes when I'd come home late at night from work, I'd think I could see her. She was like a ghost, barely more than a blur, but I'd catch a just a whiff of her lilac lotion in the air and I'd look up, praying she'd be there. She never was. There was nothing but my desperate desire to see her again slowly driving me absolutely insane.
"Hey." Josh nudged me. I wasn't even sure when he'd shown up, I was so tired. "You're still alive, right?"
I blinked at him and waved my newly-freed-from-the-cast hand around. "I'm peachy."
"It's for the best, anyway."
I did not want to have this conversation again. So I ignored him.
"I mean, Navi… she would have tied you down. You're only twenty-two, bro. You don't want a girlfriend who—"
"Knock it off, Josh." I hadn't had a reason to growl at anyone for a while, with Bryson gone all the time. It was somewhat refreshing.
"I'm serious. I mean, yeah, she's hot, right? But what else? She's got zero personality."
No personality? Was he serious? She had more personality in her pinky than most girls did in an entire clique. I stood up abruptly, glaring at him. "Knock. It. Off."
He held up his hands, "I'm just saying"—he stuttered for a second before he regained his footing —"she's not worth this, Alec."
"You don't know a damn thing, Josh. Shut the hell up."
"I'm just trying to help."
You can't help me. She was the only one who could. And that wasn't going to happen.