“Are you okay?”

Another blink. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Why don’t you sit?” she says, guiding me to a seat at the kitchen table. I look at the clock, the sounds of the seconds ticking and our heavy breaths the only thing I can hear.

I sit down, focusing on the grains in the timber of the table as she moves behind me, preparing another coffee. I flinch when she places it in front of me, her hand on my shoulder. “Do you need me to lift your leg?” she asks, her voice calm, just like her eyes.

“No, Ma’am.”

She sits down next to me, cupping the mug in her hands. Smoke rises from the cup and my senses fill with the smell of gun powder. I blink hard again and rub my nose, doing what I can to fight the memories.

“I’m sorry for sneaking up on you like that.”

“It’s not…” I swallow loudly.

“Honey, can you please look at me?”

Slowly, I lift my gaze. She deserves that much.

Her hand reaches out again, soft and warm against my forearm. She glances at the hallway, and then at me, making sure Riley’s not up yet. I already know what Holly’s going to say. I can feel it. I can feel my life falling apart—feel Riley slipping out of my hands.

“I wanted to bring it up last night, but I didn’t think it was necessary to speak about it in front of your dad and Eric.”

I stare at her. Right into her eyes. And I can feel the calm start to take over. My breaths slow. My hands settle. “Okay.”

“One of the other conditions for staying with us is that you speak to someone, Dylan.”

I shake my head, my eyes leaving hers.

“Dylan? Please. I need you to look at me.”

With a calming breath, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Then I look up.

“It doesn’t have to involve anyone else, Dylan. Just you and me,” she says, nodding slowly. “Riley doesn’t need to know. Your dad, the military—they don’t need to either.” She uses the hand not on mine to wipe her eyes, her eyes filling with tears. “I need you to do this for me.” She pats her chest. “I’m a mother, sweetheart, and I worry about Riley.” She glances at the doorway again. “I need to make sure she’s safe.”

I ball my fists, my eyes shutting tight and my heart racing again. “I would never hurt her.”

“I know,” she says quickly, leaning toward me. “I know that. But I’ve read about PTS—”

“Stop!” My eyes snap open, focused on hers. I expect fear. I see calm.

“Okay, sweetheart.” She nods again. “Okay.”

I take a few breaths, my head tilting, completely confused by the way she’s looking at me. After a long moment of silence, I find my voice. “My friend Amanda…”

Holly smiles. “I know her.”

“She’s um… she’s a psychology major.”

“Okay,” she breathes out, nodding faster. “That works for me.”

Riley’s bedroom door opens. Holly drops her gaze and removes her hand from my arm. Then she sits back in her chair. “Ms. Hudson?”

She looks up at me.

“I’m not going to lose her. Not again. She means too much to me.”

* * *

I wait until Riley and Holly have left for work before keeping my promise to Holly. I sit on the couch, my knees bouncing, my phone gripped tight in my hand.

Dylan: How mucg do youxcharge a session?

Amanda: For you? One My Little Pony.

I smile.

Dylan: When?

Amanda: Where you at, Grandpa?

Dylan: Riley’s.

Amanda: I’ll be there in 30.

“So I’m going to tell you how I think this session will go and then we can start, okay?” Amanda says, sitting on the couch opposite me.

“Okay?”

“After I finish with this speech, you’re going to look away, and then sit there grunting at every one of my questions.”

“What?” I ask.

“Yeah. You might just be the hardest client I’ll ever have. You know, considering you actually have to talk to get anywhere.”

“I talk.”

“You talk!?” she shouts.

I roll my eyes.

“Ready?” she asks.

I shrug.

“So talk.”

My eyes narrow. “Aren’t you, like, supposed to ask me something?”

“I don’t know why I’m here, though. So you have to start.”

This was the dumbest idea ever. “How?”

She smiles, lifting her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing, or thinking, when you decided to message me.”

I nod and drop my gaze. “Riley’s mom, Holly—”

“I know Holly well,” she cuts in.

I nod again. “She said I had to speak to someone.”

“Right,” Amanda says, tapping on her iPad. “So you don’t want to be here. You kind of have to. For Riley?”

Another nod. “Riley doesn’t know, but if it means keeping her…”

“I get it.”

I inhale deeply, looking up at the ceiling.

“So did something happen that made Holly ask you to see someone?”

Shrugging, I roll my head back and forth on the cushion. “I was remembering Dave. And thinking maybe I should write to him.”

“Like Riley did with Jeremy?”

My eyes snap to hers. “She talk to you about Jeremy?”

“Not really. She mentioned that she wrote to him, but never really spoke about him. I only knew about it because we all went to the cliff.”

I sit up, raising my eyebrows in question.

“Yeah,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “You know, on the anniversary of Jeremy’s death. We all went there…”

“You what?”

She rears back a little. “We went there because Jake thought she’d be there.”

“And she was?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

I shake my head. “So you were all there?”

“Not on the cliff,” she tells me. “Not the first time anyway. It was only Jake then. We didn’t want to pressure or overwhelm her to jump.”

“She jumped?” I ask, clearly surprised.

Amanda nods. “A few times.”

“Huh,” is all I say, my mind too busy spinning with thoughts.

“So what would you have written?”

“Huh?”

“In the letter, Dylan. To Dave? What did you want to say?”

“I wanted to tell him that I hated him. Again.”

“Again?”

“Long story,” I mumble.

“It’s valid.”

“What is?”

“To hate him.”

“It is?”

After typing something on her iPad, she looks up at me. “Of course it is.”

“Why?”

She places the iPad on the cushion next to her. “All emotions are valid, Dylan. Regardless of whether you think it’s right or wrong to feel them, they exist because they’re real. I could list a number of reasons as to why I think it’s okay to hate him. Or at least, to be mad at him. But that doesn’t mean it’s what you feel.”