Page 107 of Even After Sunset

Buy bulk candy (so I can go back to selling fewer cookies and free up more time to work on my cover design business)

Research how to create a business website

Create business website

Sign up for Photoshop advanced composting workshop

Research waterfalls in Connecticut

Make another playlist for Silas

And then I get to work tackling the first items on the list.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jackie

The next few days go by in a flash. It’s a relief to go back to selling mainly candy and just a few cookies. It means I have several extra hours a day to work on my book covers again, only without the guilt this time. Or like it’s just a hobby I’m allowing to get in the way of more important stuff.

It feels amazing.

I manage to convince one of the two frustrated authors to come back, but the other one had already started the process again with another designer. So I cut my losses and give her back her deposit and even though I still feel bad, at least I patched things up with one of them, which is better than losing them both. Also, the one who stayed with me is the author of the steampunk series. Which is awesome. And speaking of awesome: my cover designs for her books are epic. I used a bunch of new composting techniques I learned in an online tutorial and the results are amazing.

I wish I could show them to Silas. I feel like the darker, industrial aesthetic would be his kind of thing. And I think he’d be happy for me, for putting most of my focus on ramping up my book cover business—if he didn’t hate my guts right now.

He still hasn’t responded to my emails. I’ve sent one every day since that first one, including two more new playlists. I try to shrug it off, but it still hurts. I hate that we left on such a bad note, and I miss him like crazy. Most of those six weeks with him, I felt so comfortable. Wegoteach other, and we were in synch. Being with Silas was cozy and easy and made every other good thing twice as amazing.

I really wish I’d known earlier that he wasn’t just struggling with demons from his past, but with a serious alcohol addiction, too. It hurts that he was hiding such a huge secret from me, when I thought we’d broken down so many barriers. But I have to trust that Richard knows what he’s talking about when he tells me that Silas didn’t believe his addictionwasa problem. He thought the alcohol was helping him. It was a tool he’d been using since he was twelve or thirteen to help him cope with everything else.

Richard says it will take Silas a lot longer to deal with his past than it took me. He’s had so much more piled on since he was a kid: the memories, the guilt, the abuse, the alcohol addiction… and probably a bunch of other stuff we don’t even know about.

And also, the fact that he’s ridiculously, annoyingly resistant to getting help.

My stubborn, cynical, beautiful lone cowboy.

Chapter Forty

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