Page 215 of As They Are
Dean blinked. “Wow. You’ve matured. Usually you’re first in line.”
“Theo’s spent less time listening to us and more time looking at the door. I’m not heartless.” I turned to Theo. “Go ahead. Crack it open.”
“Technically, I’ve already seen it,” he said. “But I appreciate the gesture.”
“So have I,” I replied. “It’s the symbolism. Get with the program!” I pulled on my mask as Theo put up his hands in mock defense before going to the door. He took a second to put on his, and Dean did the same before the door opened.
Dust waseverywhere,as well as old brick. What I could smell was thick and stale. “We’ll definitely need to air it out,” I said. “But this could really be something.”
“Hopefully,” Theo said.
“I see a wall that could come out.” I grabbed a sledgehammer. “I call dibs!”
I ran over to it. Dean got to work on the electrical, groaning about how poorly it was done. As I swung the sledgehammer, I thought of all the other things I could work on in Strawberry Springs to make it beautiful. The STM grant seemed to be willing to pay it out. I could even renovate the apartment upstairs for Theo if he wanted to live here, or for someone else to rent.
I had plenty of work to do, but because I didn’t need to fix myself, I was happy to do it.
It wasn’t that I needed to distract myself with projects anymore. I didn’t need to break things to fix them. I didn’t need to do that to hide from what had hurt me. That was the thing about emotional wounds. There was no fixing it. I had to take them as they were and findpeoplewho helped me with them.
Not just old buildings.
