Page 144 of Heartbeat

“Pain? My relationship with it has changed the most, I think.”

“How, exactly?”

“After Liam, I—I didn’t think I’d be able to bear it. So, I hid from it, and when I couldn’t do that, I tried to make it go away.”

“And now?”

“I don’t think I can say.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, you don’t unders—”

“I know what you meant, Thomas,” she said seriously. “You can.”

“I don’t want to hide from it this time.”

“Why not?”

“I chose this pain. It’s mine. It hurts like hell, but I’m not afraid of it.”

“Because you know it’ll pass?”

“No,” I was quick to say.

“No?” she repeated, intrigued.

“I don’t know that it will,” I told her, putting out my cigarette. “That’s not it anyway.”

“Then, why?”

“It only hurts because of how much I felt. And it was… To wish it to go away would mean regretting it. And I don’t regret a single thing.”

“And this reminder,” she said. “Isn’t it too much, like some other things?”

“Yes. But it’s all I have.”

“Thomas.”

“I don’t want to not feel it. I think that’s the bottom line. I don’t need it to go away.”

“Isn’t that sad?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “It’s still mine.”

She looked so proud. “Well—” She put out her cigarette and stood up. “You did it. You’ve survived these last few sessions.” She opened her arms.

When I stood up, she hugged me.

“What will you do the rest of the day?” she asked.

“Walk around a bit. Maybe catch a movie. Blake keeps bugging me to go to some party, so I’ll also be trying to come up with an excuse for not doing that.”

“Good. That’s good,” she said, walking me to the door, still with her arm around my shoulder.

She let go as she opened the door, and then I turned to her, taking an extra second to properly look at her. I felt oddly grown up, standing there with this person who had met a boy unable to endure any sort of pain without feeling as though it had the power to turn him into dust, but now though the boy had aged, so much was different. So I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and found she also blushed, just like he did.

“I’m alive because of you, I think,” I told her.

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