I've missed her smile so much.

No matter how hard or long I run, the distance between us continues to grow. She's walking and I'm running, and yet I still can't reach her. I don't understand why I can't reach her. Why won't she just turn around?

"Mom, please!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

Digging my feet into the sand, I push myself as hard as I can. My feet smack roughly onto the wet sand, and I can feel rocks and shells digging into my skin but it doesn't matter. The only thing that hurts right now is that she won't acknowledge me. She doesn't understand that I'm right behind her. If she would just turn around and see me, I know she would stop. She would stop and she would smile and she would take me into her arms and never let go.

The tears fall steadily down my cheeks as I watch her get to the rocks and begin climbing over them.

"Mom, stop! Please, don't go! Don't leave me!" I cry.

I'm still running but I'm not going anywhere. I'm not getting any closer. She's too far away now, and I know I'll never make it to her.

She's already at the top of the rocks and making her way down the other side. I watch in horror as her blonde head disappears from sight.

She's gone. She was right here in front of me, and I let her get away.

Glancing down at my feet, I realize I'm not running anymore. Looking behind me to see how far I've come, I don't see any of my footprints in the sand, and I wonder if I ever even left this spot. Did I just stand here doing nothing? It felt like I was running, like I was moving forward, but maybe I never was. Maybe this entire time I was just standing still while everything around me continued to move forward. Looking back at the rocks where she disappeared, I realize I that I don't want to be left behind.

Jerking up in bed on a gasp, I quickly glance around me, trying to get my bearings. When I see the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, I place my hand over my heart and slow my breathing.

The dream felt so real. I can still feel the wet sand on my feet and the smell of the ocean in the air. Reaching my hand up to my cheek, it's wet from the tears I cried while I slept. It's the same reoccurring dream I've had since she died. The dream left me for a little while, but tonight it came back with a vengeance. I lost count how many times I've watched her walk away from me in my dreams while I scream for her. I continue to scream and push myself and hurt myself and the results never change; she doesn't turn around, and she doesn't let me come with her. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. She's gone and she's never coming back. I can't reach her, I can't touch her again, and I can't stop her from leaving. Hurting myself and everyone around me because I can't move on is insane. Expecting my life to get better on its own when I want nothing more than to be with her again is insane.

I reach over to my bedside table and flip on the lamp, my eyes immediately zeroing in on the napkins littering my bed. When I came home from the cemetery, I walked to my door and paused in shock when I saw that it was entirely covered with napkins. Taped from top to bottom, covering every inch, were notes from Zander. I read each and every one of them before carefully taking them all down and bringing them inside with me.

I fell asleep surrounded by them after having read them each a hundred times. Picking up the one closest to me, I stare at the words he wrote in black pen.

Setting it down and picking up another one, I scan the words and think about him sitting at his kitchen table with his head bent over the napkins while he writes the words that are in his heart. I read through each and every one again and again and let his words fill my heart.

I love you because you make me smile.

I love you because you trusted me to keep you safe.

I love you because you make delicious cupcakes.

I love you because you're stronger than you know.

I love you because you're beautiful.

I love you because you make me happier than I've ever been.

I love you because you're not afraid to dream.

I love you because someday, you will write your story…and it will be amazing.

When I get to the last one, I look up and stare at the old ones from him I still have tacked to the bulletin board, scanning each and every one of those as well until I get to one tacked right in the middle. Goosebumps form on my arms and a chill runs down my spine when I see a note that wasn't there when I came home from the cemetery and fell asleep on top of my covers, fully clothed, surrounded by Zander's words.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I get up slowly and make my way across the room until I'm standing right in front of the board. My vision blurs from the tears, and I clamp my hand over my mouth to keep the sobs in when I realize I'm not seeing things.

How is this possible? I crumpled this up and threw it into the grass at the cemetery.

With a shaking hand, I reach out and touch the note to see if it's real. When I feel the rough texture of the napkin under my fingertips, the hand against my mouth can no longer contain my sobs.

I let everything out that I've been holding in for so long. I cry until I'm taking hiccupping breaths and my head aches and my eyes feel puffy. I stare at the note, the handwriting, and the message, and for the first time in a long time, I laugh through my tears. I laugh because I'm all cried out. I laugh because my heart feels like it's going to burst. I laugh because I'm probably going crazy but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but the note, what it says, and the impossibility of it being in my room right now when I threw it away.

Turning away from the board, I race over to my computer, sit down and power it up.

As I wait for my word processing software to load, I wipe away my tears and think about the words Zander said to me that day in the park with Luke.

"It's the bumps and the bruises, the pain and the fear; it's messy and it's real and it's not some perfect little story that can be tied up in a bow. It's exactly what you should write about."

I hear his voice encouraging me to do something I've thought about but never had the strength to do. I see his smiling face in my mind, and it gives me the boost I need to do this.

Placing my hands over the keys on my laptop, I type the first sentence—words that I've repeated over and over in my head. My fingers fly over the keys and the story pours out of me along with more tears. I make it real and I make it raw, and I expose every single part of myself that I've kept locked up tight.

For two days I sit at my computer. For two days I relive every part of the last year and a half, and for once it doesn't break me. I forget to eat, I barely sleep; I do nothing but type. I type until my fingers are sore and my head aches from crying and staring at the small computer screen. I type until the very last word leaves me. When I finish, I look back through what I've done and realize I've written a book. Not a short story, or a play…a book. An entire book about my life.

I know I should eat something, or at the very least take a nap, but I can't. There's someplace very important I need to be, and a nap will have to wait. Hitting the "print" button on my computer, I jump in the shower while the pages spit out, one after another.

When I'm done with my shower and the printer has released the final page, I secure the stack with a rubber band. Running into my room to grab my purse, I glance quickly at my bulletin board. Taking a deep breath, I remove the one napkin from the center of the board and slide it under the rubber band, running my palm over it and smiling, then quickly turn to my bed and grab the most important one from Zander.

Jumping into my car, I race across town, glancing over at the pages stacked on my passenger seat every few seconds. I pull into the driveway, and when I don't see his car, I try not to let it upset me. Grabbing a pen and the napkin from Zander I brought with me, I quickly scribble a note underneath his words and stick it under the rubber band next to the other napkin from my bulletin board. Scooping the stack of pages up into my arms, I get out of the car. With a deep breath, I walk to the top of the stairs of the front porch. I squat down and place the rubber band wrapped pages right on top of his welcome mat.

Standing back up, I look down one last time at the napkin with both of our messages on it.

Chapter Twenty

Three months later.

Sitting at my desk by the window, I finish typing the last sentence of my paragraph and hit save. Closing my eyes and stretching my arms above my head, I work out the kinks in my shoulder from sitting so long. When I open my eyes again a few minutes later, I glance down at my computer and smile. On top of my keyboard is a napkin, and I laugh when I read the words.

I've lost count of how many napkins I have now. I still keep each and every one of them, but they're no longer tacked to my bulletin board since I ran out of room on that thing a long time ago. Looking over at the wall where the board used to hang, I sigh and smile again when I see the only note that hangs there now. It's in a glass frame that Zander bought for me as soon as he finished reading my story a few months ago. Getting up from my computer chair, I walk over to the frame and stare at it, thinking about the day I found that napkin taped to the wall of Dr. Thompson's empty office, and then the day I found it again. The words don't fill me with confusion or sadness anymore. When I read them, I think about the impossible and how if you're lucky enough and loved enough, sometimes incomprehensible, amazing things can happen to you.

Running my fingertips over the smooth glass, I silently read the words to myself.

I take a deep breath as I smile at the words and the drawing of the stick figure with arms open wide, dropping my hand from the glass, and back away from the wall. Glancing over at my computer, I know it's time to do something I've been putting off for far too long. I quickly walk back over to my desk and lean down, opening up a browser window and logging into Facebook. I go to her page and the sight of her profile picture no longer fills me with pain. Clicking on the Account Settings menu, I go right to the Security section.

"I love you," I whisper as I click Deactivate Account.

Stepping away from the computer, I take a deep breath before turning away and heading out into the kitchen.

"It's about time you got here. I slaved over dinner and it was going to start getting cold," Zander tells me as he meets me by the doorway and pulls me into his arms. I look over at the table and see that it's littered with Chinese takeout containers.

"Slaved, huh?" I ask with a laugh.

He bends down and presses his lips to mine. Reaching up, I wrap my arms around the back of his neck and pull him closer. The kiss ends all too soon, and he rests his forehead against mine and looks into my eyes.

"You have no idea how hard it is to order Chinese. There's so many choices to pick from," he jokes.

We pull apart and make our way over to the table to start dishing out food. While we eat and talk about his day at work and my day writing, I think about how we got here and how truly happy I am for the first time in my life.

After I left my story on Zander's front porch three months ago, I immediately drove to my parents' house. Even though I had told my father I was done, I needed to make sure he understood what all that entailed. When I walked back into the house, I found him packing a suitcase. He was going back to rehab and he told me he was finished making me promises he couldn't keep. I told him I was finished with the bakery. I couldn't run it anymore while he was gone; I didn't want to run it anymore. It wasn't my dream, and I couldn't go one more day doing something that didn't make me happy.

Within a few weeks, Snow's Sugary Sweets was sold to a nice young couple that promised to keep it exactly like my mother had it and would continue to use all of her recipes. They even agreed to keep Meg on staff while she went back to school to finish her degree in Elementary Education.

I talk to my father once a week, and I don't allow myself to get wrapped up in his problem anymore. I try my best to let him know that I support him, but I don't let his choices affect my life like they used to. I don't know what will happen between us when he gets out of rehab this time, but with Zander's help, I don't let myself worry about something I have no control over.

Staring at Zander across the table, I can't help but smile as he talks animatedly about a patient he had to X-ray that day. When I left those pages on his doorstep, I wasn't sure if I would ever hear from him again. I had no idea if I'd pushed him too far away or whether or not he'd finally realized I wasn't worth the trouble.

For the rest of that day, I forced myself not to dwell on it. I wouldn't allow myself to be nervous that he was at home reading my words and finally knowing everything about me. After speaking with my father, I went to the bakery and spent the night making every single one of my mother's recipes. I baked muffins and pies, cakes and cookies, and a hundred other things that I grew up eating and making side-by-side with her. At eleven o'clock, long after the shop had closed, the back door opened, and I held my breath when I saw Zander walk in carrying my story under his arm.

"Holy shit," he whispered, looking around at all of the baked goods that covered every surface of the kitchen.

I laughed nervously as he stood just inside the doorway.

"I got a little carried away," I told him with a shrug.

His eyes locked onto mine, and I watched as he walked toward me. Butterflies filled my stomach as he stepped around the island in the middle of the room and came right up to me. He set the pile of papers on the counter next to me and then finally reached up and put both of his hands on either side of my face. I leaned my body closer to his and looked up at his face.

"Thank you for trusting me with your story."

I didn't hesitate to wrap my arms around his waist.