2/2/2024
Hey Darlin,
I know it's been a while since I've written directly to you. I keep writing about my day in here or notes about clients. Anything I can to not have to face the fact I can't actually write you. I wish I could pick up the phone and text you or better yet, call. I wish you were here right now to see Ash running around like Winnie the Pooh because he hates wearing pants. Asher keeps me so busy that it's hard to find the time to write. To do anything for myself really. He looks at me with the same mischievous grin that you used to and it tells me I have to stay on my toes. He's a wild one, just like his daddy. I just hope he doesn't break my heart like his daddy did...
-LO

That was all I could write before Asher noticed my notebook. If I didn't hide it out of his reach there would be Cheeto dust all over the white pages. Not that it really mattered. I had cried my fair share of tears over these pages. I'd even spilled some wine once and soaked the corner and there were more than a couple pages stuck together from a coffee stain. Still, it was my messy journal, not his. It was one of the few things I truly owned. I didn't share it with the tiny human tornado that was Asher.

This tattered and well used journal was also the last thing that Asher's father had given me. The thought of Cameron started to creep into my head and I instantly pushed it out. It was like a a time capsule that I had to keep buried for survival. I knew from experience that if I let myself lament his memory, I would quickly find myself falling down a rabbit hole that I struggled to untangle myself from. Asher needed me, here and present. He didn't need a mom who couldn't get herself out of bed. He didn't need a mom who let the shadows of the past swallow her whole.

Instead I walked over to my medicine cabinet and grabbed the familiar bottle from the top shelf. It held my daily dose of happy pills. I quickly popped the little white pill into my mouth and swallowed it dry. I was so used to taking it by now, I didn't need water. Those little pills were the only thing to get me through the post partum phase of  my pregnancy. My mother was of no use and my best friend and roommate Kaitlyn could only do so much to help calm my nerves as we struggled to get used to life with a newborn. The two of us had made it through those first few months completely on our own and I would forever be grateful for her help and support.

Asher was now almost two and was fully in his terrible twos stage. Even so he was rambunctious and vivacious. His energy was magnetic and had the ability to bring smiles to even the shyest stranger. I watched my little boy rough house with himself on the play-mat and smiled. Cameron would have been down there on the floor right there with him.

Another pain in my chest signaled that I really needed to stop thinking about it.

Get it together Lennon. Save it for group tonight.

My Thursday night grief support group was one of the only reasons I was as functional as I was now. They taught me that the heart could in fact still beat even when it's in a million pieces. I envied Mr. Tinman from the Wizard of Oz. He didn't have to worry about the fragility of a heart. He didn't know what it was like to still want someone that was impossible to have. 

I felt a hot tear run down my cheek and tasted the salt of it on my tongue. I allowed myself that one tear before wiping it away and putting the thought of Cameron back into his resting place. Asher waddled over to me then. He looked puzzled at me like he was trying to figure out what I was feeling.

"Mommy, sad?" He said in his sweet little voice.

I shook my head no, "Mommy's fine. Let's get you ready for school."

I helped Ash get his shoes on and then we packed up for his nursery school. I sat in line outside the school and found myself annoyed. Kaitlyn had work early this morning and I wouldn't see her until after my meeting tonight. That meant I was on my own today for childcare drop off. Doing everything by myself was frustrating at times. I couldn't drop Ash off at his Dad's for the weekend or file for child support. Cameron hadn't had a cent to his name to worry about when he died. Not that his parents would have given me anything if he had. 

Get the fuck out of my head, Darlin'. I need to focus and this is not the day for you to be here.

I moved forward in the line and finally got to drop Ash off. He was happy to get to run in and play with his friends. Oh to be that young again. 

I pulled out onto the road and headed to my own job. Having Ash had really lit a fire under me career wise. I had been determined to make sure I could not just survive but thrive financially for both of our sakes. Kaitlyn helping out with the childcare in the afternoons helped me achieve this. In turn, I covered our utilities. It was a win-win for both of us. I didn't know what I would do if Kait ever found someone she was serious about. Luckily the dating scene in  our town for a lesbian woman was almost non-existent. 

I looked around at the landmarks around me. There were at least four churches and then the bank. Quitman, Texas wasn't exactly known for being friendly to anything other than Baptists and beauty queens. I had been tempted to move closer to Tyler when I'd gotten pregnant.  When I looked at selling the house given to me by my dad though, those plans were put to rest. There was no way to get a house this size in Tyler for the price I would get selling. The hour commute was worth not having a house payment. 

Tyler, Texas was the 'Rose Capital of America' and that was about the only thing I found romantic about it. The only reason I drove here every day was because of my dream job. I had been working as an assistant when I'd gotten pregnant with Ash. I had been worried that my boss Gwen would find a reason to let me go when she found out. In this neck of the woods an unwed single mother wasn't exactly something you wanted to put on your résumé. When I came to her sobbing, three months pregnant, and told her the backstory with Cam, she cried with me. 

Gwen had given me  two months off and then let me bring Ash with me until he was six months old so that I could bond with him and not worry about child care. She had been my fairy godmother; even more like a mother than my own. When Ash was one, Gwen had promoted me to agent at our small publishing company. I took over accounts from an agent that was retiring and found out that I was really good at keeping young, talented, neurotic authors calm. I was really good at pitching their books to publishing houses too. Three of my clients in the last year had found their way to the New York Times Best Sellers List. My career had taken off after the first one hit. Now it was flourishing. 

From the outside I looked like a badass boss bia-tch. I was in line to be a senior agent by thirty, I owned my own house, my own car, and had a platonic partner to come home to every night with our son. Ash did in fact call Kait, 'Momma K'. We were our own odd little family. On the inside though, I was lonely as hell these days. 

I didn't exactly have a friend group. Kait and I were a pair of old maids in our town. Most thought we were gay heathens who never went to church. We did usually make it there for Christmas and Easter but that was about it. We also tended to go to different ones each year. It wasn't like it mattered to us. 

Not much mattered to me these days. Asher mattered. Making sure he grew up strong willed and happy, mattered. Making sure he got the hell out of East Texas when he grew up, mattered. I wanted more for him than the little life I had created for us. He deserved the world and all that the universe had to offer. 

I finally made it into the office, craving my next cup of coffee. I hadn't had near enough caffeine this morning to get my wheels turning. Gwen's secretary, Margie, smiled at me when I walked in. She was a portly, middle aged red head who read way too many romance novels. She always had a new one on her desk and read them when she wasn't answering the phone for Gwen. Her red hair lay in ringlets down her back. I wish my hair had that much body and bounce. My strawberry blonde hair was more straw than anything. It liked to hand like a limp noodle on my head if I didn't work magic on it with product. I usually saved myself the hassle and wore it in a neat bun on top of my head. I felt more professional that way too.

"Morning Margie."

"Good Morning, Ms. O'Connor."

I smirked at the formality of the greeting. Margie always called me Ms. O'Connor. Everyone else stuck to LO or Len. Formalities weren't as big of a thing out here in small town Texas. Tyler was considered the big city around here and it only bolstered a little over one-hundred thousand people. Dallas County, where I wanted so badly to escape to, had over two million people. What I wouldn't give to be able to just blend into a sea of other humans. Quitman had a population of under two thousand. It is impossible to hide in a population of two thousand. Everyone knows you, your momma, and your great great great grand momma. My dad had loved that about this town. We had a ton of cousins who grew up here. He had wanted to retire out here and just be a townie. He wasn't born here. He never quite understood that that meant even though our roots were grounded here, he would still be an outsider. 

I was still an outsider and I had lived here since college. That was when dad bought the house out here. It was close enough to my college that I could make the drive most weekends and over breaks. I didn't like the idea of Daddy living out here alone. He said he wasn't alone. There was family all around. But they weren't family to me, not really. They sure hadn't acted like it since Daddy died either. He had passed about six months before Cam. Losing the two of them so close together felt like my world was going to just cease to exist. I truly had no reason to even survive this life anymore. 

Until those two pink lines appeared. Then a new world had opened up for me. One with a little brown haired, blue eyed boy had stolen my heart before I had even laid eyes on him. One where even though my heart was still sewn together with a thread that could unravel any moment, I had to keep going. I had to make sure he never saw the pain I was in. He didn't deserve that weight. 

Kait didn't deserve that weight either but she took it on all the same. She had moved out to BFE nowhere for me. And for Ash. 

I noticed then that Margie was looking at me expectantly. I had been too lost in my own head to hear what she had been saying.

"Sorry, Margie, did you say something?"

She smiled politely, "You have a meeting this morning with a new author. Gwen was supposed to take him but she said she thought you would be a better fit. He is waiting for you in your office.

My eyes widened. 

Crap. Who did she saddle me with this time?

I walked quickly into my office. A tall drink of water stood up when I entered. A small scar on his lip quivered when he smiled in hello. His hair was so dark brown it could almost be called black but he had some salt mixed in with the pepper of his hair. His emerald green eyes locked with mine and I knew I was a goner before this meeting even started.