All of Me

forty • end of the line

• • •

When I was fourteen, I had a breakdown. It was my first day of ninth grade in a new school, with classmates I didn't know and teachers who didn't know me. They spent the entire day hammering on about the importance of every moment of school, every homework and every quiz, until I couldn't see my own future through the fog of standardized tests and grueling days of work followed by unrelenting assignments.

When Dad picked me up at the school gates after eight hours of torture that had bled me dry of any reason and forced blind fear into every cell, I tried to put on a brace face. It lasted all of ten seconds, until he asked me how it had gone and I just crumbled. Before I cold manage a single coherent sentence, I was hyperventilating in the car.

Dad tried every trick in the book but I was freaking out and working myself into hysteria, so he pulled over three blocks from home and made me get out. Right there on the sidewalk in the middle of Queens, he held me and shushed me until I managed to breathe properly, until I grabbed hold of the reins on my spiraling anxiety. I can still feel that moment, more than five years later.

Dad never told me to man up or snap out of it; he never told me to act my age; he never needled me for answers. He just waited, he listened, and he told me to take it one day at a time. He told me that life can be overwhelming but every day brings new chances, every day a new opportunity to prove myself.

It helped. A lot.

It helped that he listened and he really heard me, that he cared when I shared my fears and he didn't brush me off. It helped that he gave me perspective. My dad showed me the importance of stepping back and taking a deep breath, and tackling my biggest problems one step at a time. He was calm and he was honest: when he had settled my frantic nerves, he told me that high school would be a tough few years, but he would always be right by my side to help me through.

When I was a panicked freshman, he was right where I needed him to be. When I was a struggling sophomore, he greeted me with a hug at the end of every day. When I was a stressed junior, he always knew exactly what to say.

When I was a grieving senior, I lost sight of his advice. He wasn't there when I could hardly bring myself to get out of bed each day, when I was trying to hold myself together for Mom and she was trying to keep us afloat. It wasn't until we put distance between ourselves and where we lost him that his words came back to me.

One step at a time. Everything in life can be tackled just one step at a time, as long as I keep moving forward.

Now, as I sit in the campus parking lot, Dad's words are a welcome weight on my shoulders. His advice is wrapped around me like one last hug I wish I could have gotten from him. He's there, somewhere, reaching out to me.

I jump out of my skin when a hand curls around mine.

"You've got this. Just one step at a time, Storie. That's all it takes."

The voice may belong to Gray, but the words are all Dad. I nod and fill my lungs with a breath so deep it hurts, only letting it out when I can't hold it any longer. That horrible burning ache doesn't leave my chest, but I can manage it. If nothing else, I've mastered the art of coping.

We get out of the car and the wind slaps my cheeks, punching my stomach so hard I'm knocked back a step. Gray zips up his hoodie. I battle the elements to pull on my coat, fighting the flapping material to button it up. January is brutal, inches of snow covering the ground that hasn't been salted or plowed; black ice hides beneath the deceptive white blanket.

But I have winter tires and winter boots and I can do this. I just don't want to. Because every time I'm sure of what I'm going to say when I see Liam for the first time in four weeks, I'm struck by another memory. When I want to tell him it's over for good, I remember how it felt to lie in his arms as he told me he loved me. When I'm ready to give him another chance, I remember that he already had a second chance, that he hurt me more than I ever thought he could.