Thirty-One Letters

Six

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear—C.S. Lewis

"Braden, why don't you tell us about your week?" Phil asked. "Have you made any new progress?"

Hadley watched Braden tense up from across the room beneath the Wrightsville Beach Baptist Church. It was seven-oh-nine in the morning and the early hour was showing. Almost everyone in the group was yawning. Hadley wasn't sure but she thought that Old Jack might be asleep. His head was resting against the back of the chair and his eyes were closed.

She was no better off than the rest of them and was running off of only three hours of sleep, but even that was likely an overestimation. Despite the fact that she'd returned home from the fair by ten, per her mother's instructions, it didn't mean that Hadley had gone straight to bed. Instead, she'd lain awake for hours, staring at the ceiling and thinking incredibly of task number four.

Hadley still couldn't believe how easy it had been to do once she'd finally made up her mind to kiss the stranger. It was hardly a decision once she'd seen him standing there where she and Tanner had been exactly a year earlier. In a way, it was almost a sign from Tanner himself, like he had handpicked the stranger for Hadley specifically. He was likely some out-of-town tourist who would be leaving as soon as the weekend was over to head back to wherever it was that he came from. Hadley didn't have to worry about seeing him ever again.

A mercy because if she ever did see him again, she'd likely be overcome with embarrassment and so she was thankful that he would forever be out of the picture.

While Hadley felt as if she'd started to go through some semblance of personal growth in the week since her last Good Mourning Group meeting, it seemed that not everyone had gone through the same trials. Braden especially seemed to be having a particularly hard time as he could hardly form a sentence.

"The six-month anniversary of her death is in three days," Clara whispered from her spot next to Hadley. The murmur went unnoticed by Phil who was studying Braden with his best I'm-a-certified-shrink expression.

Hadley, who had zoned out thinking about her wild night and her lack of sleep, whispered back, "Huh?"

"His girlfriend, Angie. She's been dead six months this Wednesday."

"Oh." Hadley hadn't recognized the anniversary.

She was friends with the members of the group only at meetings where Phil tried to get them to focus on the future instead of counting the number of days they'd all survived since their loved ones had died. It was rare for her to remember significant details about each of their cases though she could hardly forget the reason that had brought each person to the group in the first place.

"Adam went with him to the fair last night. Said he was a wreck most of the time. Apparently, it's been a rough week for him."

Hadley remembered seeing them only moments before she'd completed task number four. She hadn't noticed anything to be amiss with Braden but, then again, she'd hardly been focused on anyone other than herself. Looking back, she knew she should've spoken to him and Adam. Said hi or something. It's what any decent person would have done.

I guess I'm not really a decent person, Hadley thought. It was hardly a new premise. She'd become entirely too selfish, thinking only of herself and rarely paying attention to those around her. It wasn't very surprising that she'd missed Braden's pain.

Now, staring at him from the other side of the room, she could see the dark heavy circles under his normally bright eyes. Could pick out the exhaustion that oozed out of his pores, hunching him over and making him appear years older than his true age of nineteen. Even his hair seemed dull.