Free The Purgatorium by Eva Pohler Page A

He doesn’t know it yet, but someone has sent him here, too.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know.”
    So Stan was a patient like her. “I suppose it has been fun,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. This was a major gesture on her parents’ part. A lump formed in her throat. “But I’m scared.”
    “And excited?”
    “I guess so. Yes.” She had to admit she’d felt more alive the past two days than she had the past two years.
    “It gets better.”
    “I won’t be Limuw, though. I’d like to keep my hair.”
    “Okay, but it does grow back. It’s just hair.”
    “What’s the point?”
    “It’s not why, but what.”
    “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It has to do with living life to the fullest. It’s about what life has to offer, and not why it does or does not offer certain things.”
    “And you have to be bald to do that?”
    “It’s symbolic. It gives you the chance to start over.”
    “I don’t need to be bald to do that.”
    “Starting over isn’t easy. Letting go is hard.”
    “Yeah.” She leaned over and picked up a sand dollar, perfect except for one chipped edge.
    “Sometimes it’s hard to forgive yourself. Sometimes it takes something really dramatic and painful to help you let go of your mistakes.”
    She threw the sand dollar as far out to sea as she was able. “I guess.”
    “This place has another name.” Cam stopped and put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes intently looking into hers.
    “What?”
    “The Purgatorium. Don’t let on you know.”
    Daphne didn’t know what to say, but sometimes when you’re burdened with deep thoughts, the only thing left to do is to be ridiculous, so, after a moment, she said, “Let’s go for a swim.”
    “Now? Here?”
    “Why not?”
    “In our clothes?”
    “Strip down to your underwear. I don’t care who’s watching. Come on!” She pulled off her dress and ran out until the water reached her waist, then she dived in and swam a few strokes, feeling refreshed and revived.
    Cam was close behind her. She turned to him and threw herself on him, dunking him under. They laughed and played together like they had the day she arrived.
    That night, Cam didn’t stay long, so she showered and put on her night shirt and lay in bed, thinking of everything she’d been told. She still couldn’t believe her parents had sent her here. Maybe they really did want her to live.
    Her thoughts eventually drifted to Cam, how much she liked him. He’d been her best friend forever, and now he admitted that he might be in love with her. Could she ever feel the same way about him?
    As soon as she considered the possibility, her heart longed for Brock.
    The first time she and Brock kissed was the week after his mother died. His mother had fought a five-year long battle with breast cancer and lost. Brock was an only child and was close to his mother. His father had left before the cancer, had moved to Philadelphia and had started another life that didn’t include Brock.
    Daphne saw the hurt in Brock’s eyes when he came up to her in the parking lot after swim practice in early March her junior year. She didn’t know what to say, so she stood there, listening.
    “You should have seen her,” Brock said. “She looked good.”
    “She was a beautiful woman. I’m sorry I didn’t go to the funeral.”
    “It’s okay. I was in a daze anyway.”
    “How are you now?”
    “Still in a daze.” He sort of laughed.
    “Wanna grab a bite to eat together?” Daphne couldn’t believe she had asked him on a date. The invitation sort of blurted out of her mouth without her realizing it.
    “Sure.”
    Later, when he walked her to her door, she took him in her arms for a hug and felt him shudder, felt him lose himself. He cried, the hurt little boy that he was, even as his trembling hands reached for her face. Daphne was helping him to let go of the past by starting something new.  She did it for him without realizing she would eventually have to hurt