Free How to Save a Life by Amber Nation Page A

stance, “I just can’t see myself falling in love with another woman only to be devastated in the most horrendous of ways. And I won’t ever have any more children. I refuse to go through that ever again. I don’t think my heart could take it."
    “Who said you had to fall in love with her?"
    He was right, but Sheridan wasn’t a woman who you didn’t fall in love with , I thought to myself.
    “Listen," he got up from his spot on the ground, took the grease rag out of his back pocket and began trying to wipe off some of the excess grease, which we both knew was a lost cause.
    The tone that his voice took, I knew shit was about to get real.
    I crossed my arms in front of my chest as an attempt to brace myself not only mentally but physically for whatever backlash he was about to bestow upon me.
    “Ok, here it goes. You and I have been friends for quite a while now right?" He was waiting for visible confirmation, so I lightly nodded my head, urging him to continue and get this over with. “During that entire time, I have never seen you happy. You may think you are fooling people into believing that you are, but you don’t fool me. Don’t you think you deserve to be happy?"
    He paused long enough that I thought he was finished, which I supposed was just wishful thinking, because the worst was yet to come.
    “Look, I get it man, really I do. If anything ever happened to Blake, I…I don’t know what I would do. And just thinking about it, fucks me up, man. But you have been wallowing in your self-guilt for far too long. It wasn’t your fault, she was with her mom. Albeit, Erin was a poor excuse for a mother, but you didn’t know that absolutely no instinct would kick in during the event of a crisis situation. You tried having the world balance on your shoulders and it was too much, you shouldn’t have had to do everything alone. A marriage is an equal partnership, most women aren’t like Erin. Believe me, if Tessa was, we wouldn’t be together. Life is too short to always dwell on the past, I’m not saying forget Hannah, because you will never be able to and you shouldn’t. What I am saying is try to move past everything, open yourself up to Sheridan, and get to know her. In the end, it may surprise you and she may be your happily ever after, because Erin sure as hell wasn’t. And if anyone would know it would be you, that life is too short. Hannah would want you to live."
    He went to retrieve another tool from the tool chest before he went back into his place underneath the Ford Fusion. I sat there in silence for what seemed like forever, really thinking about what he had to say. I did have to balance everything on my shoulders, because if I didn’t, absolutely nothing would’ve gotten done. I was basically the mother and the father in this situation, and I let Erin get away with far too much. But what was to say that the same thing wouldn’t have happened if Erin and I weren’t together. I’d been to several therapists and it always seemed like a waste of time and money to me, when all along I should’ve been listening to others around me. I still needed to think about opening myself up to Sheridan, it would be a giant step for me, but one I was leaning towards taking.
    I spoke up finally, “When the fuck did we become women, talking about our feelings and shit?" I needed a little humor to lighten up the mood.
    He hollered from underneath the car, “I don’t know, but don’t tell my wife, she would expect me to be in touch with my feelings like this all the time."

Sheridan
    I was sitting on the couch with my legs perched up in front of me and my arms wrapped around them when Mike came in. He left in such a hurry earlier, I didn’t know if I had said or done something wrong. We seemed to be getting along a little better, but then I had to bring my smart aleck self out. That was something I used to get in trouble by Pate for, but I had managed to keep it in check, and evidently with Mike all bets