Prologue

I know you think the story has been told. That the demons have been slayed and the battle had been won.

That would be a lie. Every day was a fight. And every day served as a reminder of how I had almost lost everything.

Even after I had made the right choices, I was still crippled by second-guessing.

But I’ve told that tale. The beleaguered boy that fought for the love of the only girl who could save him.

No, this story is something else entirely. It’s a story of self-realization. Of understanding.

Of how one winter’s night I was finally able to see that all of my insecurities, all of my doubts had no place in my heart.

A story about how I embraced the fact that even though emotions hurt, and that loving someone can be so painful it incapacitates you; it’s so much better than the cold. The ice in my soul that freezes everything.

But there is warmth in ice. A flame that became an inferno.

Because Maggie is my fire. The passionate heat that consumes everything in its path, incinerating me in a perfect, unyielding death.

And during the heat of a Florida Christmas, I was reminded of why I needed fire to survive. To exist. To breathe.

This is that story.

The one that matters.

The one with the happy ending.

1

“It’s…nice,” Ruby said, parking her car on the street across from a two-story brick building. I looked over at my aunt as she chewed on her bottom lip. I knew she was trying to be positive. This was her first time seeing the place where I would be living now that I had been discharged from the Grayson Center.

I had been by several times in the last few weeks to check out my new apartment. It was in a building block reserved for transitioning patients out of mental health treatment. Five other people with varying degrees of mental illness shared the building. It was a far cry from the over the top opulence of my parents’ home or the comfortable shabbiness of Ruby’s house in Virginia. But I wasn’t there to put down roots.

I was there to start over.

Because I was the king of motherfucking second chances.

Ruby pulled a duffle bag off the back seat of my BMW, the car she refused to sell after being sent to a treatment facility in Florida last year. She had stubbornly kept it, even after I had insisted she get rid it.

After she sold her house and shop in Virginia and moved to Key West, she brought the damn thing with her. And now here it was, back where she said it belonged. At one time that car had represented everything I hated about my life. It was a symbol of the million and one ways my crappy parents had tried to buy me off and shut me up.

But now it was just a set of wheels. Metaphors and symbolism be damned.

“You know you could always move in with me. Key West is great. I’ve just opened my new shop and I could really use the help,” Ruby suggested. I slid her a sideways look.

“I’ll be fine, Ruby. Stop worrying so much. This is temporary, not forever.” I slung my arm around my tiny aunt’s entirely too frail shoulders. Lisa’s death had destroyed a huge part of what made Ruby, Ruby. I knew with absolute certainty that loving and losing wreaked havoc on the heart and the soul.

I had been there done that. I had gotten the stupid “I f**ked up” T-shirt. I was going to make it my mission in life to never lose the other half of me again.

But Ruby…she was trying.

Not long after I had checked back into the Grayson Center at the end of last school year, she had sold the house in Davidson, Virginia, loaded the back of her car up with only the bare essentials and headed south to Key West, Florida.

Losing the one place that had always been my home was hard. I could admit that I lost it for a while over the thought of being displaced. But I was a man set on reframing and focusing on the positive shit.

Because drowning in the negative wasn’t an option anymore. The dark didn’t hold the sway that it once did. Not now that I had a future that meant something.

Ruby handed me my bag, grabbed the Target bags off the backseat and followed me to the flight of steps off to the side of the brick building. I had nothing to my name but a duffle bag of clothes, my laptop computer, and my car. I had to start my new life with cheap towels and scratchy sheets. But it was my life and that made the fact that I didn’t have a clue as to what the hell my next steps were a bit easier to swallow.

We were met at the door by an older Hispanic woman with greying hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her lined face was serious and no nonsense as she regarded me.

“Clayton Reed?” she asked in a rough voice. She was scary. It didn’t make me a pu**y to admit that a woman intimidated me. Christ, she looked as though she’d gnaw off my testicles and have them for dinner.

I fought the urge to cross my legs protectively. Ms. Bulldog raised an eyebrow when I had yet to answer her. “Uh, yeah, that’s me,” I said, trying not to stammer like a five year old.

Scary lady held her hand out for me to shake and her hard and unyielding face split into a surprisingly easy smile. It made me feel off balance. “I’m Roberta Silva, your case manager. I wanted to stop by and introduce myself.” She took several of the plastic bags from Ruby after handing me a set of keys.

“You’ll have your own room but the rest of the house will be common use. You have three roommates and there are two staff persons who will be here to provide support and assistance in all areas of independent living. They are here to alleviate any stress this transition might cause,” Roberta said as she followed me into my new home.