A lot has changed in nine months. Lachlan has remained sober the whole time, though it’s something neither of us take for granted. I know it’s something that will never leave him completely. He has good days and bad days and on the bad days we go for long walks and I make him talk to me until we can figure out a way through it. We’re in this together now and I make sure he knows that he doesn’t have to face any of it alone.
His psychologist has helped a lot, so has his healthy lifestyle. He’s doing extremely well in boxing, still just for fun, for a form of exercise that has nothing to do with his career and it’s something to get his anger out better than any medication or booze.
I like to think that it’s because of all this that he’s gotten better at rugby. When I first met him, he was so worried about his career and age, thinking he couldn’t possibly last any longer. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Not only is he performing at his best, but he’s the longest-standing member of the team and going into this new season, the team captain.
He handles his new responsibility beautifully.
As for me, we’ll I’m still struggling but it’s a fun struggle.
I never did get the job at Twenty-Four Hours, but I did get a job writing for an online Scottish fashion and lifestyle magazine. I get paid per article, which supplements the income I get from working part-time with Amara at Ruff Love. The two of us are currently trying to put our heads together and come up with a PR position at the organization. Maybe she’ll take it, maybe I will, but if it comes to light, it will really help Lachlan get all the love, funding and attention he needs for the dogs.
Speaking of dogs, Lionel and Emily are still around, still licking us to death and sniffing everything in sight. Unfortunately, Jo died a few months ago. Cancer. There was nothing we could do and once Lachlan saw she was suffering, he put her down. It hurt like hell, to be honest, to see that beautiful, sweet dog so fearful on that table at the vet’s office. But at the last minute she looked up at Lachlan and he smiled tearfully at her and she seemed to smile at him. She calmed down. The vet gave the shot and Jo died peacefully.
Naturally it brought up every fresh, painful memory of my mother’s death. That’s something that will never go away. Ever. I wish it could. I wish it would. But in some ways it feels wrong because someone like my mom should always be in the forefront of your thoughts. To feel that loss, that pain, is just a testament to the kind of person that she was.
Though sometimes it really is hard to just get out of bed. Sometimes you wake up with dreams of that person and there’s that blissful moment between sleep and reality where you think everything is as it always was. And then it sinks in how much everything has changed. I realize she’s gone and my chest is filled with stones.
On those mornings I reach for Lachlan and he’s always there. Because he’s my rock. He’s my love and my everything. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him and nothing he wouldn’t do for me and god, it’s scary to have that kind of love, it really is, but I would never trade it for anything.
I know I used to think that the kind of love that my mother had for my father was the kind that would ruin you. So big and bold and powerful, it would take over your life. And it’s true. Because the love I have for Lachlan is like that. It’s bigger than the both of us. It has the power to collapse us, like the darkest star imploding on itself, too great for its own good. But what a beautiful thing to have, a love so deep that it can bring people to their very knees. A love that can rise from the ashes, greater and stronger than ever before.
Amara elbows me in my side, bringing my focus back to the rugby game at hand. I’m sitting with her in the lower stands, though I know that Jessica, Donald and Brigs are up in the box seats.