Chapter 17

Grace picked up Landon the next morning at nine. He was already waiting for her outside the cabin playing catch with Scout.

Grace drove in silence for a while. She was trying to order her ideas to be able to express her thoughts in the best possible way.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked.

“I’m okay, I guess. Thanks for offering to drive me to town.”

“I’m happy to help in any way I can. Tomorrow is Friday,” she said, trying to think of how to say what she wanted to say without saying too much.

“Yes, so?”

Grace took a deep breath and tried again, “I want to drive you to Seattle.”

Landon didn’t say anything for a while. How did she know he and Derek went to Seattle on Fridays?

When he finally spoke his voice was soft.

“Why?”

“Because I want to be part of your support network. I want to be there for you and help you, and to do that I need to know how.”

“You are already helping me. You find the perfect place for me. You found me a job to keep me busy and pay the rent. You check on me. You even cooked a pizza for me.”

“Yes, but I want to do more,” Grace shook her head, “I want to do better. The other evening when you had that...”

“Flashback,” said Landon.

“Right, when you had that flashback I didn’t know what to do. I was playing by ear. I was afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing and making things worse.”

“You did great. You did exactly what I needed,” Landon turned his head to look at Grace.

“Well, the thing is if I’m going to be part of ‘team Landon’, I want to know more about your ... condition and how to deal with it.”

Grace looked at Landon out the corner of her eye and kept talking, “I want to know what helps and what doesn’t.”

Landon remained silent for a couple of minutes.

“You want to talk with my doctor.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be your doctor. I want to talk with someone who can give me some pointers, some guidelines. Do’s and don’ts”

Again, Landon took his time before saying anything.

“Team Landon, huh?” he surprised himself by smiling.

Grace smiled back at him. “Well, it’s just a name I came up with. You have Derek, Bella, your doctor...”

Scout barked.

“Don’t forget Scout,” Landon turned around to scratch his dog’s ears.

“Of course not! The thing is I want to be part of the group of people, and dog, you can count on,” Grace said with determination.

Landon took his time before saying anything.

“You’ll have to pick me up at eight tomorrow. Are you going to talk with Derek or do you want me to do it?”

“I will,” Grace said with a huge smile on her face.

“Grace?” she turned her head to look at Landon.

“Thank you.”