To the Moon and Back by Karen Kingsbury

Author:Karen Kingsbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

12

T he firehouse was active that day. An electrical fire in an old home on the edge of the city. A sweet widow whose cat was stuck in a tree. And a teenager with a shoe caught in a moving escalator.

All three calls had happy endings.

Brady sank into the sofa in the station’s living room. He grabbed his laptop from his backpack and opened it. Now that things were slow, maybe he could catch up on Facebook. Like on most weekends, he needed to do another search for Jenna. In case she finally showed up on social media.

Where she hadn’t been since he first started looking.

A sigh slipped from his lungs. The anniversary had been more than a week ago, but this year it had stayed with him. Like a bad cold he couldn’t quite shake. He opened Facebook and immediately spotted the notification.

Someone had written to him.

Not too strange. People would find him from his time on Survivor or because of the calendar. There were the occasional offers on his page. Modeling agencies. Casting directors. Girls. Most of them weren’t legit. Especially not the women. Did they really think he’d strike up a relationship with them? Because of a private Facebook message?

Since meeting Jenna, Brady had dated a dozen girls. At least that many. He only remembered the names of a few of them. They were pretty or funny or interesting. But as soon as they learned about his mom, as soon as they discovered he’d been raised in foster care, something changed.

It wasn’t their fault.

The blame was Brady’s. He had an aversion to pity. When girls realized the details of his childhood, they looked at him differently. Like he was a project or a charity case. Whatever it was, Brady hated it. He didn’t want sympathy.

He wanted empathy.

Sympathy felt sorry from the outside looking in. It knew nothing of a person’s pain or experience.

Empathy lived it. The sorry feeling came from the inside looking out.

Which was why things never worked with the women he dated. Sure they were sad about his past. But they didn’t understand it. And in the end it left a chasm too great to cross. A divide no bridge could span.

It was fine. Brady didn’t need love. If he couldn’t find Jenna, he would go on the way he had every year for more than a decade. Fighting fires. Serving the people of Oklahoma City. Working out at the local CrossFit gym. Maybe it wasn’t the life he had hoped for. Not the life his mom would’ve wanted for him. But it was enough.

Brady opened the message and scanned to the bottom.

Ashley Baxter Blake.

Brady sat up straighter and stared at the screen. Ashley? She was the brunette from the memorial. The one who had randomly texted him a few days ago. She said she’d read the letter he’d written for Jenna. How she wanted to help. It had seemed harmless at the time, so he had texted back. He didn’t know Jenna’s last name, so what could the lady do to help? He had figured that would be the end of it.

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