The rest of the day stretched into long hours. Minutes dragged by with a heavy hand, the ticking of the clock ominous. Memories assaulted me at every turn, as if I needed the reminder.

And even though they pained me, I kind of did. I relished in the hurt. I bathed in it as if it were the ocean, pounding through my body and leaving me ravaged because every time I remembered, it meant I wasn’t forgetting. I wasn’t letting her go.

I lingered online, searching for more memories, watching the movie Facebook made over and over again.

But each time I stared at my phone too long, each time I stared into the past too long, Piper brought me back. Sometimes, it was gentle—a hand to my leg, a long gurgle of words that made no sense. Other times, it was brutal—a scream that sent me running to the next room, a cry that tightened every muscle in my body, until I felt as if my insides were wound up like a screw, ready to explode.

When her bedtime rolled around, I’d had enough. All the energy of the day, the emotions that had churned around my body like whirling dervishes—I needed to get it out.

At home, when I got like this I went to the gym. I raced on a treadmill, outrunning the past until my body was too sore, my muscles too tired to run anymore.

Here, I had nothing.

But I needed to get all the memories inside of me gone, just so I could sleep. So I could try and get some rest and pretend that life without Bella wasn’t the world I lived in anymore.

I took out my phone, sent a text to Mack.

Cameron: Buddy, how was the Honeysuckle? Looks like you had a good night.

Mack: Still going, mate. What’s up?

Cameron: Do you happen to have any weights or anything in this joint, like you did when we were kids? Going crazy over here.

Mack: …

Mack: Check out the garage. There are a few surfboards and some gear in there from when we were in high school.

I entered the garage through the internal living room door. The scent of mould, a room shut up too long, reached me. The crickets sung as I pulled and pushed the roller door above my head.

Light spilt in from the street, showcasing a room of memories. Dust covered boxes, towering high to the left of the room and scattered in the middle. To the right was a jumble of miscellaneous shapes. The surfboards Mack mentioned hung on racks against the wall. An old bike, the tyres deflated, leaned up against a box stack. Some fishing rods were twisted together like lovers in the corner, their tips touching a long metal beam that stretched across the ceiling. A stack of bricks the same colour as those that covered the house sat squat to the side.

I stepped farther in, flicking on a light even though the sun still burned against the horizon.

“Nothing,” I muttered, peering behind a kids’ bucket-and-spade set. I’d buy some weights online. Get them delivered.

Just as I turned to head back out, something caught my eye. Behind the pile of boxes. Something black and shiny and—

A punching bag.

I’d found a goddamn punching bag.

I grabbed it out, the chain attached to it still in good nick. My body thrummed with possibility, and it was almost as if now I’d found it, I had to race to get it up. Race to get all this energy out of my system. Race to sleep, to dreamless, exhausted sleep.

I pushed some of the boxes aside, clearing a space, then grabbed some bricks, piling them in the centre of the garage. When I’d made a stack two-feet high, I grabbed the bag. My knees bent. My muscles protested as I carried it across the room to hook it on the metal cross bars that ran along the roof. A small ring waited for the bag to be attached to. Perhaps Mack’s father had let off steam here when his boy was a kid, too.

When the bag was strung up, I cleared the bricks from under it and stared at it. The white light overhead painted the room in stark relief.

I’d need gloves. Years of boxing at the gym when I was a kid meant I knew I’d need gloves.

But more than that, I needed to hit something. I needed to let all this hurt inside of me out.

I balled one hand into a fist. I drew it back, my elbow in, just like my dad taught me.

Back before the attack.

Before he forgot who he was.

Then I released.

My fist connected with the hard bag and I swore, shaking my hand. It stung my knuckles. It jarred my arm. So. Much. Pain.

I lowered my head, looking up at the bag in front of me.

Bella. I miss Bella.

I punched it again.

This time, hurt radiated all the way up my arm to my shoulder. My bones ached. My teeth clenched together.

I needed it.

Relished it.

I drew back my arm and punched, punched over and over again. I threw everything I had into each hit—every ounce of hurt, of loss, of loneliness, the kind that ate at your soul at three a.m., the kind I felt selfish for feeling because at least I could feel. At least I had that left.

I punched and I punched and I punched until tears pricked my eyes, my breath short in my chest—

And then I cried.

I knelt in a corner of the garage as night set in, letting loose the tears I’d stored up for twenty-two long, stoic months. I cried, and I nursed my bloodied knuckles and wished like hell that I was that punching bag, and that I had been there to take the fall for the people who’d needed it most. I cried, and while it didn’t make me feel any better, it helped me keep that memory crystal-clear in my mind.

A white dress. Long, red hair. Laughter that sounds like the birds.

The scent of honeysuckle, lingering in the kitchen.