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Light in the Shadows (Find You in the Dark) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 2: Find You in the Dark

Walters, A. Meredith

 
9781476782324: Light in the Shadows (Find You in the Dark)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1476782326 ISBN 13: 9781476782324
Verlag: Gallery Books, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

In the bestselling sequel to Find You in the Dark, A. Meredith Walters continues the emotional story of Maggie, Clay, and the power of unconditional love.

How do you keep going when you feel like your life is over?

Maggie never thought she’d see Clay again. So, she attempts to put her life back together after her heart has been shattered to pieces. Moving on and moving forward, just as Clay wanted her to. Clay never stopped thinking of Maggie. Even after ripping their lives apart and leaving her behind to get the help he so desperately needed. He is healing…slowly. But his heart still belongs to the girl who tried to save him.

When a sudden tragedy brings Maggie and Clay face-to-face again, nothing is the same. Yet some things never change. Can the darkness that threatened to consume them be transformed into something else and finally give them what they always wanted? And can two people who fought so hard to be together, finally find their happiness? Or will their demons and fear drive them apart for good?

The thing about love is that even when it destroys you, it has a way of mending what is broken. And in the shadows, you can still see the light.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A. Meredith Walters is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Bad Rep, Perfect Regret, Lead Me Not, and the Find You in the Dark series. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a counselor for troubled and abused children and teens. She currently lives in England with her husband and daughter.

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Light in the Shadows
chapter

one

clay

“you’re cheating! There is no freaking way you can win six rounds of poker!” the scrawny boy across the table from me said, throwing his cards down in frustration. I chuckled as I scooped up the pile of red and blue chips, adding them to my pile.

“I warned you that there was no way you could beat me, Tyler. Not my fault that you didn’t take my advice,” I said. Tyler grumbled under his breath, but grabbed the pile of cards and started to shuffle them again.

I leaned back in the wing chair, waiting for my roommate to deal. I had been at the Grayson Center, a private facility for teenagers experiencing mental illness, for almost three months. I was enrolled in a ninety-day program and my time was almost up. Looking around the recreation room, I realized I would actually be kind of sad when I had to leave.

Which is weird considering how much I had fought coming here in the first place. Once I had gotten over my anger and resistance to treatment, though, I almost came to enjoy my time here. I found that the staff and the other patients did something I never thought possible.

They showed me how to heal.

And that’s what I was doing. Slowly. Not that I expected a perfect fix in three months. I realized my healing would take years. And there were days I never thought I would be able to leave and live a decent life outside the support of the center and the safety of its walls. But then there were good days, like today, when I felt like I could take on the world.

Like I could find my way back to Maggie.

“What’s with the goofy smile, bro? You look like an idiot,” Tyler said good-naturedly as he tossed out cards. I blinked, taken away from my happy thoughts, and picked up my cards.

“Nothin’, man. Just having a good day.”

Tyler smiled. Other guys would probably have given me shit for acting like an emo pussy. But not the people here. We were all here because we needed to have those good days. So we understood the importance of happy days for those who had them.

“Cool, Clay. Glad to hear it. Now, focus on the damn game. I want to win some of my chips back,” Tyler retorted, concentrating on his hand.

I grinned before beating him soundly yet again.



The group sat on the floor, kids relaxing on oversized cushions. Looking around, I could almost imagine this was just a bunch of friends hanging out together. Except for the two adults who sat in the middle asking them questions like, “Tell me about your relationship with your family,” and, “How does that make you feel?”

Yep, group therapy was a blast.

The girl to my right, a dark-haired chick named Maria, was here to deal with her severe depression and promiscuity brought on by serious daddy issues. She was trying to figure out how to answer the question that Sabrina, the female counselor, had just asked her.

“Just think about your happiest memory with your mother. It can be something simple like talking to her about your day, or a time she smiled at you,” Sabrina prompted gently. Maria’s problems, like those of most of the kids in the room, were rooted firmly in her relationship with her parents.

Today’s group topic was trying to acknowledge the positive aspects of our familial relationships. To say this was hard for most of us was an understatement.

I dreaded the groups when we had to talk about our parents in a more positive way. It was so much easier to vent about how crappy they were than to find something nice to say.

“Um. Well, I guess there was a time, I was probably like six. And my mom took me to the park and pushed me on the swings,” Maria volunteered, looking at Sabrina and Matt, the other counselor, for approval.

They each nodded. “Good. And how did you feel then?” Matt urged.

Maria smiled a bit. “It felt good. Like she . . . I don’t know . . . loved me.” The smile on her face was sad and my heart hurt for her. I understood her need to feel loved by her mother all too well.

There was some more processing to help Maria identify and handle her feelings, followed by a period of silence while everyone allowed Maria time to get herself together. Then it was my turn. Matt looked at me expectantly. “Clay. What about you? What is a happy memory you have about your parents?” The group looked at me, waiting for my answer. Over the last two and a half months, this disclosure thing had proven difficult for me.

I didn’t reveal personal details very easily. It had taken Maggie, the person I loved most in this world, a long time to get me to open up. And if it was hard for me to talk to Maggie, then it was nearly impossible to get me to open up to a group of strangers.

But over time, after lots of individual and group therapy sessions, I was able to loosen up and talk more about what I had experienced. The things I felt, my fears, my pain, and what I wanted most in my life. And I found that the more I talked, the better I felt.

I began to recognize that these people weren’t here to judge me or make me feel bad when I talked about wanting to kill myself or how hard it was for me not to cut. Cutting had always been my form of coping. Comforting and familiar, it was easier to make myself bleed than to face the truth of my issues. And these people didn’t look at me like I was crazy when I would break down after a particularly gut-wrenching session. This was the most support I had felt from anyone besides Maggie, Ruby, and Lisa in my entire life.

And it felt wonderful.

So, with all eyes on me, I thought really hard about my answer to Matt’s question. And then, just like that, I had it. A memory that was actually good and not tainted by anger and bitterness. “My dad taking me fishing.” Sabrina smiled at me. “Yeah. It was before things got really bad. My dad wasn’t the district attorney yet, so he had more time for me. He picked me up from school early one day and drove us out to a lake. I can’t really remember where. Anyway, we spent all day fishing and talking. It was nice.”

I smiled as I remembered when I could be with my dad without wanting to rip his face off. Matt nodded. “That sounds awesome, Clay. Thanks for sharing that with us.” And he was moving on to the next person.

The memory of that time with my dad made me feel pretty good. I was feeling that way a lot more lately. Less of the crazy depression and anger, and more of the happy-go-lucky thing that I never thought I was capable of experiencing.

I’m sure it had a lot to do with my new medication. After I came to the Grayson Center, my new doctor, Dr. Todd as we kids called him, put me on a new pill. Tegretol helped control my manic mood swings without turning me into a zombie.

It was pretty great. And even though I had moments where I strangely missed those energetic highs, which Dr. Todd told me was normal, I sure as hell didn’t miss the crippling lows. The psychotherapy that I attended three times a week was also helping a lot. It was nice to not have to worry about hurting myself or someone else. To think that maybe I would be able to get my shit together and find a way back to where I belonged.

With Maggie.

I shook my head. I couldn’t think about her here in group. That was...

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Verlag
Gallery Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1476782326
ISBN 13 
9781476782324
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande