Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

by Lisa Unger

“Cleaning up the damage created by others is a noble but ultimately fruitless act. Because the destroyers simply grow bolder, less accountable for their actions. They leave others to pay the price for their depravity.”

To stand at the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment,

Hope. It was a tricky thing, powerful enough to lure you across an ocean, and so easy to lose.

Dawn. Angeline loved the moment before. The pristine, quiet edge between what was planned and what would be.

And only a grown woman who’d been to hell and back knew what a gift it was to own yourself, to know yourself.

“Turns out I could outrun the bulls but not my demons,” he said. He held her gaze. “You don’t get to run from those. Gotta face them down, apparently.”

There’s a last, best day. The day when everything is as good as it’s ever going to be. And if you’re not paying attention, you might miss it. It’s the day when you’re healthy, and everyone you love is okay, and maybe the sun is shining, and you’re doing something stupid like making a cup of tea or reading a book on the porch. And there’s a whole list of things you want but don’t have, and that might be what you’re thinking about. And not a single one of them matters. Because everything that’s important is right there. And, Mav, it’s so easy to miss it completely.