Broken and Fearless // C.B.

Chapter 111

Colby's video: Escaping a Haunted Ghost Ship w/ Sam

(Just a note: Juliet is doing okay. She's not totally back to her normal self, but she is okay. She knows she has people who care for her and she's in therapy and is distracting herself with things she likes to do.)

Colby's POV:

It'd been a week since we lost the baby. I wasn't doing great, but I pushed back my feelings. Juliet was my priority. I knew her history and had to hope she wouldn't do something she couldn't take back.

I heard soft singing coming from our room. She was singing a song I didn't recognize.

I entered the room and sat across from her. "What are you singing?"

She pointed to her computer screen, continuing to play on her keyboard and sing.

I watched her fingers fly across the keyboard as she sang along to Tomorrow is Today by Billy Joel.

When she finished, she looked at me. "Music's been helping. A little."

"How are you feeling?"

"Um, numb, empty, lots of other feelings I don't know how to say. How 'bout you?"

"Honestly, kind of the same way, but I know I gotta be there for you."

"Tell me you aren't pushing away your feelings for mine." I looked away guiltily. "Colby! You have every right to feel the way you do. Just as much as I do. You and I both lost a child and we're both going to be feeling things that no one understands."

She took my hands and started rubbing her thumbs on the backs of them. "Listen, you don't have to worry about me, okay? I won't try what I did a couple years ago."

"Promise?"

"I promise. I got a good life and a pretty great husband."

I chuckled. "Yeah, you do. You know what would make us both feel a little better?"

"Exploring?"

"Yeah. Sam and I are gonna do an escape room. You wanna join?"

"Is it okay with Sam?"

"Believe it or not, it was his suggestion."

"Huh. Well bring on the escape room, then. I am so gonna kick your butts."

I laughed. "That's my girl. You ready?"

She slipped on a pair of black sneakers and nodded. "I think. How do I look?"

She was wearing leggings and a dark blue tank top. Her hair was in a messy bun and she had slightly heavier makeup on.

"You look beautiful, babe."

That night, we made our way to the escape room.

I started my video. "What's up, guys, it's Sam, Colby and Juliet. That's weird to say."

"'Cause we haven't said it in seven months?" Sam replied, glancing at me.

Jules slipped on a sweater. "Been a long, long, while, folks."

Sam introduced himself as me to my viewers and a light smirk crossed Juliet's face.

"So today, we are at 60 Out Escape Rooms."

"60 Out Escape Rooms," Sam and Jules repeated.

"So this is an awesome escape room place in Hollywood, actually."

"They have a bunch of locations, too," Sam said.

"We're at the one in Melrose right now. They have six total escape rooms and they were nice enough to invite us to go try these out. We're not very smart, Juliet is, we're also not very good at escape rooms if you guys didn't know this, Juliet's pretty decent at them, so we're gonna do our best but no promises that we actually escape. It's basically like a giant interactive puzzle where you walk around, you look for codes, or-"