I choose this,” I say, my voice ragged with want. “I choose you.
And there is nothing between us but rain. Then there is nothing between us at all.
And I look at Harley, and the billions of stars are in his eyes, and he’s drinking them up, pouring them into his soul.
I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.
I’ll always come back to you.
But there’s a difference, isn’t there? Between saying goodbye and death.
There is only him and me and this thing between us that I cannot name, not out loud, but that my heart knows is love.
I quit thinking.
And I know without being told that she killed herself. And I totally understand why.
Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars. A million suns.
It’s bad, being frozen, but it’s better than waking up alone.
If it’s a matter of dying here or dying there, I think I’d like to at least see the world first.
What matters right now is this: we’re each of us standing here, together, alive, together.
This journey... it’s long”. He says this as if he’s felt all 250 years of travel.
You could drop me anywhere in the universe, blindfolded, and I’d know this was his room just from the smell.
I want her so much that it overrides everything else, every other thought in my head, every instinct, every restraint.
I have never desired anything more than him in this moment.
This is what I’m king of: a whirling mass of humans who either hate me or ignore me.
She holds the brightly colored wires in her hand. “Well, that did the trick,” she says, smiling.
A splatter of rain on my skin, but its bright and sunny under the blue sky and Jason’s there, and we almost kiss but everything changes and were at that party where we met.