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What I don’t realize is that I’ll be fighting the urge to stare at Jasper Gervais for years to come.
“Raise your voice at that woman one more time and I will drop you like a stone, Woodcock.”
“Over my dead body, are you marrying him.”
I want to leave, but I don’t want to look everyone in the eye. They’ll try to convince me to stay, and I just want to go back to where I always felt safest as a little girl. I long for that place and the simplicity of life that came with it. It’s a deep pull in my chest I can’t ignore.
salivating over Jasper Gervais is part of my personality at this point.
And watching her comfort Harvey right now, I let myself admit that the way I love Sloane might not be how one friend loves another at all.
But I can’t. I want her close. I just don’t know how to go there.
Because she’s a tether that has never let go, even when I’ve wanted her to. Before I joined the Eatons, I felt like no one would miss me if I were gone. But now I know that’s not true. They would. Sloane would. And that’s always kept me grounded in a way I needed so desperately as a grieving teenager.
“Does that mean you’re going home? To Sterling?” His voice is thick and he sounds resigned. I press my lips together and force myself to stare out the windshield. “No, Jasper. It means I’m coming with you.”
“Is that what you want? I don’t know what I want, other than to not face reality yet. I’d like to keep my head in the sand for at least one more day. So I’ll go wherever you go.”
“You always look good to me. Concealer, no concealer. Fancy dress, Harvey’s sweat suit. Smooth hair”—his hand waves over me with a low chuckle—“whatever this is. It doesn’t matter. You’re you.” I swallow and try my best not to melt onto the floor into a squishy pile of mush. “That’s probably what you tell all the girls, Gervais.” “Nah, Sunny. You’re my only girl.”
“No. It’s in the car. And it’s one of my favorite things.”
“They’re not just blue.” He says it like it’s fact and not his opinion.
Beau wasn’t missing. She wasn’t running from her life. But me? I’ve always been running from mine, trying to escape attention.
“Well, there’s no one else here, and I know the way your head works. You talk things out. And I’m good at listening. So spill.”
No, Sloane doesn’t need my approval. But goddamn, she has it anyway.
It’s the glacier lake.
I drift off staring at the crystal-blue water. Daydreaming about the girl with crystal-blue eyes.
He doesn’t just listen to me. He hears me. He sees me.
My person.
“You’re perfect the way you are, Sloane. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“I learned with my parents that no matter how fiercely I love someone it isn’t enough to make them stay. But you? I told you every dirty little detail and you could have hated me. But you stayed. You danced.”
I can be a person who really knows who he is rather than what he is. I can listen. When he talks, I’ll always listen.
“Shit happens to the best of us, Sunny, and I am not the best of us.” “To me you are,” is what I tell him.
“You, Jas. You. Always you.”
And we just exist in each other’s eyes.
“I can’t ever lose you,”
He takes and I give. I take and he gives.
“Sunny, you’re gonna make me lose my mind.” “Good,” I murmur against his mouth. “We’ll be insane together. I’m so tired of doing it alone.”
He reads me like a fucking book and then tells me something I’ve longed to hear. “You’re not alone. I’m right there with you.”
life is just moments all strung together like multicolor Christmas lights. You always end up liking some colors better than others.
“I definitely meant to kiss you.”
My last moment and she would never know what she is to me. How much she is to me. That she’s it for me. And that’s just fucking insane. Like a waste. Like for a man who knows loss so intimately, why would I ever set myself up to lose something so precious?
But fuck, losing someone and having them not know that you care about them? Wishing you could go back and tell them? That’s a special hell. One I have no intention of living in because I’ve given my demons enough of myself already—they can’t have her too.
Except for Sunny. She’s the girl I tell everything. The girl who was always there on my worst days and darkest nights. Not because I asked her to be, but just because that’s what we are to each other. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. We’ll always be that to each other.
Sloane is soothing. She’s the eye of the storm. True North. Somehow our compasses always bring us back to each other.
“Why do you have to be so fucking agreeable, Jasper?” “Because I’m your friend, Sunny. Nothing will ever change that. If you need to bitch about something, even if that something is me, I’ll be that person for you.”
“Times have changed, Sloane. I’m not scared anymore. You’re not my fucking friend. You’re just mine.”
I don’t want him to feel like he needs to save me. I want to save myself.
I’m going to get comfortable disappointing other people to avoid disappointing myself.
I love him too much to do that to him. And he likes me too much to say no. God. We’re so fucked.
“Because I missed your first professional dance.” He clears his throat, staring at my hands and avoiding my eyes. “I wanted to be there so badly after all the times you’d been there for me, so I went and did something that night to commemorate it in my own way.”
“I told you that you aren’t sleeping here. And I fucking meant it.”
“I know you are.” I shiver. “But we can be angry together. Because I can’t stand seeing his ring on your finger.”
I have a special knack for pushing people away. They always take off. And they’re never all that sad to leave me behind.”
You can wear someone else’s ring, but we both know you’ve always been mine.”
Her capacity for empathy.
It’s my favorite tattoo. For my favorite person.
She told me so much, and I gave her so little in return. Like I always do.
