Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #3)

by Jessa Hastings

She doesn’t know that I’m a wolf and Parks is the moon whose name I’ve howled since I was fifteen.

I slip into the toilet, lock the door and lean against it as a terrible revelation dawns on me. It’s like the morning sun when you forget to close the curtain—it’s my fault, I should have closed the curtain, I knew the sun was there, I knew the sun would eventually rise again, but I didn’t close the curtain and now this invasive, bright, shimmering light wakens me from the slumber I was using to avoid it. I still love him.

She’s crying for me in a way I’ve never done for myself and I love her for it.

Maybe it’s me. Me undoing her, because we do that to each other. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but she’s all raw emotion.

“BJ, you can love someone and not have it rule you, not have it dictate your every waking thought and decision. You can love someone and still retain your power and autonomy. You can love someone and have it just be there, a part of you, and still have a completely functional life—” She pauses and gives me a long look. “Even if it’s a life without them.”

And then my eyes fall down the trunk to the stone we lay to remember the tiny baby girl we lost that no one even knows we had, and there are magnolias laying there and I know he was here.

I feel like someone places a vacuum over my mouth and sucks the air right out of my lungs. I lose him again and I lose her too for the billionth time in my life and I feel like the world is ending again.

pull up outside me and Jo’s place; it’s evening now. I’m ready to crash out for the night. Sleep it off. Sleep off losing the only girls I’ve ever loved.

“You promise you love me?” He nods. “Infinitely.” “And you want to be with me?” I frown. “Forever.” He nods again. “And I’m gonna be. We’re going to figure this out.”