Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)

by Jessa Hastings

I remember wondering if this was it, if that was the last time I’d ever see him. Him with the starry eyes and the hair I loved to knot my hands up in. The most beautiful boy in every room, the great love of my life—how many loves do you get in a lifetime? I remember wondering that. How many people will look at me like he does, not just like I’m the sun but like I’m the whole goddamn universe. I remember hating him for doing this to us. I remember hating him for dying before we had a chance to be okay again, because I always thought we would be. I thought we’d be fine, I thought one day we’d sort our shit out and I’d forgive him for everything he’s done, and we’d grow old together and we’d finally get that house in Tobermory, but then he was dying of a coke overdose because I looked happy the night before with another man I don’t give a fucking shit about. I remember resentment pounding through my body and then I remember it, like a physical punch in the gut, how much I loved him. Really loved him. To the bone, loved him. Cut me and I’d bleed him. How much I needed him, still needed him, would forever, always, never couldn’t even if I tried, needed him. And I remember being deeply afraid of what my life would be like without him in it.