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“You came,” she whispers, breaking the silence.
“You needed me.”
I’ll never be able to admit to her how it felt to imagine her walking down that aisle, marrying a man we both know she’ll never love the way she loved me. Having her in my arms feels like the last ten years of my life have suddenly been erased.
I’ve split my lifetime in two: before Darby and after Darby. I haven’t allowed myself to savor the blip of time that was Darby. Not until this moment.
She’s always had the key to my heart. She always fucking will.
“Honestly, Darby, I hate that you used the word peer pressure back there. “I think you’ve been far too sheltered, and I want you to know what it feels like to have fun. I think you should know this town is a lot different than the one you’ve grown up in. And yeah, you might be sneaking around
your grandma, but I’ve known her for years, and I’ve got a gut feeling she’s a lot more understanding than your parents. I think this summer could be a good time for you to learn how to live without the fear of someone breathing down your neck and making you second guess everything you do.”
“But I hate that word: pressure. I don’t ever want you to feel like I or my friends have pressured you into doing something you don’t want to do. The party is going to have drinking and rap music—which I’m sure your dad hates—and people will probably be hooking up. Getting loud. Being reckless. It might be too much for you, and I’ll be damned if you get into a s...
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“I look like what?” I ask defensively. He sighs. “You’re beautiful, Darby. You’ll get a lot of attention. You don’t have to do any of those things. In fact, please absolutely do not hook up with anyone you meet at that party. I’m begging that of you.” He laughs roughly.
“But you’ll keep me safe, right?” I ask. He stops suddenly, and I walk right
“Yes, Honeysuckle. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to experience, I’ll keep you safe. I’ve got your back. I won’t let anyone hurt you, and I won’t let you hurt yourself. I’ll do my best to ensure you don’t get caught doing anything less than appropriate by your parents’ standards—I’m good at not getting caught, by the way.”
“You’ll do all that just because I chase your ghosts away?”
“No, Honeysuckle. I’ll do all that just because I like you.”
I lose all my composure, and with an involuntary reflex, I reach for him, for the boy who kept his promises. Who kept me safe. Who made me feel alive and free, real and raw. As he holds me now, I realize he’s no longer that boy. He’s a man. A man I betrayed and abandoned. A boy I broke. I don’t deserve to be held by him.
“You’re safe with me, Darby,” he whispers quietly.
“I came because you needed me, because I promised you that I’d be there for you if you asked. I came because you deserve better than this.”
“I’m here to be whatever you need from me. You want to go home? I’ll take you home, Darby. I’ve got a car. I’ll find a plane. A submarine. I don’t fucking care. Just say the word.” “I can’t ask that of you, Leo.” “Ask what of me, Darby?” He lets out an exasperated laugh. “I already came all this way. You’d be doing me a disservice if you didn’t at least let me entertain the idea of coming to your rescue.”
“You need to understand that the only person with authority over your body is you, you and whomever else you allow. No one is entitled to your body, nor are they entitled to what you do with it. That includes your parents.” His blue eyes blaze, as if it’s important to him that I absorb every word.
“What do you mean?”
He covers my hand with his own, running his thumb across the ring on my lef...
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“If you want to save yourself for marriage, I think that’s great, but if you’re telling yourself you need to do so because your dad told you to, or because you’re afraid of being punished by your religion, that’s not okay either.” He sighs. “Any choice you make...
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She was hours away from marrying someone else, belonging wholly to someone else. While I only ever got pieces of her. Another familiar feeling washes over me as I melt into her hazel eyes, the feeling that you’ve been longing for something your whole life, and you didn’t know what it was until it was right in front of you. Like you’ve been missing a piece of yourself, but you had no idea what part until you suddenly find
“What was all that about?” I flash a smile at her. “Operation ‘Get Honeysuckle The Hell Out of Dodge.’”
“You can’t even stand up straight, honey.” I chuckle. “Do you even know where you are right now?”
She nuzzles her head against my chest. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Oh fuck. That sentence feels like a prayer ...
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“Don’t ever hide your smiles from me, Honeysuckle. I need to see every single one, especially the ones I put there.” I move my hand to cup her cheek. “Show me every smile, and I’ll do whatever you want, yeah?”
“Leo, wait,” she whispers. She places her hand over mine on the doorknob, halting me. “I want…” She takes a breath. “I’ve never kissed someone before.” Fuck. Why does that knowledge make my heart stutter in my chest? “I’ve never really wanted to, honestly,” she continues. “But… I think I want to kiss you. I…” She looks at me, hazel eyes shimmering in the moonlight. “I want you to kiss me.”
I don’t know how he knows. How, after so many, many years apart, he can instantly read my shift in mood. The heaviness in my bones. The hurt inside my soul. I don’t know how he knows that one glimpse of those dimples and the flash of those eyes—blue like the ocean water I haven’t felt in far too long—is enough to settle the raging storm in my body. But somehow, he does. So, when I smile back at him, it doesn’t feel forced at all.
A professional surfer and a business owner in the town he’s always loved—it sounds like all of Leo’s dreams ended up coming true. Something I always hoped for him. Something I know wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t left him the way I did. That knowledge seems to calm a ten-year-old storm I didn’t know was thundering in my heart until it stopped.
It ignites something in my chest to know that she still feels safe enough with me to fall asleep here. After the day she’s had, the adrenaline pumping through her veins, there’s no doubt she’s exhausted. But I also know it must mean something that alone with me is the place she feels she can finally rest.
Opening up to her is as simple as breathing. She’s the easiest person to talk to, those deep hazel eyes burning through me like she’s hanging onto every word, like I fucking matter. That’s the way Darby Andrews has always made me feel, and until I wrestled my way right back into her life, I had no idea how empty I was without her.
“Don’t ever say that again.” “Excuse me?” “That you aren’t brave. Don’t ever say that again.” I
Today, Darby, you’ve given up your entire way of living. The comfort of wealth, of security. Your family. All in the spirit of finding happiness. That’s one of the bravest things a person can do, Honeysuckle. You didn’t need me for that. You would’ve figured it out all on your own. I’m just here to help however I can.”
I flip my palm, wrapping my fingers around hers, squeezing them four times, reminding her that she is, that she always has been, safe with me.
“I’ve never done any of that with anyone else either, Darby. It’s important to me that you understand that. I’ve never taken anyone under the pier before. I’ve never told anyone about my tattoo, not even Everett and Elena.” Her face straightens at that declaration.
“So, all of this”—I wave my hand between us—“means something to me too. That’s exactly the reason why I didn’t kiss you last night.” Her tongue swipes across her bottom lip. “I don’t understand.” “I said no because you were drunk. I was afraid you’d regret it in the morning, that you were only asking because you were intoxicated. Not because it was what you wanted. Not because you wanted me.” I run a trembling hand through my hair. “Because it’s crazy to me, Honeysuckle, that someone as beautiful and golden and good as you could want someone like me. I couldn’t kiss you until I let you see all
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“Well, I do. I do want you, Leo. And for someone who tells me I should stop letting other people control me, that I should make my own decisions and live life by my own rules, you sure like to tell me what’s good for me.” I can only nod. “You’re right.”
“I’ve decided that you are good for me. You’ve changed me more—made me better—in one month than anyone else in my whole life. You make me feel free. You make me feel beautiful and safe and smart, and that makes me want to kiss you.”
“Wow,” she says breathlessly. “I’ve clearly been missing out.” I smile down at her. “No, baby. That’s something you only find once. Something you’ll only ever know with me.” “I guess you were worth the wait, then.” She smiles back.
But I also can’t stop thinking back to the look on her face when I told her I’d all but forgotten about our “summer fling,” as if it weren’t the most all-consuming kind of love I’ve ever experienced. As if I haven’t been walking through life like a corpse searching for the feeling she gave me ever since. As if I’m not well aware that nothing—no one—has ever come close to her.
the places I’ve kissed her, all the places I’ve touched her. I wonder if, like me, she’s thinking about how the kind of connection the two of us once had is something that can’t be replicated. Can’t be forgotten. Can’t be moved past. There can’t ever truly be friendship between us, because Darby and I were once intertwined stars. At one time, we burst with light, threading through each other and forging together, though, in reality, we were both dying suns. Now, there’s nothing left of us but stardust floating through the cosmos in the dark.
“Leo,” she breathes. “Stop looking at me like that.” “Looking at you like what, Honeysuckle?” “Like you know exactly what my soul feels like, and you’ve been incomplete without it all this time.” I do. I have.
“For what it’s worth, I really did love you,” I whisper. “My word is worthless…but I loved you too.”
“I want it all too, Darby,” he says. He raises his hand to cup my face. “I don’t think it matters what promises we do or don’t make on this beach. I’ll be stuck on you, regardless. So, you can go back, and I can stay here, but I’ll still be yours.” My eyes suddenly feel heavy, and my lips tremble as I speak. “Me too.”
“You’d wait a whole year just for me to come back?” “I think I might wait my whole life for you to come back, Darby. Something tells me there would be no point in trying to move on from this, because I’d end up searching for you in every place I go, in every person I meet, aimlessly wandering until I find you again.”
“Do not go back to the girl you were before you arrived here. Do not be obedient. Timid. Submissive. You’re not just the honey, Darby. You’re the whole damn flower. Do not forget you have poison berries. You have strength, resilience, and an independent mind. You do not need to conform to anyone else’s way of living. Okay?” I nod.
He squeezes my jaw four times, reiterating a word with each press of his fingers against my skin. “You’re. Safe. With. Me.”
“Day or night. If you need me, I’m there, no questions asked. I’m always going to protect y...
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No other person, no other love—no other soul—will ever be enough for either of us. And now, as we stare into each other through the mirror, we can see the reason behind it all. I feel
