The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers #1)

by Celeste Briars

the kind of eyes that feel like September, like a warm breeze winnowing through the air, or like the coziness of a crackling fireplace.

I stop in my tracks. I don’t know what it is about this girl, but she gets all my wires crossed.

Cats are attuned to their owner’s emotions, right? God, this must be her way of pitying me.

Jesus, I need to be spayed.

I’ve been chasing after love my entire life, wanting that gratification of meaning something to another person. But life doesn’t work that way. People don’t work that way.

I don’t think I’d survive another person abandoning me.

He stares at me. I stare back at him. “You’re staring,” I point out. “You’re really beautiful, you know that?”

This is going to end badly, I just know it. My number one rule is to never let anyone in. And what’s the first thing I do? I let someone in.

I soldier through my nervous system trying to actively shut down my body,

Did he realize how repulsive I was after spending that much time with me? I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. Someone as attractive as him doesn’t make sense with someone that looks like me.

“Dog person?” “Cat person,” he corrects. Oh, wow. Did it just get hot in here?

“It’s scary. Letting people in is scary.

I cycle between sadness, confusion, self-pity, anger, and hopelessness as the silence bridges between us. Call it my Five Stages. Sadness: He’s the first person in a while who’s made me feel something. Confusion: Why did he pull away from me? Self-pity: What if I’ll never be able to trust him? Anger: I’m disgusting. I’m not good enough for him. Hopelessness: Nobody else may ever love me again.

you deserve to be happy, to fall in love, to live a fulfilled life. Don’t rob yourself of that. It’s okay to feel. Your heart is my favorite part of you. I don’t want to see it broken, but I also don’t want to see it atrophy from disuse.”

You know how when you’re drowning—or, I hope you don’t know—you try your hardest not to swallow any water? Because the more

water you swallow, the harder it is to breathe.

Did you also know that you have to let a little water in to allow yourself to swim...

Oh my God. It’s like I’ve been transported to a strip club in Las Vegas, but not a good one. A scary one. A very scary one.

He’s so pretty. The kind of pretty you never get tired of looking at.

A Navy SEAL team couldn’t waterboard that picture out of me.

It’s just more of everything. And that scares me as much as it draws me in.

She’s poison in my veins, and I can feel it killing me slowly. So yes, to put it in simple terms, I like her.

She’s a work of moving art, and I’ll forever be in awe of her.

“You promise you won’t let me fall?” I reach out to grab her hand from her shaking leg, wreathing our fingers together. Her touch sends my thoughts into overdrive, endearment torching my vision in an aurora borealis of colors. “I promise.”

“That explains a lot.” “Explains what?” “How weird you are.”

was that a compliment?” “And…I revoke it.”

“I’m sorry that you’ve lived the majority of your life without knowing how extraordinary you are,” he says, pressing his forehead against mine, “but I’m glad that I got to be the first to tell you.”

I can’t get over how seamlessly we fit together, as if I’d been carved from his very being, perfected for him.

then kisses me with an intensity and brightness that until now has been a foreign feeling to me—the kind of feeling that love songs are written about, what romance novels are made of.

“You came to my house to tell me you missed me?” She beams from ear to ear, lighting up brighter than the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. “I’d cross the ocean to tell you I missed you.”

You stand out. Everything about you is captivating. You have this effect on people that I can’t explain. You light up every room you walk into. It’s like every emotion you feel projects off you. When you’re happy, it’s contagious. And when you’re sad, I feel it in my own heart. So when people look at you, they aren’t judging you, okay? They’re envious.”

He’s like a walking garbage disposal.

Jesus. Why am I so stiff? Those weren’t even complete sentences.

I never used to get nervous around women before Aeris, but to this day, I still get butterflies when I’m around her.”

Trauma doesn’t make someone less lovable. Insecurities don’t make people’s bodies less beautiful.

“I’m strong,” I chant, feeling superhuman strength course through my mortal veins. “You’re strong,” he echoes. “I can do anything.” “You can do anything.” I begin to drift away from the bulk of his body, finding my own rhythm but still grasping his arm in case I overestimate myself and the ride gets too bumpy. “I’m sexy!” I shout confidently, my voice resounding off the spacious arena. “Not sure what that has to do with this, but yes you are!” Hayes yells just as loudly.

I’ve always seen myself as impossible to love. I always believed no one would want to be with a girl who’s too loud or too emotional or

too damaged.