When he pushed her to the side, she moaned, and her heart sputtered. My lungs froze. I couldn’t lose her, not after realizing she meant more to me than anything in this realm or any other. She stood for everything I wasn’t … everything that, as a little boy, I’d dreamed we could be together. I wasn’t that little boy anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want her beside me. In fact, she’d made me care in ways I hadn’t since the day I lost everything.
