More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You’re the sun, Melody March. The sun only knows how to shine.” Lord help me. Only this man could be equally proficient in computer analytics and spouting off glorious words like poetry. “I’m the sun, and you’re the sky.”
“Don’t cry, Mel.” Charlie raises one unsteady hand to my cheek, thumb dusting over the tears, a gentle caress. “The sun doesn’t cry.” We say it at the same time: “The sun only knows how to shine.”
But I’m the sun, and he’s the sky, and I don’t know how to exist without him. What happens to the sun when the sky falls? No,
Charlie inhales a jagged breath. “You smell like peaches, Mrs. March.” He’s still smiling. He’s still smiling, despite his broken body and blood-stained skin. “Your eyes remind me of peach pie,” I rasp, trying to stay strong. Trying to stay so strong. Just like him. “It’s meant to be.”
Today was supposed to be beautiful—a new beginning, a new chapter, a new year of dreams and possibilities. Our wedding anniversary. But now it’s just the day the sun died.
Out of all the flowers in the world, why did he love daylilies so much? Their beauty was so short-lived.
“Fleeting beauty is the most precious kind. You appreciate it more.”
My purse falls beside me on the tiles, spilling its contents everywhere. Lip balm, loose change, random receipts, an assortment of junk and knick-knacks. All of it stares back at me, a scattered mess of drivel, and I realize, I realize with a sickening cry of horror— This is what he died for.
And when ties that bind turn to cinders in your hand, you learn to make new ties.
It’s my house with Charlie, yes, but it feels like his house, and no one understands why I chose to stay here instead of move; why I wanted to strangle myself in these dying roots when I could plant new ones. It’s for the same reason I didn’t wash the bedsheets for months, and why I showered with his Irish Spring soap, and why I didn’t have the heart to throw away the mail that had his name on it.
I’m connected to him here. I still feel him here.
I love this house. It’s my favorite place to be, ghosts and all.
“Hope is a toxic false sense of optimism created to keep us going, but all it does is prolong the inevitable,” I say, unblinking and unemotional. “Hope is for the weak.”
“No. You remind me of sunshine… it’s too cold for you here.” My body stiffens at the analogy, the one I used to adore. The one that would spill from Charlie’s lips like a summer breeze, the perfect complement to the sun.
Grief is a mechanical bull. You can hold on as tight as you can with white-knuckled fists, clenched teeth, and tears biting at your eyes, but you’re destined to lose your grip. You’re going to get thrown. And when you hit the ground, it’s going to hurt like hell. People will try to help you up, tell you it’s okay, encourage you to hop back on and try again. So, you’ll try again, expecting a different result, or at the very least, hope that you can hold on a little tighter this time—stay on a little longer. But you’ll still get thrown. And it will still hurt. I think the key to healing is
...more
I don’t turn around right away, but I feel her body heat closing in. Radiating into me like fucking sunshine. I hate sunshine.
But what I’ve learned about broken things is that they can always be put back together. It’s just a matter of how much time you’re willing to put into making the pieces fit. How much patience. How much diligence.
“You are? I think it’s beautiful.” My head jerks toward her, my brows knitting together. “It’s horrifying. It’s… sad.” “Sad things can be beautiful,” she counters. Amelia’s eyes case over the ghastly scar that travels midway up my arm. “Scars tell a story. We’re storytellers, you and me.”
To lose is to have loved. It’s when we have nothing left to lose that we truly know suffering.
“All broken things can be fixed. The hard part is deciding that they’re worth fixing.”
“I’m done breaking, Parker,” she finishes, letting out a breath that sounds like surrender. “It’s time to rebuild.” A grumble escapes me. “You can’t build something from nothing.” “No one has nothing.”
Parker is the opposite of me in every way, the antithesis to my very soul, and yet I’m drawn to him somehow. There’s a darkness inside of him that speaks to my light. He was right when he said I wanted to fix him because I do. My nurturing heart wants to glue his pieces back together until he’s whole again. I’m yearning to see him smile. Laugh.
him. “Let me see.” “Will you stop?” he barks, trying to dodge me as I reach for his hand. “I used to be a nurse.” “Really?” Holding him steady in my left hand, I rummage through the kit for the antiseptic with my right. “No. But I’ve seen three or four episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.”
“So damn intrusive.” “Like the sun, right?” My tone is gentle and unoffended as Parker’s jaw tightens, and he whispers back, “That’s right.”
“Anyway, I’m not the sun,” I finish, tracing my finger along his dressing, caught somewhere between this moment and a past life. “The sun only knows how to shine, and I’ve seen too much darkness.”
“It felt like completion,” I tell him, explaining it the only way that makes sense. “It felt like a pinnacle. Like everything in your life has come full circle, and this person is the culmination of every dream, every plea, every dandelion wish. “And when your dreams dissolve, and the wishes scatter, it’s hard to find joy in anything else. How can you ever obtain completion again when you’re missing the biggest piece?” A ragged sigh escapes me, and I watch the emotions play across his face, a melancholy reflection pulling at his features. “I have to believe there’s still joy in the
...more
All this time, I’ve been wrong about her. She’s not sunshine. She’s glittering nightfall, pale moonlight, silver stars in midnight skies. She’s that beacon of light when darkness threatens and consumes. No, she’s not the sun… Melody is the moon.
Fuck… she was so happy in that lake tonight, dancing and weightless, free as a bird. And then I ruined everything. My scars and old ghosts prevailed, snuffing out her spark and sending her right back into the darkness. I made her cry. I made her doubt. I made her stop dancing. And I hate that those thoughts are crawling beneath my skin and eating me alive. I’m not accustomed to regret or guilt. I don’t feel. But I’m feeling right now, and it feels like shit.
So, apparently, the logical next step was to fuck her silly in her backyard to ensure that I’ll never dig my way out of this giant, endless hole of mind-numbing madness and fuckery. Solid plan. Utterly masterful.
“Fuck…” Parker spins around, linking his hands behind his head and regrouping before facing me again. “I told you this wouldn’t end well.” “Why do you think that?” “Because,” he grits out, leaning in a little closer. “You’re so fucking… breakable. And I’m stone.”
“What do you want from me?” “Nothing,” I force out, even though I kind of want to scream, everything.
Gathering my wits, I slide into my own vehicle, and when the door is closed tight and my hands are gripping the steering wheel, a single word flashes in my mind… Breakable. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Parker’s right, because all I want to do is shatter.
“He called you his girl.” “Does that bother you?” My eyes dip to her lips as my fingers curl around her waist. Pink and parted, demanding to be kissed. Tensing my jaw, I admit, “Yeah, it does.” “Why?” she probes gently. Fuck. She wants to talk about my feelings, while all I want to do is claw them out of me. I drop my forehead to hers, closing my eyes through a ragged exhale. “Because… I remember every noise you made that night, every breath you took, the way your body trembled and swayed, molding into mine like it was designed that way,” I confess, the words spilling out of me like a pathetic
...more
“You’re wearing the “fuck me” dress,” I state, my voice hoarse, giving away my growing arousal. Melody’s irises flash, dancing with green and gold flecks. Tiny embers. Inching closer, I lower my chin until my lips are a hair’s breadth from her ear. “Did you wear it for him? Or did you namedrop the bar earlier in hopes I’d show up and tear this dress off of you?”
“No, they’re not. Scars mean you survived something terrible. There’s nothing ugly about that.”
That little ghost of a half-smile reappears, spiking my heartrate. I would do anything to freeze the moment, so it never, ever faded.
Melody nuzzles her nose into the crook of my shoulder, her tears dampening my skin. “You like me, though,” she concludes in a raspy breath. I let out a choppy sigh, instinctively holding her closer, losing myself in her warmth, in her citrus scent. She’s the only beam of light in this dark room—my only escape. She’s my moon.
Melody March is a fucking revolution, and she’s come to overthrow everything I’ve ever trained myself to believe about women, about intimacy, about… hope. Maybe hope isn’t toxic. Maybe she is hope, with hair made of cotton, eyes like the sea, and a mouth I haven’t stopped thinking about since she gifted me with that very first smile.
“I’m falling for you,” I breathe against her lips, almost grazing them. “But I don’t know how to fall without crashing and burning.”
Melody makes a sound, a little gasp, her hands rising up to clasp my face again. She arches her body into me, whispering, “I’ll catch you.”
Until she found me. Starlight and moonshine. The perfect complement to the dark.
We tangle and dance, her warmth invading me, her light healing me from the inside out, and I feel like I’m drowning, sinking deep and endless, but it’s okay… I know she’s there to catch me.
Pulling back for a breath, I clutch her in a fierce, possessive hold, rasping out, “You taste exactly like your smile.” Melody’s chest heaves as she drags her nails down my jaw, then my neck. “What does it taste like?” “Mine.”
She’s giving me real, genuine intimacy, a piece of her heart, and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s in the way her forehead rests against mine, her eyes pinned on me while she rises and falls in my lap with each frayed breath. It’s in the way she clings to me, her fingers curled around the nape of my neck, thumbs dusting over the skin beneath my ears. It’s in the way she just said my name.
What was that? What the fuck was that? It was just supposed to be sex—simple biology. A physical reaction. But it felt like a goddamn resurrection.
“Are you okay?” She echoes my words from earlier, but they are not the same. I don’t have an answer for her because I don’t fucking know. I’m not okay, not at all. I feel dismantled and picked apart. Lost. Drowning in confusion and uncertainties. And yet, I feel the most okay I’ve ever felt.
Once upon a time, the dark was my enemy—the place where I had never felt more alone. But not tonight. Tonight it’s where I’ve never felt more alive.
“Nobody’s heart is wrong. We’re given the heart that is meant for us, and if someone else doesn’t see the beauty in it, it’s not meant for them.”
“I’ll never intentionally hurt you, Melody.” “Intentional or not, it doesn’t hurt any less.”
“We are not responsible for the choices that others make. It’s human condition to latch onto the whys and what ifs because that gives us power when we feel like we have none. But we’re looking for power in the wrong place,” she explains. “The power is not in the past—it’s in the present. It’s in how we choose to move forward, and how we can mold our grief into something useful. Something beautiful.”
