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For those who aren’t sure what they’re searching for. You’ll know it when you find it.
I’ve never loved my family more than when I wasn’t living in the same town as them. Boundaries worked a hell of a lot better when there were thousands of miles between us.
I am no stranger to guilt, so it’s easily identifiable, but I was a stranger to feeling bad for a man—men in general, honestly. Especially for something I did to them. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about it.
She looked like trouble.
I’d thought coming back here might help, but all it had done so far was remind me how loud and heavy the silence was.
I didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to exist in this dark void that I’d created for myself—where nothing could get to me.
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I could feel him thinking, wondering what to do with me. I almost told him that it was okay—that no one knew what to do with me.
In my experience, longing kept me going and sadness kept me still, but they were two sides of the same coin.
“I’d rather be alone with an open petri dish full of an airborne flesh-eating virus than listen to my own thoughts.”
“They’re that bad, huh?” She shrugged in my periphery. “I don’t know. There’re just…so many of them all the time.”
Collins laughed lightly—a half laugh that made me wonder what the full one sounded like.
The way he was smiling at me while being genuinely engaged in our conversation made my knees weirdly shaky.
I started taking pictures because I was desperate to hold on to moments after they were gone. Recently, there weren’t any I wanted to keep, but there were plenty I wanted to be rid of.
“Knowing and caring are two different things.” “Really?” I asked as I did the same thing, so I could look at the stars. “I don’t think that’s true. At least, not in this case. I think knowing always comes with at least some sort of care.”
Loneliness was a hell of a mountain to climb. Personally, I just kept telling myself that I enjoyed solitude. It was a good lie, but its effectiveness had recently started to wear thin.
“She is so dramatic,” I grumbled. “Maybe you gave her a reason to be,”
I didn’t know a single thing about organization or being an assistant, so it took more of my mental energy than something else would have—busy hands and a busy brain meant less time for thinking about everything else.
“Do you do this often?” “Trespass? Yes.
“You are bad for my blood pressure, trouble,” Brady grumbled.
“You can complain, you know,” I said. “It’s a basic human right.”
“Just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it can’t also be exhausting,”
I liked that—being chosen.
it felt more like a choice than it ever had before.
Most of all, I liked the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he was dying to solve instead of one he wished he could put back in the box.
“It feels like I’ve spent the last year or so dropping things as I ran from place to place—like my arms were too full—so I just started leaving things behind. But now I’m not sure what I have left.
“I feel like myself with you, too,” I said after a while. “Not so lost, I guess.”
Even though I was exhausted when I finally got into bed, I still couldn’t manage to fall into any sort of restful sleep.
“I never sleep anymore. Running on fumes is just my constant state of being.”
“I think I like you bossy,” Brady said as he walked past me.
Collins’s eyes immediately went feline. “I love a man who begs,” she said.
If given the opportunity, I wouldn’t have a problem begging Collins for anything.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and kissed her head. Everything felt more…intimate after what we just did—more vulnerable. I felt like I’d cut my chest open and laid my heart out at Collins’s feet. Lucky for me, she handled it with care. “For that. For being patient with me.” Her hand was rubbing at my chest. “You’re worth everything, Brady.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel…hopeful, and that was dangerous. Hope is one of those things that can be crushed in an instant. It terrified me.
“Do you need help?” “Not this time,” Collins said, and I felt her lips press against my neck. “But thank you for asking.”
“I was staring at everything, Collins,” he said, and looked down at me. “Everything about you feels like it’s specifically designed to torture me.” “Torture you? Me?” I pressed my hand against my chest in faux shock. Brady shook his head and let out a strained laugh. “You know exactly what you do to me,”
Brady bit down on a smile and shook his head. I slapped my hand over my mouth and started laughing. Brady’s body shook with laughter, too. I wanted to stay here forever. He pulled me even closer to him, and I felt like nothing could get to me here—not when I was with him. I wanted to take this feeling with me everywhere. Or maybe I just wanted to take him with me everywhere.
This place built me—for better or worse. It was the place I left to find myself, but it was also the place I came back to, so I could do the same thing.
“You brought me here,” he said as he pressed our foreheads together. I held on to his wrists while his hands stayed on either side of my face. “It was you.”
“Your work doesn’t define you, Collins,” he said. “But you should be proud of it. This piece? It changed my life. It pushed me to feel something that I’d bottled all up. It forced me to take a risk I never thought I’d be brave enough to take, and I’m a better man because of it.
“I love you. I’m in love with you, and it has nothing to do with this, nothing to do with who everyone else thinks you are, and everything to do with who I know you are.”
Come with me?” Anywhere.
I’d do anything for you.”
“If this works, I’ll owe you forever,” I said, leaning into him more. “You won’t owe me anything. And it will work, Collins.”
I wonder if every decision I’ve ever made was leading me to you,” she said, and my hammer slipped out of my hand. I didn’t even hear it hit the floor. “I know mine led me to you,” I said quietly. I’d never been more sure of anything—the discovery in the cellar only confirmed it. Collins came into my life exactly when I needed her—when I needed something to hope for and something to push me forward, and she did that for me years before I met her on that stormy night.
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Collins,” I said. “To the ends of the earth and back again if you asked me to.”
We won’t be gone forever, right?” Collins shook her head. “This is our home, I think.” “It is.” I nodded. “And you’re my home, too.”
