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“Love,” my mama said, “is the most powerful thing in the world. It can heal and it can grow in the most unlikely of places. When all is lost, love blooms.”
I was seventeen and had never been in love. I hadn’t ever been kissed. No boy had held my hand. I’d never gotten my happily ever after. And now I never would.
“I haven’t written a single love story yet. At least, not one like I want to.” “Why?” I focused on the horses in the distance as I whispered, “Because I don’t know what it feels like.” I turned to Jesse, to see him frowning in confusion. “What what feels like?” “Love,” I said on a defeated sigh. “I want to write about love, but I don’t know what it feels like to be in love. Or to be loved.”
“I mean this with my entire heart: you are stunning.” My breathing grew shaky. Jesse’s cheek moved against my headscarf. “If anything, your headscarf hides it. You don’t need anything, not even hair, to be beautiful.”
“Write me for you.” “What?” I whispered back in confusion. Jesse met my eyes, keeping just an inch from me as he searched them. “Write me for you. In your great love story. Fall for me.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Allow me to fall for you. Write me for you.”
When I arrived at Harmony Ranch, I knew it would change my life, just not in the way I expected. I expected to be healed, or I expected to die. What I didn’t expect was to meet a country boy who would utterly change my life…
“Cancer is trying to take me from this world.” My heart thudded on the ground. “I despise it. But I will forever be grateful that it led me to you.”
“If I die,” I whispered a while later, “I want to go just like this—with you next to me, holding my hand.” June’s lips trembled. But she nodded, making me that silent promise. “Write our story, Junebug. Let our parallel-universe selves live the best lives they can. We deserve to have our happily ever after, even if it’s in another life.”
“If you need to express your feelings, worries, and doubts about our happily ever after by giving us tough times in your writing, that’s fine. It won’t upset me in the here and now. But know that I will never give up on us. In this life or the one you are creating in this notebook.”
I would have loved to have been your wife and had children with you. And year by year, we would watch them grow from our home in the country, until they were old enough to move on, then we’d watch the grandchildren grow too.”
“You get to walk me down the aisle, Daddy,” June said, and Mr. Scott’s eyes closed. “I know, baby. I cannot wait,” he whispered, opening them again and staring adoringly at his daughter.
