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To the voyagers, looking for answers in the shadows of the darkest of nights. May the promise of the sun on the horizon always bring you back home.
The way the sun always manages to come back, no matter how dark the storm, made me happy.
“Life isn’t supposed to be safe,” she added with a laugh. “If it was, they wouldn’t call it living. They’d just call it existing. And you’ve existed long enough, baby girl. It’s time to live.”
I don’t want to die before I’ve even had the chance to live.”
I do believe in loving as many people as you can, and experiencing them in all the ways you can before the chemistry runs out.” “Is that code for have a ton of sex?” “Among other things.”
What if there is no answer? What if I am just not a happy person. Period. The end.
The more I sulked, the more frustrated I became. I never sulked. I was always the happy girl, the positive girl, the silver lining girl.
And, quite frankly, you make me feel stupid, too.”
“And I don’t know, I just… I just feel stupid. I feel like a stupid little girl with stupid little dreams and a stupid little belief that life will turn out to be everything I’ve ever wanted it to be, because it sure as hell hasn’t been even anything remotely close up until this point.”
“And for the record, you’re not stupid for having dreams and taking crazy risks just to see if you can make them happen.” He swallowed. “You’re brave. And you’re living. That’s more than most people can say.”
“You kids remind me of my younger days. This is the stuff life is made of. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it, and wake up seventy-two and grumpy.”
“You were jealous last night, weren’t you?” he asked, voice low and rough. “Of Emily.”
Nerves assaulted me the entire time I bathed, mind racing with how he would react when he saw it. Would he cringe or pretend he didn’t see it? Which would be worse?
“You already knew, didn’t you?” I asked after a moment. He found my gaze, nodding slowly. “I suspected, but I figured you would tell me when you were ready.” “I’m never ready to tell anyone about it,” I said quickly. “But… I didn’t really have a choice tonight.”
“John was right, you know. You are beautiful. With or without your prosthetic.”
Two tears slipped from my eyes at the same time, rolling down over my cheeks and hitting my thumb in unison. “She was fine, except she was angry at me, because she knew the hospital bill would be outrageous.” “Jesus Christ,” Emery breathed,
“You are strong, Cooper,”
“You are. And the fact that something like this happened to you and you’re still here, living, smiling and spreading light… it’s incredible.” He paused, swallowing. “I couldn’t do that.”
“I don’t know. I want someone I can laugh with, and go on adventures with. Someone who will challenge me to be better but also support me when I’m weak. I want someone who shares their deepest fears with me, shows me their scars willingly — someone who trusts me to heal them, just as I trust them.” I bit my lip. “And I want to feel a rush every time our skin touches. I want to lose entire afternoons with them under the covers. I want someone who I can’t wait to share good news with, and someone who I know will hold me when the bad news comes.”
“I want that kind of love that leaves you breathless when it hits you, and makes you want to throw up at the thought of losing it. The kind that makes you so happy that it hurts at the same time, like it’s painful to think that out of all the people in the world, you somehow found the one meant for you.”
“I’m here, if you want to talk.”
“You think you don’t have any real hopes and dreams.” “I don’t.” I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You’re just figuring it out. It’s not easy for everyone.” “It was for you.”
And in that moment, with that kiss, everything changed.
“Wow,” I breathed, my hands still fisted in his sweater. “Was that… is kissing always like that?” Emery swallowed, the muscle over his jaw flexing as he shook his head slightly. “Never.”
He kissed me like it was a privilege, like he didn’t want to rush, like we had forever. I think I knew even then that we didn’t.
“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”
“I’ve never been scared of love, of feelings, of falling hopelessly for another human being. Yes, it hurts to leave, or to lose it, but it’s also amazing to live it. It’s worth it, to me, to have the experience.”
No one seemed to notice me as life rocked through me for possibly the first time on the edge of that canyon. No one asked me if I was okay, or offered me a tissue, and I was thankful. It was my moment, one meant for no one else, and for the first time, I felt alive — truly, one-hundred percent alive. It was my rebirth.
All I knew was he was scowling, and when he met my gaze again, he didn’t move. He didn’t get up and come to me or call me over. His eyes didn’t widen at my dress. His jaw didn’t drop. He just stared. And my heart sank all the way down to the dance floor.
He didn’t deserve my tears, especially since he clearly wouldn’t care if they fell.
“What does it matter? Seemed like you had your hands full over there.” I nodded toward the other end of the bar where he’d been sitting before. “Maybe you should worry about whether or not she drinks instead of me.” “I don’t give a fuck about her.” “Oh,” I mocked. “And you give a fuck about me?”
“You’re sorry,” I deadpanned. “Sorry for what, exactly? For giving me the best kiss of my life, for letting me open myself to you in that tent only to completely blow me off the next day?” “It was your first kiss.” “And?” Emery’s eyes met mine. “And you can’t say it’s your best if you have nothing to compare it to.”
“You want me to, what, have more experience? Will that make you feel better about kissing me, about touching me? Do you need me to break under someone else’s hands so you don’t have to be the one to do it first?”
“Because I realized almost immediately when you got in my car that you aren’t that kind of girl… You aren’t like any kind of girl I’ve ever met.”
I can’t disconnect from you, and I can’t treat this like it’s casual because it’s not. You’re not. And I can’t—“
“There are so many things I want to do to you, Cooper.”
“Things you’ve never experienced, but I can’t. Because you deserve more than that, more than what I can give you.” He pushed back off the wall, his eyes falling to the floor. “More than me.”
“But I want you,” I whispered,
“You don’t know me,” he countered, voice rough. “And if you did, you’d be running right now.”
“Kiss me,” I whispered. “And this time, don’t stop.”
He swallowed, catching my eyes for just a second before he caved, a guilty man accepting his punishment as his mouth fused with mine.
He gazed up at me, eyes wide and worried and on fire all at once,
he took the cue, eyes fluttering shut along with mine as he filled me. Slowly, inch by aching inch, until we were together in every way we physically could be, in every way I’d never been with a man before.
He was so gentle, so reverent, like being the first man to touch me was the highest privilege he’d had his entire life.
“It’s okay, if you want to… if you need to go harder. I can take it.”
“I have no doubt, but tonight I’m taking it slow. Tonight,” he repeated, his eyes dark. “I want to give you part of the fairytale, even if it’s just this.”
“Is it always like that?” I finally asked, my voice a raw, sated whisper.
“Never,” he answered, fingers brushing through the tangled strands of my curls. He swallowed then, as if that answer scared him as much as it excited me, and then he repeated it. Softer. Slower. “Never.”
“I have to tell you something.” “Okay,” I whispered as confidently as I could, but the blood drained from my face.
“Because I told you last night that I would try, Cooper, but you have to understand that sometimes trying for me isn’t going to be enough for you. Sometimes trying, for me, is just…” One hand waved in the air above us. “Existing.”
