Dreams of 18 (Heartstone, #2)

by Saffron A. Kent

You made it okay. You saved me. You put yourself at risk for me.”

I try to swallow down my fears and anxieties and every bad thought in my head. And again, they go away for the moment and my desire for him, my love for him comes back to the surface.

We danced in the moonlight.

I want us to be us, just him and me. This is us. Wild and savage and filthy and beautiful. Beauty and The Beast.

I’ll hide you in my arms. No one will hurt you, baby. Ever. No one will ever make you feel scared. I won’t let them.”

He claimed me in front of someone, picked me over everything and gave me the strength to look a stranger in the eyes while standing up for him.

Love isn’t about asking someone to love you back. It’s about loving. It’s about finding that thing you love and letting it kill you because you’re going to die anyway. And what better way to go than at the hands of someone you love.

He’s the one person I never wanted to hide from or lie to and I hate that I have done both.

I love him so much that even when he breaks my heart, my soul, I have to watch him do it. There’s no other option.

“Because I always have. Right from the start. Because you make me feel safe. Protected and warm. And because love isn’t about asking someone to love you back. It’s about… loving. It’s about jumping off a cliff with both arms open wide and hoping that those arms become wings and you can fly. But even if you can’t and you hit the ground and you die, it’s okay. It’s okay because very few people get to die in love. Very few people get to die while doing what they love. Very few people get to be that shiny and luminous and bright and… and brave, you know? And…”

I’m brave.

“You’re so fucking brave, Violet. So fucking magnificent that sometimes I don’t know what to do. You’re the bravest person I know,” he chokes out. I am… fucking brave. My mouth falls open and I take a sudden step toward him. I grab his t-shirt and crane my neck up to him. “I am. I’m brave. I’m… I’m brave.” I smile up at him.

I’ve been brave since I was sixteen, maybe even before that, and I’m only realizing this now, the day I turn nineteen. Because of him.

everything is because of him.

He’s not making a fool out of me. I’m making a fool out of me because I love him. I’m so in love with him that he could’ve fooled me, if he wanted. He could’ve taken advantage of me but he never did.

“I don’t need your love, Graham. I don’t need it. I can live without it, okay? I can. I promise. I won’t need your love. I won’t even ask for it. I just want you. All I need is you. You make me feel safe, don’t you get it? You make me feel protected and warm and special and that’s enough for me. I can live with you not loving me. But I can’t live without you. I can’t. Please.”

Until she fixed everything. Fixed me. Saved me.

My body and my heart can’t understand the fact that she’s gone. They can’t believe that I’ve sent her away. They can’t comprehend this thing that I’ve done. This awful, cruel thing. They don’t get how I called her mother. How I hurt her when I’ve always promised to destroy anything and everything that dares to harm her. My brain understands it though. My brain grasps the betrayal. It understands the fact that I haven’t been able to protect her. I haven’t been able to keep her safe from the world.

I’ve been hurting her in the ways I didn’t understand until I read her journals. She’s in love with me. She loves me.

the thought of letting go of her makes me break out in a sweat. It makes me panic. It twists and screws and digs the knife in my chest. I was being selfish. So fucking selfish. So I did the right thing. The thing I should’ve done weeks ago. I let her go.

She was lonely and ignored and alone and… strangely unseen. Until me.

She was in her own world.

I make her feel safe. She told me that and I just ignored it. I ignored it and I sent her back.

She didn’t trust me. She thought I’d reject her but still, she gave me her dreams. Because she’s brave.

If she can love a hard man like me, cynical and old and emotionally stunted, then I can learn to be soft for her. I can learn to protect her better. Yeah, I can learn. I can fucking learn. For her.

He came back.

Exactly the same, that’s what we are.

“I’d look forward to that, you climbing up to the roof every night. In fact, that used to be the highlight of my day. Watching you in moonlight.”

“You’re here,” I whisper when he goes quiet. “Yeah.” “Why?” He swallows. “I came for you.” He came for me.

“My promise to you,” he rumbles. “What promise?” I try to inject some sternness in my tone. Another breath but this one is short. “That I’d keep you safe. I’d protect you. But I sent you away. I sent you back to the people, to the town who’ve always hurt you. And I hurt you myself in the process.” My eyes sting with tears.

I became a child of the moon again. Lonely and invisible.

I wanna know why you want me to hate you. Why can’t I love you? What’s so awful about loving you?” At last, he lifts his face, all exhausted and sharply angled. “Because we come from different worlds, Violet.” “What?” He scoffs and looks at the sky for a second before saying in a hoarse tone, “Different worlds. We’re from different worlds, you and me.”

I saw you up on the roof, with your thick, gorgeous hair and your arms open wide, something got lodged inside my chest, just under my heart and for the longest time, it felt like a knife of some sort. Something that made me… different. It wasn’t that, though.” “W-what was it?” “My soul,” he whispers. “It was my soul waking up. The thing that keeps a man alive, came alive in me when I saw you. You woke up my soul, Violet.”

You made me feel things.”

I wanted you to leave me alone so badly. So fucking badly but you never listened. You never left. You never went anywhere. Not only that, you saved me. You went and goddamn saved me

“I’m going to try. I’m going to learn, Violet.” “Learn what?” “Poetry.” “Poetry?” He nods; it’s a jerk of a movement. “I can learn to write poetry. How hard can it be? It’s a drunk man writing about his feelings, right?

For you. I’ll learn all of that. I’ll learn to be soft. I’ll learn to be gentle and tender. I’ll learn to dream when I’ve got my eyes closed. Because I don’t think I can live in my world anymore. I don’t like my world, Violet. I want to live in a different world.” “A different world?”

He’s stealing all my thoughts and words looking like he just stepped out of a dream. My dream. “Yeah. A world where colors are bright and gorgeous. Where you dance in the moonlight. Where you have a vegetable garden right next to a rose garden. A world where the air smells like strawberries and candies. A world where an eighteen-year-old girl sneaks into the backyard of a man she wants, a man she’s been watching, a man who’s been watching her as well, and steals his roses. A world where she steps on his shoes because she’s so tiny that she can’t get to his mouth and kisses him. A world where she follows him just because she thinks she’s wronged him. A world where she saves him from himself. I want to live in your world, Violet. A world of moon and magic, if you’ll let me.” God, he wants to live in my world.

he wants to live there, in my imaginary world. He wants to live there with me.

you inspire me to be brave, baby.” More tears fall down my cheeks and saturate the pad of his thumbs. “I inspire you to be brave?” He nods. “Yeah. You do. You inspire me to live, Violet. You inspire me to live in a world where a brave girl saves a dangerous, old beast and shows him to be brave like her.” A broken laugh escapes me.

“You’re magnificent, Violet, you got that? You’re fucking perfect.”

He’s an idiot but I love him.

I’m kissing the man of my dreams and he’s kissing me back.

“Take me home, Mr. Edwards,” I order, raising my chin up.

he rumbles, “Okay, Mrs. Edwards, I’ll take you home.”

he’s always the first to wish me a happy birthday.

we’re kissing in our world. A world we’ve built on love and dreams. A world where he’s mine and I’m his. Forever and ever.

I could’ve lived a dull, ordinary life but she came along and changed everything. Because of her I tasted the snow last winter. Because of her I read poetry in front of the fire one night. Because of her I dance with her at midnight to the songs from her kickass playlist. And because of her, instead of running inside when it rains, I stand on my spot and let the drops drench me. But most of all, because of her, I’m learning to dream. A thing people wonder about. I’m learning to want and desire and crave. I’m learning to live. Because she’s a girl made of moon and magic. She’s a girl who has streaks of gold in her thick hair, red as fuck lips. And she’s a girl who glows in the moonlight. A girl I’ve loved since the first time I saw her. My beauty. My Violet.