Release (Release #1)

by Aly Martinez

“You look happy,” Ramsey said, giving the dog’s back a scratch. “You’re pretty when you smile.”

My mother was still dead. My father was still broken. But I was laughing with the boy next door. For a few brief moments, it didn’t feel like I was going to suffocate anymore. I didn’t know it then, but that day, Ramsey Stewart saved my life.

He smelled like dirt and sweat, but he was warm and comfortable, his heart playing a soothing melody in my ear.

When Dad was gone, my mom was a totally different woman. Don’t get me wrong. Whether he was home or not, she was always smiling. It was how I learned what an incredible disguise a grin could be.

That was exactly how I lived my life, showing the world a pretty exterior to hide the disaster on the inside.

I’d often wished we had a cool story about when our relationship transitioned from that of tolerating each other to discovering we were two halves of one soul. But the truth is Thea and I evolved much like the seasons: slow, steady, and unstoppable.

Love changes a man—even when he’s not yet a man at all.

However, in that tree, suffering alone and also together, I fell in love with her like the stars falling from the sky. Thea made me feel. It didn’t take long before I was utterly addicted.

That was who we were. Simple, average, yet utterly extraordinary.

“I can’t do this without you.” “Do what?” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Breathe.”

“The sparrows don’t come because you need them, Ramsey. They come because they need you.”

“You need to beat the absolute shit out of him with kindness and love,

I smiled. God, she was a good woman. She did not deserve the life I had given her. Even, and especially, the one when I was trying not to give her anything at all.

Thea was never going to stop until I was happy.

If keeping him as a part of my life meant not being the center of his, I could do that. Having him back was enough.

Thea was still mine. And it fucking broke me, because God, did I want that.

“Because when I was ten years old, I met a boy. I hated him. But I needed him like my veins needed blood. He broke my leg. He broke my patience. And eventually he broke my heart. But there hasn’t been a minute that’s passed that I haven’t loved him with every single broken shard.”

She wasn’t my Sparrow to free. I was hers.

I wanted to taste her. Lick her and suck her, feeling her pulse against my mouth. I wanted to shower with her. I wanted to fuck her again. But really, I just wanted to keep her.

In that bed, naked and drenched in sweat, we were just two halves of one whole, the way it was always supposed to be.

We were all emotionally drained and fighting our demons, but we were a family nonetheless.

If I had known at seventeen years old that she was going to spend a lifetime loving me, I’d have given her a lifetime of me loving her too.

I swear that boy’s heart is bigger than his brain,

“Sometimes you have to let go of the life you planned in order to live the one you’re given.

And then Ramsey kissed me, deep and frantic like a boy. Gentle and skilled like a man. All-consuming and claiming like my forever. And he did it all tasting like watermelon gum.

That saying about the truth setting you free was bullshit. The truth was nothing more than a needle you could use to slowly chip away at the concrete walls of betrayal.

Since I was eleven years old and saw her running across a hayfield. Being tied down to her was my only dream.

“Lead a good life. Be kind to people. Help your girl heal. Forgive yourself. Stay out of trouble. Make the world a better place.

This lifetime. The next. And in all the ones that followed, Althea Floye Hull—soon-to-be Stewart, though she didn’t know it yet—would always be mine.

My obsession was watching him smile.

“I love you, Sparrow.” Twenty-four years, three months, one week, five days, eighteen hours, eleven minutes, and counting… “I love you too, Ramsey.”