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The air is crisp, just how I like it, and the trees are on fire with color.
“Afraid you’re falling in love with me already?” he jokes, lightening the mood. I scoff. “In your dreams, Blackwell.” He grins. It’s such a rare but heartwarming sight. “Goodnight, Calla.”
relish my own company—most of the time, I prefer it. But I don’t like being alone for long enough that the wicked thoughts take over.
What’s the point of living? Is it a way to pass time that doesn’t even exist? And maybe, inherently, nothing matters in the grand scheme of things.
“I didn’t say that, and to put it bluntly, I’m worse. Really, Calla. It’d be best if you stayed away from me.”
“I thought I told you not to bring her.” Ace storms toward us.
Ace’s eyes darken, and they shoot from me to Theo, irritation spills abundantly from his body. “Fuck! I can’t do this with her here.”
“Why don’t you leave, then?” I don’t understand what he’s talking about, and frankly, don’t give a shit anymore. He laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, they are hard and narrow. “I can’t fucking leave. It’s my fight, Calla.”
Everything about him is familiar, although it shouldn’t be. “Logan, get the fuck away from her.”
“We’re just talking.” Logan shrugs and looks from Ace to me. I don’t dare to glance back at Ace, but I know the way his jaw is ticking in wrath. “Next time, don’t even look at her,” Ace instructs.
“Get on the bike, Calla,”
“I’m trying to save you from disappointment.”
“It shows that despite their best efforts to forget each other, and despite each other's flaws and failures, they’re still willing to give it another chance. People can’t be modified by ignorance or renunciation,”
“I’m not a good person. I will disappoint you.”
“You say that, but you’re also the one who came after me,” I tell him. “If that’s true, then why don’t you stay away?”
“Do you think it’s that easy? You drive me fucking insane.”
Ace is hot-tempered and impulsive. He gets under my skin more than anyone else has. He’s messy and full of hard edges, yet there’s something about him that keeps me coming back for more. Conceivably, it might be the fact that I see so much of myself in him.
“And sometimes the worst things that we do lead us to the best things that happen to us,”
up. Maybe it’s because you know a person much better if you know what they read and why. “If you only read what everyone else does, you can only think what everyone else is thinking,”
He gazes at me like I’m the stars when all I’ve ever felt before was the darkness that encircles them. He makes me feel insanely sane for the first time in my life. “It
His eyes meet mine again, and there’s something different inside them. I may be reading too much into it, but it’s as though his own demons are dancing directly in front of me.
hate how he makes me feel like nothing matters when I’m with him. I hate that even though he orders me to stay away, he’s always the one who finds me. He’s always there when the only thing I’m seeking to do is fit in and start over. But most of all, I hate that somehow, during all these weeks of Ace being an asshole,
I find myself wanting to spend time with him. I find myself liking him. He understands me in a way no one else has. I grasp him for who he truly is—and we’re not so different after all. Both of us push away everyone who aims to help. Both of us have a tremendous amount of healing in front of us.
“Not everything is defined by fate, and fate is almost always cruel and unfair.”
Before I have the chance, he takes my hand, placing it on his chest. “Calla, if we are just fucking friends, then why do I feel like this every time I’m around you?”
Our silence together feels more familiar than my own, even though I’ve spent a whole lifetime with mine.
“Relax, love. You look beautiful,” he
“Would you like it if I told you that us being here was written in the stars?” he asks. “Hmm, yes. I would like to believe in something.” “You and me, we’re written in the stars, love.”
And just like that, we lie there for hours, talking about absolutely nothing, but to me, it means absolutely everything.
Nothing can stay the same. We’re all part of a changing power that twists and turns us in unconceivable ways until we experience it for ourselves. There may be harsh and eccentric lessons to learn, but they are all a reminder that nothing stays the same—not even when you want it to. Every so often, that can be something to look forward to, and other times, it’s something we shy away from. Nevertheless, take everything as it comes, for it’s a gift to be able to move through time and experience what the universe offers you—no matter how forbidding it may seem.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I open my eyes and let myself skim the words that will be entrenched in my mind for the rest of eternity. Maybe we’ll meet again in another life. When the stars align.
