Gus (Bright Side, #2)

by Kim Holden

Some people are threatened by silence and try to avoid it or fill it with needless bullshit. Silence isn't the enemy. It can bring comfort and clarity and validation. It's a reminder of time for what it is…presence.

How do you go back to doing what you did before, when half of you is gone forever?

I don't want to be outside. I don't want to be inside. I'm at the point where I just…don't. I know that doesn't make any fucking sense, but it's how I feel. I don't.

I don't know why, but I'm smiling thinking about her. For a moment I'm filled up with light. Bright Side's light. It truly was fucking infectious. "I bet she would've spent today on a wicked, drunken rager."

Leave it to Bright Side to haunt me from the grave—and instead of it being creepy, it's sunshine and rainbows and fucking unicorns.

Then I turn to Bright Side's headstone. I kiss it, too. And I look at her name. Kate Sedgwick. That name holds so much power over me. The best kind of power: inspiring, encouraging, and respectable. It's a name that I've always associated with badass bravery. It's a name that always meant anything was possible. It's a name that was love and goodness and kindness.

I feel alive and heavy with emotion, heavy like a tide that threatens to pull you under, but you somehow know it won't because your heart is buoyant enough to keep you afloat no matter what. It's blind faith…hope, or at least as close to hope as anything I've ever felt. A faint, reluctant hope that I can feel in both of us. Buried deep.

"That's the secret. You find what you love and you go for it. Life ain't about coasting. It's about pushin' the damn gas pedal all the way to the floor. Same goes for fun and love, no coasting. Pedal to the floor."

"Listen to me, boy. You only get one chance at this circus called life. Don't sit in the crowd watchin' it happen. You jump right in and be the ringleader. That's where you find your fire."

And you know that feeling when you just know something fucking amazing is about to go down? Yup, that's exactly how I feel right now.

He lives life with his heart fully exposed. From the inside out. His life isn't about what's going on outside, the Gus the rest of us see and perceive. He doesn't live life, he feels it. I've seen it. I've seen grief strangle him. And I've seen happiness make him glow with a brightness so intense it's almost blinding. That's what makes him so special. It's not his talent or his looks. It's how much he feels.