Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Breathe.
I’ve got you.
Benson’s words fire into my head, building a wall against my self-doubt. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs before letting the air out in a long whoosh. “I grew up with a single mom who wanted desperately to be in love. She didn’t find my stepdad until I was much older, and even then, I didn’t really know what love was until I saw Evan loving Callie.” I look out toward where my best friend is leaned into her fiancé.
“I had a front-row seat to their love, and then I met his family, and it was like a movie I wanted to watch on repeat. So, when I met Jenna and Mark, I felt like I knew their love story before I had the opportunity to witness it.”
I turn my eyes to Shea. “I knew it because of your love story with Elli. I’ve known you guys for years, and how you love her made me want exactly what you two have. It’s beautiful. But what’s more beautiful is that you two passed it on to your children.” I meet Grace’s watery gaze as she squeezes the urn of one of her parents in her hands.
“Each of your kids has found someone they want to love the way they learned from you guys, and they’ll teach that to their kids. I mean, that’s a love for the ages. It’s inspiring, and I’m proud to know you guys, to have the chance to witness so many different love stories that not even the best storyteller in the world could write.”
A tear runs down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away as I look down at the hole in the ice that is about to receive Jenna’s and Mark’s ashes. As one, they’ll enter the water, just as they entered the next life. Together.
Just as I want to be with Benson.
I look up, meeting his loving gaze, and I smile widely for him. “I am currently writing my last paper for my major, and I know this might be a lot to ask, but can I read the final page that I wrote last night?”
Shea and Grace nod, and I swallow as I pull my phone from my jacket pocket, opening the document. I scroll to the paragraph I want and sigh deeply. “Social media is a highlight reel of all the great things in your life. Even when people post sad things, or moments in which their emotions are raw, it’s still what they chose to post. As I type this, I’m lying in the arms of a man I never thought would be in my highlight reel. I thought he couldn’t love me because of our history, but that history has nothing on the future we’re ready to build together.” I look up to see Benson’s intense gaze is only on me.
“It hasn’t been easy throwing out my own issues, my own trauma, and letting myself fall for someone who was only supposed to be for social media. But like parallel lines, he matches my energy and levels me out. He loves me despite how deeply I drag myself down, and he fights for what he wants. Which is me.” His eyes dance with mine, and I wipe away another tear.
“As he strokes his thumb across my hip, I know he’s in pain from losing his grandparents, and all I want is to make it better for him. I want to take all his pain and hold it for him because I don’t want him to hurt. But most of all, I want to give him the kind of love he saw in his grandparents. They built a strong life together, made a set of twins who went on to have their own kids with a partner that completed them just as Benson does for me. His grandparents left this world together, and that is the ultimate ending to an epic love story. What better way to honor that love than to love someone just as Mark and Jenna loved each other.”
I smile to myself, looking back at my phone. “While a part of me wants to skip to the end of Benson and me, going out together just as his grandparents did, I can’t wait for the middle part. The ups and downs. The laughing. The fighting. All the things I’ll post and all the things I won’t. The hockey games with his number on my back, the broken hockey sticks, and his cocky grin when he scores just for me. Just as Mark and Jenna did, I am ready to have my own Adler love story and continue their impeccable example by loving Benson on and off social media.” I press my lips together, making myself stop before I move on into the data part of my paper.