Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“Hey.” She came toward me. “It’s okay. Take a breath.”
She was such an angel. It was so dim I couldn’t see the sapphire color of her eyes, but I could feel their calming effect on me. I took her hand and brought her fingers to my lips.
“Ryan. Talk to me,” she whispered.
“I got your letter. I want another chance,” I said, my voice breaking over the words. “I want to try again to be good enough for you. I want to stop fighting everything I feel.”
“What do you feel?” Her voice was shaky.
“Like I’ve been shot through the heart,” I said honestly. “And I might bleed to death if I don’t find a way to heal the wound.”
“Ryan,” she said, sniffing a little. “I can’t heal you. I can love you, and if you’d let me, I would, but you have to feel in order to do that.”
“I know.” I kissed her hand again. “I know.”
“That means no shutting down on me, no bottling up, no flipping that switch when things get tough. You have to talk to me.”
“I promise,” I whispered. “I should have been honest with you about my friend’s suicide from the start. But I was terrified because the grief was so raw, and I couldn’t shut it off. I found myself spiraling into all this self-loathing, all this regret over so many things in the past. And I panicked. I wanted to go numb, and you wouldn’t let me do that.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I won’t. Going numb never makes it better, Ryan. You’ve got to work through it.”
“I will do everything in my power to be that kind of man.”
“You already are that man.” Her voice was soft but her tone was firm. “Don’t you see? Those feelings reveal your true self at the barest, deepest level. All I’m asking is that you own them, and when you need to, share them with me. I want to know the real you.”
“The real me is sometimes a real asshole.” I needed to be completely honest with her. “But I’m going to work on that. I can be better.”
“Can you?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that. I feel in my heart you’re telling the truth. It’s just …” She took a breath. “I felt that before, and I got hurt. How do I know you won’t get scared and walk away again?”
“You don’t.” I squeezed her hand. “But you said in your letter that trusting someone takes bravery.”
She smiled slightly. “That’s true.”
“Be brave for me, Stella. Please?”
Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Okay.”
“It might take me some time to work through things. I’ve … got a lot of baggage.”
She lifted her shoulders. “We all have baggage. You just happen to have a heavier load than most. But I’m here for you, Ryan. And I’m a good listener.”
“You’re more than that.” Overcome with emotion, I let go of her hand and cradled her head in my palms. “You’re beautiful and brilliant. You’re sweet and funny. And you’re so damn strong. I love that about you. I love everything about you.”
She smiled. “You don’t have to, you know. Love everything about me.”
“If I ever discover something about you I don’t love, I’ll let you know.” I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t want to ruin her lipstick. Instead, I rested my forehead on hers. “Stella. Say it’s not too late. Say you’ll give me another chance.” I swallowed the last of my nerves and said what I felt. “Say you’re still in love with me, because I’m still in love with you.”
She smiled, and I felt her breath against my lips as she laughed softly. “I’m even more in love with you now than I was before.”
I pressed my lips to hers. Fuck the lipstick.
The kitchen door swung open. “Stella? Oh!”
Over Stella’s shoulder I saw Skylar in the doorway, her hands over her mouth. “I’m so sorry! But the ceremony is about to start and we need Stella upstairs.”
“It’s okay,” I said, brushing my thumb over Stella’s lips. “Although I think I smudged her.”
“Lipstick can be touched up,” Skylar said confidently. “Not a problem.”
Stella grinned at me. “You’re staying, right?”
“Of course I am. I’m Grams’s date.”
She burst out laughing. “That little minx orchestrated this whole thing, didn’t she?”
“From start to finish,” I said as we left the kitchen and moved down the hall.
“What finish?” she said, elbowing me. “This is only the beginning, we can’t talk about the end!”
At the foot of the stairs, I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to me for another kiss. “There’s not going to be an end.”
The look she gave me before running up the steps made the room spin and my chest cave and my stomach perform a series of aerobatic loops that only love could inspire.
As she blew me a kiss from the top of the stairs and disappeared around the corner, I said something to myself that I never imagined I’d say.