Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“It’s called Percy Warner Park,” he explained. “It’s huge, and I knew it would be pretty empty tonight—perfect for what I want to do.”
“Hmm.” She squinted out into the darkness while he grabbed a blanket, a sweatshirt, and her gift from the trunk. “I haven’t seen any, but I’ve read that this is how horror movies begin.”
“I’ll protect you.” He gently tugged her forward, using the flashlight on his phone to lead them to a paved trail and out onto the lawn, where they hiked up a small hill.
Edward spread the blanket on the soft, dewy grass. “Did you bring me out here to see stars?” she asked.
“Not exactly.” It was true that the stars were more visible here than downtown, but excitement rose in him as he pulled her gift from his back pocket and turned to shield it from her view. Opening the box, he pulled one long stick free and slid the purple Bic lighter out of his other pocket to ignite it.
Light popped and sizzled, and he held it up to Ren, witnessing the moment her eyes went round and then immediately filled with tears. She clapped a hand over her mouth, turning to look at him, the sparkler reflected in a million golden flashes in her eyes.
“Happy birthday, Sunshine,” he said quietly.
She reached out, grasping it, and then held it in front of her, staring in awe. Tentatively, she waved it around, drawing a figure eight in the air. It burned down to the end and her expression fell. “That was so beautiful. Thank you so much, Ed—”
He lit a second sparkler and handed it to her.
She gasped. “Another?”
“I got a box of a hundred,” he said, laughing. “It’ll take us an hour to get through all of them.”
And it very nearly did. They lit two at a time and wrote their initials in the sky. He handed her two, one for each hand, and she stood, waving her arms wide, forming perfect circles while he captured the image on his phone: her beatific smile and the two cones of fire on either side of her. They ran streaks of light down the hill and back up again. And every time they were ready to light a new sparkler from an old one, she said, “Let them kiss.”
When they lit the final one, she watched it burn all the way to the end before releasing a tiny, happy cry. “That is absolutely the best present anyone has ever given me.”
“Number one yet?” he asked, and she turned, sliding her arms around his neck, burying her face there.
“Number one, forever,” she said, voice muffled. “Thank you.”
They stretched out on the blanket, staring up at the stars, and Ren pointed out the constellations they could see: Hydra, Leo, Leo Minor, Sextans, and Ursa Major. She told him about the kinds of things she would normally do on a birthday—go for a longer walk than usual around the property, be allowed to nap out in the field without being scolded for missing chores. It occurred to Edward that every time she shared something about herself was an opportunity for him to reciprocate, but he hadn’t taken any of them.
They fell quiet, his brain lighting up with everything he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her about Mary, how close he’d been to having a family and how it had fallen apart, how angry he’d been for so long and how he’d spent the last few years plotting something he wasn’t even sure he wanted to carry through anymore. He’d carried anger and hurt for so long, wrapped himself in them and used them to keep others away. Something about Ren made him want to put it all down.
“Ren—” he began, just as she said, “Do you—?”
She squeezed his hand. “Go ahead.”
“No, you first.”
“I was just going to ask—if it’s even okay to ask this—whether you know who your birth parents are.”
A shadow passed through his chest. “No…all I know is that they relinquished custody of me when I was three, and that’s when I went into the foster system. They handed me over to the Spokane Fire Department.”
“But you have family here?”
He nodded. “In a sense.”
She’d given him an explicit opening, and still, he couldn’t step through the door. How did Ren make opening up to him look so easy?
“Mary,” she guessed.
“She was my foster mother,” he said, relieved at her gentle prompt. “She moved to Nashville a couple years after her oldest son graduated high school—which was right around the time my adoption went through. I have a job interview here on Thursday. I’d set it up forever ago, knowing I eventually wanted to be closer to her.”
“Oh my gosh, Edward, this is so much. We could have spent today with her.”
“No, there’s time for me to see her while I’m here. Seriously, she’s fine. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that when we could be doing this.”