Page 91 of The Lovers
This life filled to the brim with her truth; no more half a life, half a body awake.
“I have to do this part on my own.” She pauses, the air heavy with the weight of her words. “BecausethatKit is the closest I’ve felt tome.” Her eyes pin me in place. “I don’t want to hide this from my parents anymore. I don’t want to pretend I’m some ideal that was never even real. I don’t want to lose you again.”
I shoot forward, gripping her hand, tugging her closer. My nose brushes over hers as a shiver of desperation surges in my chest. I love her, and she is asking me to let her go.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I brush her cheek, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting my fingertips dance down her neck. She doesn’t resist the affection, but instead, she drops her forehead against mine, holding my body to hers.
“Neither am I.”
She gives me a soul-deep, world-bending kiss. My heart cracks open, all the tall, tall walls tumbling down. I brush my thumbsover her cheekbones and wind my fingers in her hair. My tongue searches her mouth as a cry rips from my throat.
I already pine for her and she’s still right here.
She pulls away, keeping me held in her gaze. “I didn’t regret falling for you that summer. I don’t regret anything we did here.”
She pulls away, turning to leave me behind.
“I gave up on psychics,” I say, fighting the despair in my voice, but feeling it all the same. “I gave up on magic. I didn’t believe there could be a power in the universe bigger than human will. I stopped thinking there was anything worth risking my heart for.”
Our eyes lock across the expanse of her car hood. Across time and space and history and hurt. Over years spent searching for something that feels as real as each other.
“I’m glad I was wrong.”
I know that no matter how hard I want to hold on, I can’t. I have to let her go. I have to trust her to come back.
That’s what love really is.
Not possession. Not control.
Love is letting go.
I watch her climb into her car and buckle up for the ride back to LA. She leaves me under the same constellations where last night we had sex, shared secrets, and fell in love like we’d never stopped. Where, tonight, I choose to trust the universe—her, me, whatever this tether between us truly is—for the first time.
This time, she will come back to me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kit
The desert turns to cityscape but I barely notice what’s happening outside my car windows as I drive. Fear pings around my rib cage like a pinball. I let my heart pound and my skin slick with sweat. I let my tears fall and my brain play tricks on my body, convincing it that feeling this is the real danger, when it’s really the opposite.
This is the most alive I’ve ever been.
The most in my body, the most in my intuition. As scary as going it alone to tell them is, it also makes me feel powerful. For so much of my life I’ve played the role I was cast in. It was so easy, the effort it took never really showing through the cracks. I did it because it felt safe, because it was expected, because it looked really great on paper.
Not doing that anymore is my compass finally pointing North.
I don’t know what will happen with that video—how it will affect my online persona, what repercussions it might have for my hopes to reach higher-end clientele. I can only hope that once the dust settles, I’ll find a way to reclaim this moment for myself.
I don’t let myself think about what happens with Julia when this is all over, because I don’t know yet how long it will take for me to be readyfor real. The not knowing can’t negate the rest. I meant what I said to her before I left. I don’t regret her, and I’m not running away.
I’m taking my own path to get to her.
To us.
I wipe my eyes and turn the music up and somehow I make it all the way home.
I beat down on the horn as I pull into the driveway.
