Page 93 of The Last Kind of Kiss
“I know you don’t think of me as your second choice. I…I know that. I’m n-not going to let my insecurities ruin what we have.” My words are muffled against his shoulder, and I bunch my fists in the red, plaid cotton clinging to his back. He’s forking his fingers through my hair, cooing under his breath, squeezing me tighter to kill any last weed of doubt growing through the cracks in my mind.
“This isn’t all on you. My insecurities got in the way too. I’ve been so stuck in the past that I haven’t realized what an amazing future I have ahead of me. I don’t want to live in the past. I don’t want to feed this grief any longer. I’ve been ready to move on, but I’ve been too scared. I’ve been scared to lose the person that I was when I was with Summit. But you know what’s scarier than losing yourself, Lila? It’s losing the only person you love in this fucked-up world.”
I’m not sure I even heard him correctly through my obnoxioussniffling, but I pull back in surprise, my abject sadness perishing under the weight of one little word. That one little word saves me from an unrelenting rainfall, and it delivers me underneath a plum-contused sky where the stars are so bright and low-hanging that I can reach up and touch them. “What?”
A crescent of a smile upturns Bristol’s lips, and a blush blooms over his cheeks like watercolor dissolving in pink-tinted water. “I love you, Lila Perkins. I love you with everything I am. You may not have been my first love, but you’re my last love. And the thing about first loves is that they prepare you for your greatest love of all.”
Oh, God. Bristollovesme. He loves me, even after seeing how broken I am. He loves me, even after I said all those horrible things to him. All I’ve ever wanted is for someone to love me, and Bristol…Bristol’s the only person worthy of doing so.
Bristol Brenner has dismantled my defenses brick by brick, uncovering the fragile truth of my very being, and he’s only ever cradled that fledgling pain with loving arms. He’s the likeness of every mortal pleasure, cut from the beauty and transience of nature itself. He’s constructed his bones into a hearth made to stoke the fire of my love, and the vitality of his kiss is enough to imbue hope into those who have lost it.
He saved me.From myself.
“I love you, Bristol,” I bawl, losing his silhouette in my flushed vision. “Summit made you into the man you are today, and I’m grateful for her.”
I don’t know how long he holds me, but he never lets go—not even when I’m ruining his undershirt with snot and tears and spit. The percussion of hail beats against the car’s exterior, clashing with the guttural cries that rattle from deep within my belly. Bristol, as always, is the calm that grounds me, and he mops the moisture from the bruised bags under my eyes.
“You’re okay. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. And I’mso, so sorry that I haven’t done enough to make you think you’re worthy. Because you are.I’mthe one who isn’t worthy of you. I’ll never be. But I promise to give you my all to make up for it,” he says with a buttress of reassurance.
With each smooth of his hand down my back, I feel the complementary love settle like sediment in my bones, and for the first time since I’ve been alive, the future’s not so scary to think about. I want to spend the rest of my life with Bristol. He’s the only person for me. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved.
It feels like I’ve waited eons to find my soulmate, and I know I said I didn’t believe in fate, but fate gave me a second chance when I wasn’t expecting it. The world knew I was hurting. The world knew Bristol was hurting. So, employing every omnipotent power in existence, it threw two grieving souls together in the hopes that they’d be able to heal each other.
I owe everything to Bristol. I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him. I wouldn’t be…happy…if it wasn’t for him.
I squeeze my eyes shut, letting the tears fall. “Thank you. For not giving up on me.” My voice is as brittle as frost, my limbs as frail as the naked stalks cowering underneath snow.
I lose my sense of time while I’m hugged against his chest, inhaling the leather and woodsy scent of him that now smells like home, the thrum of his heart lulling me into a weightless trance—a morse code that blares the extent of his love loud and clear. I’m not worried about getting out of here. I know I should be, but fear doesn’t exist when I’m with him. Not anymore.
“I’d never give up on you, angel. Not when you’re the reason I feel alive again.”
“I—” The single syllable wobbles on my tongue, somehow deafening in the stillness of the car.
“You don’t believe me?” He chuckles, eyes as dark as a riverbed, his thumb chasing a few of my wayward tears.
“I’ve never meant that much to anyone before,” I whispershamefully. It feels like all this time my ribs have been a grave for my heart, keeping me content with a life lacking adventure and promise and love. But maybe that’s not my destiny.
“Good. I would’ve been way too jealous.”
I playfully thwap him on the arm. “Don’t make me laugh! I’m crying.”
He overwhelms me with another hug, using all his love and undying devotion to scare away the final traces of darkness that have outlived their rule.
“I don’t want just a long-term relationship with you, Lila. I want forever,” he confesses, and I don’t need to unscramble his words to decode the truth behind them.
Cobbled together by doubt and disbelief, my eyes burn like a dying star, more moisture anointing every inch of raw skin. “I’m a lot to handle for forever.” The shame fans out under a whisper—thick, heavy, indigestible.
“No, Lila. You’re the perfect amount. My life would be so boring if you didn’t constantly keep my ego in check,” Bristol assures me, and my belly does a little pirouette.
“You’re saying that you’re ready to spend the rest of your life dealing with my mood swings and hangry tantrums and stubbornness?”
“I don’t have todealwith them if they’re what I love about you.”
He’s really serious about this. I’m serious about this too. I’ll never need anyone’s validation ever again—not when I have it from the only person who matters. I spent my whole life holding myself to this impossible standard, criticizing how I looked, how I acted. And I didn’t realize how badly I needed help accepting myself until Bristol showed me that imperfections are worthy of love too. I never thought I’d spend forever with anyone, but now that it’s only a grasp away, I want it more than I’ve ever wantedfame or fortune. No A-list title holds a candle to being the winner of someone’s heart.
“What if you change your mind?” I ask, balling my hands against his back.
“I won’t, angel. My heart has already sprinted to the finish line.”
