Page 272 of Shifting Hearts 1
“Okay, okay,” Paul raised his hands, smiling. “It’s not just me who made this possible. Sure, it’s been a dream of mine for a long time?—”
“Since you were sixteen?” someone shouted.
“Yeah, something like that,” he joked, earning laughter.
“But I wouldn’t have had this dream if it weren’t for one of the best beings I’ve ever known.”
“What’s he doing?” I whispered.
“And another who gave us the money to purchase this land,” Paul continued.
“Oh crap,” Morgan interjected, “He isn’t.”
“Natasha, if it weren’t for you, if you hadn’t come into my life that night when I needed you most, I wouldn’t have known what I was capable of.”
“Don’t,” Morgan whispered.
“No,” Paul said, shaking his head, “you made me feel that anything is possible. Didn’t matter if we had the resources or not. Your gentle touch, always helping those in need, even something as simple as planting a few seeds and making them grow—your gardens have helped so many people. Your compassion for the less fortunate is what inspired all of this.” He gestured to the entire community. “I might have built it, but you are the essence of this place.”
“You’re going to make me cry, and then I’ll be a bloody mess,” Morgan said, and everyone laughed, not realizing how true her words were.
“Sorry, that’s not my intention,” Paul said, his voice firm but warm. “But you must know, you are a force of nature. And Emily, the more you spend time around Natasha, the more I realize that you are one too. The world is better because of you two. My world, everyone here’s world… it’s all better because of you. I love you both.”
Cheers erupted, and Emily hugged Natasha tightly, her eyes glistening.
Paul stepped forward. “Why do you say that? You know I can’t cry.”
He laughed. “Better push it away, girl.”
I watched them, my heart tightening. She was still my Morgan, still kind, still gentle, and I had been a coward, convinced that all she’d become wasn’t enough. My vision blurred as an emotion stronger than anything I’d ever felt exploded inside me.
It shouldn’t matter who she was, or what she had become. That was the love of my life standing there, and I had spent so long trying to push her away.
Oh, fuck, she heard me. She heard me begging to stop, to let me go.
I fell to my knees and cried like I had never cried before.
We werein Morgan’s room, and she was telling Em the second part of our story, the Huck and Betty story, my version this time. Em wasn’t confused; that life hadn’t happened for her. I watched them both and felt a pang of longing so intense it took my breath away. It was the same way Morgan had made me fall in love with her the first time, only now, she had done it all over again.
The way she lifted people up, cared for them, nurtured Emily… she had this instinct, this gift for making others feel whole. Em would never let her go after this. She’d follow Morgan for eternity. I just hoped that in all that devotion, there was still a little space for me—her father, her Safe Haven too.
“You and Paul are my home,” Em said softly, and I looked up.
“Em…”
“I’m sorry. I can’t explain it, Natasha. I feel myself with you, and I don’t have anyone telling me to stop.”
She touched her face gently, and the two of them hugged. Seeing that bond, seeing Morgan be so unguarded, reminded me of the woman I had loved so fiercely. She didn’t even know it yet, but Em was her home, the only one who would ever truly understand her.
“Please, make it stop. I’ve had enough. I’ll never leave her again, please,” I begged for days, but no one listened. I craved Morgan, desperately. I was dying to touch her, to kiss her, to tell her how much I loved her. Every day without it drove me closer to madness. Not even the first time had been this cruel. Perhaps this was punishment for thinking I could ever let her go.
Telling Em Betty’s version of the story confused her, yes, but it also brought a deeper pain. It felt as if someone had ripped myheart out while watching Morgan beg Em to stop, insisting that they were real people, that she shouldn’t have told the story.
That night, she cried again in the shower. I crouched beside her, desperate to convey that I hadn’t meant the words I’d said when her memories returned. That I needed to find myself again. That I would fix her, just as she had fixed me. That we would make it. But no matter how hard I tried, she couldn’t hear me.
Grief, frustration, desire, they combined into a ticking time bomb inside me. All I wanted was for this torment to end so I could go home to my girls and become the family we were meant to be. I barely noticed my surroundings until I was suddenly pulled in one direction and froze: my worst nightmare unfolding.
Morgan was kissing someone else.
