B0160A5OPY (A) (25 page)
Authors: Joanne Macgregor
I hear, as though from a distance, Lt. Bedley ask Juliet a question about what she thinks might have set off L.J. Good. Let her try to answer that one. I turn in Luke’s arms so that I can look directly into his eyes.
“Luke, won’t it always be between us – Andrew, I mean, and the accident?”
“I guess,” he says and my heart starts closing up again, tight and heavy.
“We can’t change what happened. But what’s between us doesn’t have to keep us apart. It can connect us. We’re together in this. We both lost someone we love that day, and we both found someone to love afterwards.”
“Andrew …”
“Andrew was a really good guy. If he was here – and, I don’t know … sometimes I think he is – then he would tell me to stop pissing away my life and to get on with living. And with loving. And I’m sure your mom would want the same for you.”
I can only nod.
“I love you, Sloane. It’s that complicated, and it’s that simple.”
I stare up into his eyes, searching their green and golden depths. The truth is burning in them. It ignites a fire in me – a steady flame in my core that burns away my doubt. He traces his fingers down my cheeks, over my lips.
I’m aware of the fire and his touch, and also of a sudden silence from the other side of the room. Our audience must be watching again. I hear Juliet sniff indignantly and Lt. Bedley clear her throat, but I hold up a silencing hand toward them.
There’s one more thing I have to say.
“And I love you, Luke.”
And one more thing I have to do.
I lift my lips up to his and my fingers wrap themselves in that soft V of hair behind his neck. His arms close around me and draw me into him.
I’m done fighting. I surrender.
I let go and jump off into the depths of what I can’t stop and can’t control. And although I’m sinking, falling into him, it’s a different, a delicious kind of drowning. And I am fully, beautifully alive.
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