through the hurt, the sadness, the burning ache inside my chest

I’ll always be with you, inside and out.

Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt

my heart is yours forever. I’ll never let go. I’ll never let you sink.

I’ll carry your pain if you just let me.

God, please just let me.

His voice drifts off as he plucks a sequence of notes and then finishes the song. He sits quietly for a moment, his chest rising and falling before he opens his eyes. Then he takes one look at me and his eyes widen in alarm.

“Shit.” He shoves the guitar aside and scoots across the bed toward me. “Baby, you don’t need to cry. It wasn’t supposed to be a sad song.”

I touch my fingers to my cheeks and they’re soaked with tears. I hadn’t even realized I was crying or when I began to, but I’m guessing probably from the start because each word hit me powerfully in the heart.

“I’m not sad,” I tell him, wiping the tears away with my hand. “I just didn’t know you felt like that all the way back when you were fifteen. It means you felt like that for a really long time.”

He traces his fingers down my cheeks, erasing the tears, but the feelings behind them still linger in me and I’m glad. “I couldn’t even understand the lyrics myself at first, but when I finally did I realized I loved you and I’d do anything to make you happy.”

More tears flow from me and I don’t even try to hold them back—I couldn’t even if I tried. Too much emotion was in that song and it still burns in my heart, too fresh, raw, but in the most wonderfully real way. I think about all those years where it was just him and me and all the many more years we have ahead of us.

As I climb onto his lap, I circle my arms around him and hug him tightly. “Just so you know, you were the one who didn’t let me drown. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would have given up,” I say and he rubs his hand up and down my back. “And I’m glad you didn’t let me.”

Chapter 21

Micha

I wasn’t expecting her to cry. I knew the song was really intense and emotional, which is why I’d never sung it to anyone before, but Ella’s not a crier and her tears only added beauty to the moment.

I hold on to her as the sun disappears behind the mountains and the room shifts to a dark gray, the lamp the only source of light in the room. Finally her tears subside and she moves away from my chest. Her eyes are red and puffy as she dabs her fingers across her cheeks. “So what did you find in my mom’s journal?” she asks.

I raise my eyebrows. “You want to read it now? I thought you wanted to wait?”

She brushes her hair out of her face. “I guess so, since you said I had to read them before the wedding and it’s tomorrow.”

I smile as she traces the cursive lines of the tattoo on my rib cage. “Tomorrow and you’re all mine.”

Her lips itch to smile as she stares down at the tattoo. “I think I was yours a long time ago.”

“You think so?”

“No, I know so, at least I do now.” She tilts to the side and grabs the journal off my nightstand and then hands it to me. “Will you read it to me… the page you said I need to read?”

I nervously nod, hoping she’ll take what I read as a good thing, and then I lie us down on our sides, facing each other with our heads on the pillow and our legs tangled together underneath the sheet. Her fingers fold around my ribs as I hold the journal up, turning it to the page that I marked. “I think it’s the vows she wrote right before she married your dad.”

“Really?” She seems shocked. “Are you sure they’re her vows, because it didn’t seem like she was too eager to marry him.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure this is about your dad, since it says To Raymond on the top,” I say with a smile. “And it’s nice, what she wrote. Short and simple, but nice.”

“Is that how our vows are going to be?” she asks, peeking up through her long lashes, giving me a hopeful look.

“They can be however you want them to be,” I reply. “And if you still want to back out, you can.”

“No thanks.” She nestles her head into the crook of my shoulder. “ ’K, I’m ready. Read what she wrote.”

I take a deep breath.


I was living in a world where nothing made sense. Darkness. Instability. Life on the verge of death. Then you came into my life and shined through the darkness, showing me that light did exist. And for a moment I walked the path, breathed for the first time in a long time. You gave me air and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Without you, I wouldn’t remember what it was like not to suffocate. Without you, I wouldn’t remember what the light felt like. And I’ll always love you for that, Raymond Daniels.

I stop reading and look down at Ella, checking her reaction. She looks like she’s going to cry again and then suddenly she sits up and moves out of my arms.

Before I can respond, she’s climbing out of bed and pulling a shirt over her head.

“What are you doing?” I ask, sitting up.

She slips on a pair of jeans, shimmying them up to her hips, and then she fastens the button. “Going to talk to my dad.”

I’m puzzled, but I don’t want to press. She doesn’t look upset, only eager as she puts on her boots and reaches for her jacket hanging on the bedpost. Then she takes the journal from me, rips out the page I just read, and stuffs it into her pocket.

“I’m going to give this to my dad.” She leans across the bed and presses her lips to my mouth. “I’ll be right back,” she says, breathless with enthusiasm as she hurries to the door, leaving me alone in my room and a little stunned.

I wasn’t expecting her to be so enthusiastic about it, but I’m glad she is. I want her to be happy. I just hope I can keep doing that for her, make all the right decisions, keep her smiling, laughing, keep any pain away, just like my lyrics begged her to let me do.

Chapter 22

Ella

I run over to my house with a crazy amount of energy fueled by the piece of paper in my pocket. I’m not even sure if it is her vows. In fact, I think it’s not, but what I do know is that my dad deserves to read the words, deserves to know that at one time he made my mom happy when it seemed like it was impossible.

The Firebird is parked in the driveway, so I know my dad’s home. When I burst into the kitchen, I’m relieved to find he’s eating dinner at the table and he’s alone.

He still has on his work clothes, a stained white shirt and jeans that are specked with red paint and there’s some paint splattered on his hands. He has a plate with chicken, potatoes, and a roll on it and a cup of milk in front of him.

His head snaps up in my direction as I come barreling inside the house. “Ella, what’s wrong?” he asks, pushing away from the table and getting to his feet. “You look upset.”

“No, I’m fine. I promise,” I say, breathless as I take the piece of paper out of my pocket. “In fact, I’m sort of happy right now.”

“Well, I’m glad.” His face contorts with confusion, as he looks down at the paper in my outstretched hand. “What is that?”

“It was in Mom’s journal,” I say and his face falls and his mouth plummets to a frown. “Just take it,” I insist. “And read it. I promise you won’t regret it.”

He hesitates and then takes the paper from me. His fingers tremble as he unfolds it and then smoothes the creases out. His eyes start to skim the paper. Seconds tick by and tears form in the corners of his eyes. The tremble in his hands intensifies the farther down he gets and I can tell he’s about to cry, but not out of pain. He doesn’t look upset or hurt. Disappointed. Or sad. He looks… well, strangely relieved.

When he’s finished, he carefully folds it up and then holds it in his hand like it’s something precious. “You said you got this out of her journal?” he asks as he glances up at me.

I nod as I wrap my coat tight around myself, hoping he’s feeling at least a little happiness knowing he made Mom happy. “It was the last page. Was it… was it her vows for your wedding?”

He shakes his head as he stares at the paper in his hand, a tear or two dripping of his eyes. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him cry before and witnessing it seems like some sort of miracle that makes me happy but also a little uncomfortable.

He breathes in and out for minutes and then he collects himself and pats my shoulder, giving me this strange look before he pulls me in for a very awkward hug. He smells like cigarettes and paint, but there’s no scent of booze. It’s different and weird, like the hug itself. I remember all those times when I was younger and I watched the other moms at the park hug their kids when they got hurt or just because they wanted to. The many times I watched Micha’s mom hug him when she was happy, sad, or when she wanted to say she was sorry. I remember the first time I was hugged. I was eight and I’d scraped my knee open. Micha tried to hug me better like his mom did with him. His arms barely made it around me before I freaked out and shoved him to the ground. I think about all the hugs that came after that, though, and how each of them became easier.

This one with my dad is far from easy, but maybe if we do it more often, it’ll become easier, just like moving forward in my life has become.

* * *

When I get back to Micha’s house, it’s past nine o’clock. The air is deathly cold and seeping into the quiet house. I kick my boots off at the back door, hang up my jacket on the coatrack, and then pad through the kitchen to Micha’s bedroom, only to find the room dark and him asleep in the bed, his face snuggled into the pillow with the blanket over him.

I flip the lamp on, slip my jeans off, and then quickly hop under the blanket with him. He stirs as I nuzzle up to him and then he tenses when my chilled skin touches his.

“Are you awake?” I ask as I comb my fingers through his soft hair.

He lets out a sigh as his hands find my hips beneath the blanket. “I was having such a good dream, where you snuck into my room and started touching me, but not my hair. It was a much lower place. I think you should try to find it.”

I smile as my fingers drift down his firm chest. “I have to tell you something.”

He eyes open, and they’re red and full of sleepiness. “Should I be worried?”

I shake my head. “Not at all.”

He slides an arm over my stomach and pulls me closer to him. “Tell me then.”

“I want to go on the road with you,” I say and as soon as I say it, I know it’s the right choice. For us. “I’ll take the rest of my classes online and quit my job.”

He’s silent and full of surprise. It takes him a moment to answer and when he speaks his voice is off pitch. “Are you sure you want to quit your job?”

“I want to be with you all the time. And I want to watch you play and just draw things that mean stuff to me, like you and I and the places we’ve been, all our spots, like the lake and your room, the tree you used to climb into my window… the one that always brought you to me,” I say with honesty. “If I could picture my life being any way, that’s how I’d picture it. It’s what I want to do.”

His expression is unreadable as he searches my eyes for the truth. “Are you sure? Because you have a few weeks to think about it and I want you to be absolutely sure. I never want you to do anything you don’t want to do. I—”

I interrupt him. “Micha, I’m sure if you’re sure. I want to spend as much time as I can with you—I want to be with you and I want you to live out your dream.”

“I’m sure about anything as long as it means I get to have you,” he tells me with passion in his tone as he shakes his head with bewilderment in his eyes, like he can’t believe that this is happening. “And yes, I want you to come with me more than anything.”

“Even more than you want to marry me?”

“Maybe not quite that much, but it’s close.”

We share a quiet moment as we contemplate our future and where it’ll hopefully take us. At least that’s what I’m thinking about. With Micha, I never know, especially when his hand wanders down to my ass and he gets this naughty look on his face.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks as he presses his mouth against my forehead. His finger circles around the infinity mark on my lower back, sending shivers and tickling vibrations through my body.