Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Let’s stay together.
Words of deep love, acceptance, renewal. It’s a pledge to stand as one when the world would divide us. When we would hurt each other. It’s fidelity and longing refined over a lifetime. I’m sure the love we have is so powerful, it could endure for a dozen lifetimes, but it has been concentrated and then distilled into just this one. We found each other after being separated before. We could do it again and again until time ended, but in this life, I’ll never let go of him.
“I have something for you,” he whispers in my ear, his warm breath misting my earlobe and sending a shiver down my spine. “In my left coat pocket.”
“Another pear?” I grin up at him.
“Look and see.”
I slide my hand into the left pocket, my fingers brushing the silk lining, seeking. And then I feel it and freeze into a pillar of shock. He stares at me, all traces of laughter gone, replaced by something fiery and tender. Trembling, I pull the ring out and hold it up between us. It’s a large square-cut diamond on a thick platinum band. I gasp, my breaths halting and starting.
“There’s an inscription.” He guides the tip of my finger inside the band. I trace the letters before flipping it to read the one word.
“Wheel.”
“There’s no beginning and no end.” He takes the ring and holds it up between us. “It’s our own eternity.”
The tears roll unheeded down my cheeks, and as soon as he gently wipes them away, they’re replaced by fresh ones. This moment is so enormous, so overwhelming, but it doesn’t stand alone. It’s not just the strength of our full circle, but it’s all the times we were weak, and got back up. It’s every hurt, every second we spent apart, only to reunite. Our union wasn’t just made by the good. The pain and the grief and the sorrows forged us together as much as the joys.
“Will you marry me?” he breathes at my ear. “Again?”
Unable to speak, I bite my lip to hold back sobs and shouts of joy. He slips the ring onto my finger and it’s a perfect fit.
A smile widens his beautifully sculpted mouth. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Have more children with you. Fight with you. Make up with you. Wake up beside you every day.”
He rests his forehead against mine.
“I was meant for you and you were meant for me, and even when we got in our own way, even when we screwed up—because we both did, baby—even then my soul knew, my heart knew, it was wrong being away from you. I don’t ever want to ache like that again. People don’t often get second chances like this, Yas.”
“There’s a part of me that keeps thinking I don’t deserve it,” I confess.
“Did we deserve all the shit that happened to us? The things and the people we lost? I’ve learned that life isn’t about taking what you deserve, it’s about getting all you can while you can because it’s short. Because it’s fickle. Because it takes when we least expect it. Now everything I’ve lost makes me cherish the things I have, instead of always being afraid I’ll lose them.”
He kisses the tears on my cheeks.
“Most of all you.”
When we lose things, we don’t always get them back. Of Byrd, all I have left is a stack of recipes and memories I pray will never fade. Of Henry, a wall of wishes that will never come to fruition and a small scar decorating my skin in honor, reminding me he was, if only for the briefest lifetime, a part of me and so completely mine.
I press my hand over Josiah’s heart, and it beats a fervent rhythm of reunion. I look into his eyes and lose myself in the acceptance, the trust I thought we’d never recover.
“Don’t leave me hanging, Yas.” He brushes his thumb across my lips. “You haven’t actually answered the question. Will you marry me…again?”
There are a thousand things I could say to capture how I’m feeling, to tell him what his devotion means to me. That instead of escaping into the dark, I’ll find him in it, and we’ll guide each other to the light. I touch the necklace at my throat, testing the familiar shape of the wheel, the precious weight of my first wedding ring. I tossed this into a well of wishes, certain that what I really wanted, the one I truly wished for, I would never have again. There are a million words I could utter to assure him he never has to worry about me wavering, but with an uncontainable joy and a teary smile, I choose one.
“Yes.”