Life was not easy, and it seemed to me, the only way it could go from here was down. We needed to take down the Venturas, to end Irina for touching a hair on a Fallen head, and then maybe, we could taste peace.
For now, I chased after it during my bi-weekly jog. I’d had my gym bag in my trunk, and I’d snuck out after feigning sleep for a couple of hours.
There was music in my ears–Wild Horses by Bishop Briggs––morning dew and sweat glistening on my skin, and the deep, fragrant scent of pine, cedar and musk-sweet earth in my nose.
This, running through nature, brushing my hand over bark, trailing it through long grass, was my happy place.
This was why, even in the darkest moments of the last two years when I’d wondered if I’d ever get over Nova, if I’d ever be able to commit to Jake and move down to Vancouver, I’d never wanted to live anywhere but Entrance.
Mine was a wild, curious soul, so I loved to travel, and I had a bucket list of destinations the length of my five-foot four frame. But this was home.
As I ran, my mind clear as the lake sprawling out to my left, the detritus on the bottom magnified as though looking through glass, I knew it wasn’t just the natural beauty of the place that made it home.
It was, of course, the people.
Growing up, I’d never thought a person needed a community.
Ignacio had taught us to be suspicious of strangers, of kindness and connection.
It was blood over everything. Blood first, blood last, blood always.
But I’d learned differently in the years since he’d disappeared from my life.
It wasn’t blood.
It was family, first, last, and always.
It was my girl Harleigh Rose, my biker babes, and their men.
It was Hudson with his goofiness and elastic expression, Milo with his sharp mind and twitching lips, and Oliver with his intense manner but quick, rapid-fire laugh.
Molly and Diogo, the only real parents I’d ever known, and Zeus who had stepped up like some kind of magnet, calling me to him and his just because I was Nova’s.
And Nova.
It was Nova more than anyone else.
Nova had defined my sense of home since I’d seen him gangly and beautiful stepping from that minivan across the street from the structure I’d slept in.
I could’ve moved to the other side of the planet, never seeing him again in person, just painted in exquisite brush strokes in my mind’s eye, and still, I knew he would always be the home my heart was settled in.
Sleeping with him had done nothing but solidify the dream I’d constructed the moment he told me I needed something to wish for, something that was my own.
If Nova had planted a garden in my heart all these years without stopping to smell the flowers, he was tending to them now, watering the growths, shaping the topiaries into something even more exquisite, even more precious to me.
There was no hope now that I’d ever recover from the magic of his love.
To weed it out would kill me, hollow me in a way I’d never be myself again.
And I was okay with that, I thought, as I moved through the forest and watched my own heavy breath bloom in front of me.
Even living only a moment of this dream with Nova was worth a lifetime of heartbreak.
Being there for him last night after the party had only cemented my love for him, my desire to see him safe and loved even if it meant I’d be alone for the rest of my life, too busy tending to him to look for someone to tend to myself.
And I was an optimist. Maybe one day, years and years from now, I’d be able to glue the broken porcelain of my heart back together with the melted down memories of my friends and family over the course of my life.
I was rich with those, and I could survive on that.
Or maybe, the small mad hope I’d nursed all my life burst forth to think, one day he’d grow to be in love with me too. It might take time. God knew, I understood that even more now after the party and meeting the bitch Meredith than I ever had before.
But time I had. These feelings weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I could wait and water, pray and garden, hoping that one day his love for me would bloom into more too.
My heart still pumped a lopsided beat as I pushed hard, sprinting through the densest part of the forest before I curved back toward the clubhouse.
My pulse beat so hard in my ears, I almost didn’t hear it.
But I did because whoever it was fucked up when I broke into a sprint.
They broke into one behind me.