by Loretta Lost
“No,” he says suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders and forcing me to look at him with a little shake. “You promised. You said you’d never…”
“What was I supposed to do?!” I scream into his face. “You were gone! There was a casket! There was a fucking casket and the morgue, and the will, and the detective, and Miranda was crying.”
Cole does not respond, but he slides his fingertips under the top of my blouse and pulls out the crescent moon necklace. “You found my letter?” he asks me, with shock written all over his features.
“Yes. That’s what led me here. To the end of the earth. Nice clues.”
“Scarlett—I didn’t think that you’d find that letter. And I didn’t know it contained any clues or hints to my location.”
“You’re lying. I know you can travel through time, like Future Trunks. Your time machine is right over there.”
He shakes his head. “I think you’ve been working for the CIA for too long.”
“Shut up. I know you left me that stupid letter just to mess with my head! Was it all some game to you?”
“No,” he says slowly. “It was goodbye. It was closure. I’m just… I had no idea you still cared.”
“Remind me to hit you again after I’ve slept,” I tell him, lifting my body off the ground so that I can push him. I feel my second wind coming, and all my muscles are suddenly filled with power as I crawl over him to glare in his face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask, grasping handfuls of his shirt threateningly. “Love other people? I didn’t want to love other people! I didn’t need any other people! I just needed you, and you were never ready. Over and over, with this ‘we’re not ready’ bullshit. When will we be ready, Cole? When we’re both dead? When you get shot in the head, and buried in front of me, and I have to climb over a fucking mountain for you in the boiling hot Nevada sun, and hallucinate that you have a spaceship from 2047, will we be ready then?”
He slides a hand around my neck, crushing his lips against mine, and kissing me soundly. His other hand wraps around my lower back, and his legs somehow get tangled up with mine. He kisses all the fight out of me until my whole body rests limply against his, and I feel like I no longer exist. Maybe I did die at the gravesite, and I am just a decomposing corpse, and this is all just a dream. Maybe this is all just heaven, and that’s why I was able to find Cole here. I don’t even care, as long as he never stops kissing me like this.
I no longer need water or sleep.
I just drink him in, kissing hungrily, tasting him, stealing his saliva.
“Jesus, you’re so dehydrated,” Cole says, pulling away. He rolls me off him and heads into his spaceship to retrieve a bottle of water. He tosses it at me, and it just hits me in the stomach. I am way too tired to be catching water bottles, and still reeling from that kiss. My body is here, but my mind is catapulted somewhere out into the cosmos.
Cole moves to my side with concern, opening the water bottle for me and lifting my head with one hand so he can put it to my lips. “When is the last time you slept?” he asks me. “Your face looks like death.”
After drinking two thirds of the water bottle in about two gulps, I glare at him. “Your face looks like butt. Of course I look like death; I barely slept since I found out you were dead. I’m never going to forgive you for this. Never.”
He smiles. “You really think my house looks like a spaceship?”
I can’t resist him. I smile too. He looks like a little boy, all proud of his accomplishment and seeking approval. I reach up to grasp the water bottle and polish off the rest, before leaning my head against his leg contentedly. “Go to hell,” I whisper. “In your cool spaceship.” My eyes flutter closed, and I feel happy. I feel happy for the first time in years. I clutch his leg tightly, like he is my favorite teddy bear. “But then, after you go to hell, come back to me.”
“Always,” he says, sliding his hands underneath me to lift me against his chest. He rises to his feet and begins walking toward the shiny bullet house.
“Cole?” I murmur sleepily.
“Yes, my love?”
“Can you design a special house for me?”
“Anything.”
“It needs to be made from gingerbread and candy. Because I’m really hungry.”
He laughs, and I can feel the rumble of his chest against my body. It’s the most precious feeling in the world, and I feel my heart swell with gratitude. He is alive, and I made him laugh. I get to hear him laugh, again and again, for as long as he remains alive.
I’d walk a million miles across the desert just to hear him laugh, every single day.
But not tomorrow, because my feet hurt.
“I will build you a gingerbread house,” he promises as he carries me over the threshold of his spaceship. “Does that make us Hansel and Gretel?”
“Maybe,” I say thoughtfully. “Their mother abandoned them. Like my mother.”
“Did Zack tell you that I found your family?”
“What?” I say, my eyes snapping open wide.
“Yes. I told him a few days ago when he called, that I wanted you to call me back and discuss it. The DNA tests we did years ago—there finally was a match. Someone from your family was seeking information about his DNA, and it entered the database. It turns out you have a real brother living in New York.”
This news sends me reeling, almost as much as his kiss, but not in such a good way. Mixed emotions cause my face to contort, with alarm, fear, and disbelief. Do I even want to know? After all this time…
“You’re my real brother,” I say dumbly.
“No, I’m not,” he says with a laugh. “We were just pretending. And let’s face it, love, we never did a very good job. Your biological brother’s name is Liam, and both of your parents are alive.”
“Cole,” I whisper, gripping his shirt. “I want to meet them. Tell me where…”
“Not today, sweetheart,” he says, placing me down on a tiny bed in his spaceship. “You need to rest before anything, because you are rambling like a lunatic.”
“You’re just upset because when I’m drunk, I’m smarter than you,” I tell him stubbornly. What did I drink again? I remember a vodka bottle. It doesn’t matter. “Come here,” I demand, reaching up to grab Cole’s wrist with both of my hands. I tug him down onto the tiny bed beside me.
He immediately moves to my side and wraps his arms around my waist, placing his head down beside mine on the pillow. I turn to look at him, and feel a deep sense of fulfilment and bliss spread through my body. The strange thing is that I didn’t even need to walk twenty miles in order to earn this feeling. I’ve always felt happy and complete when Cole was lying next to me.
I reach out and place my fingers on his cheek, where I only just notice that there is a huge gash and several stitches. Grasping his hand, I interlace my fingers with his and squeeze tightly. “Are you really alive?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he answers with a grin. “Don’t I seem alive?”
“Maybe. There was a spider, before. I was hallucinating.” I feel like there is something important I need to say, but I can’t quite remember. Death. Someone is dead. My forehead creases with the effort it takes to access my memory. “Also, I think Hansel died in that story. The evil witch killed him. In her oven.”
“No,” he assures me softly. “She meant to, but they shoved the witch into the oven instead. The witch burned.”
A smile touches my lips.
“I guess she wasn’t fireproof.”
Coming soon:
Sophie is given an opportunity to meet her biological family for the first time, but she is hesitant. Cole learns about Annabelle’s death, and has to decide whether to go back to society and risk revealing that he is alive. More is discovered about the woman who shot Cole, and Benjamin resurfaces, on the hunt for his missing daughter.
Sophie would love nothing more than to hide away with Cole in their remote location in the desert forever. But she has unfinished business with Zack
and Detective Rodriguez back in L.A., not to mention her job in Washington D.C. where she promised her boss she’d return for after-work cocktails.
For the first time, Sophie is feeling torn between her separate lives and identities. But when Benjamin starts becoming more aggressive in his attempts to find her, no identity or location might be safe any longer…
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For my mother. Thank you for teaching me what it feels like to be alone.
Nicolas, you always complained that my male characters were assholes. I just thought they were realistic. But you were right; we need at least one hero with no crippling flaws. Thanks for always challenging me to be better, and always being there.
Cecilia, thanks for joining my late night writing sessions at Denny’s, and for always bugging me to email you the next chapter. I’m glad that you are back in my life. Now, please stop smoking so you can stay that way.
Gary, thanks for always checking up on my progress, and encouraging me. You always brighten my day with your kindness and jokes.
Ada, I am so sorry for how difficult this last year has been. I know that you will use all that pain as jet fuel to accomplish great things. Thanks for all your help with this book, and I really hope to be reading some of your new work soon!
Electra, thanks for the insight into the academic life of a genius fifteen-year-old, because it’s been a while since I was one. Hit me up anytime for help with your papers; compared to writing books, they are just easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!
Alex, thank you for spending so many hours working with me. I really enjoyed your company—until you got overwhelmed and gave up on your own book. Someday, I hope you get to the finish line.
Tommy, we met when I was twelve, and you were much older. We’ve been talking a lot lately, because this story takes me back to those years. I often wonder why I bother to keep in touch with someone like you. Thank you for showing me how cruel people can be to a young girl, and what an impact it causes when she has no one else.
Conner, you made things so much harder, when you really didn’t have to. Things were already hard. I know that sometimes you tried your best, but most of the time, you didn’t try at all. Then, there were those moments we’ll never forget when you tried your worst. It will always be a part of my writing.
Thank you for going away, and setting me free.
