“What do you want to do?” He walked over to me and pulled me toward him, holding my head against his chest.
“I want to burn the journal with all of my dreams, all of her memories,” I said, slowly pulling away from him. “I don’t need it. Those memories, they aren’t mine, they don’t belong to me. How is Penelope ever going to move on if I don’t allow her to?”
He gripped either side of my face, his eyes looking intensely into mine. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“I’m positive,” I said, quickly nodding my head. “I want to burn the journal, and I want to figure out what I want to do with my life, as me, not as anybody else.”
“Are you sure? I know I was just acting like a jerk, but I don’t want you to do anything that you aren’t sure of.” His brows pulled together. “Once you do this, you can’t undo it, and I don’t want you to regret it.”
“I won’t, I already don’t,” I said simply. “I feel liberated even at the thought, Lio. This is something I should have done a long time ago.
“Okay, enchanted Ever,” he said with a small smile. “Then that’s what we’re going to do.”
It probably was against our building’s code or something but we promised to get it done quickly before anyone noticed and before we possibly got kicked out of our apartment before we even got to settle into it.
We had a balcony connected to our living room, and that’s where we agreed to do it. Lio had gone to the store earlier to grab some supplies because supposedly he had done some research online and was now an expert on burning things without burning the entire apartment complex down.
“It’s all set up,” he said from outside.
I walked over to where he was and stood on the opposite side of him, staring at the journal gripped between my hands.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “This is more scary than I thought it was going to be.”
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, but I tried to ignore them, not wanting to give into the temptation to have a breakdown.
“It’s okay to cry, Everly,” he whispered. “She was part of you for a long time. It doesn’t make you weak for hurting. Most of us hurt when saying goodbye to someone we held close. It’s okay, it makes you human.”
I nodded, blinking fast as tears escaped down my cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m so sad right now, I thought it would be easy, I thought this would make it less difficult.”
“You don’t have to do this, it isn’t too late to change your mind.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s time to let her go, for real this time. I’ll always have a piece of her with me but she needs to move on. I have to let her find her peace.”
He stayed quiet as I slowly flipped through the pages of the journal, each title jumping out at me, the memories behind them coming to life in flashes. I absorbed each one, smiling at some of them while crying even more at others.
Letting go was hard, but I knew it would be worth it in the end.
“It’s fitting isn’t it?” I looked up at the stars, my vision clearing as the twinkling lights in the sky held my attention. “To let her go beneath my favorite thing in the whole entire universe—her favorite thing.”
He walked over to my side and gently wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
“I feel like I should have made some apple pie to mark the occasion,” I said with the laugh.
“We can go pick some up afterward,” he promised.
“I would really like that, a lot,” I said quietly.
And just like ripping a Band-Aid off, I threw the journal into the bin and watched in wonderment as Lio lit it on fire, flames and sparks jumping up in bursts of reds, oranges, and yellows.
The corners of the journal turned in on itself and in slow motion, every page disappeared into the fire and turned to ash.
I leaned back into Lio, and he wrapped his arms tighter around me, pressing his chin on the top of my head.
We stood there in silence, neither one of us saying a word. The only sound that could be heard was the cackling coming from the fire in front of us. I looked up at the stars and closed my eyes, sending a silent wish to the part of me that was Penelope.
Find your peace and soar through the universe, Penelope Grace.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
I hadn’t realized how heavy the weight of Penelope had been or how far it had been weighing me down.
“How do you feel?” Lio asked, pressing a kiss against my shoulder.
“I feel relieved,” I told him honestly. “I thought I had let her go before, but now I’m sure. She’s finally free—I’m finally free.”
“You amaze me, Everly, you always have.”
“Yeah?” I turned in his arms and looked up into his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said with a cheeky smile, brown eyes shining.
“You have the biggest heart out of anyone I’ve ever met, Elliot Smith, and I’m so ecstatic to start this next chapter of our lives together.”
He leaned down to give me a light kiss. I smiled against his lips and pulled away a little.
“Also, I think I finally know what I want to do,” I said confidently. “Career wise anyway.”
“What is it?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.
“I want to teach creative writing. I mean, it fits right in with my English degree, and I’ve been obsessed with poetry for as long as I can remember, so I figured why not?” I was speaking a little fast, but his eyes never wavered from mine. The only thing that changed was his smile, which had grown across his face.
“What do you think?” I asked sheepishly.
“I think that’s a really effing great plan, babe.”
He was right, it was a really effing great plan.
As promised, we did celebrate with homemade apple pie, after purchasing the ingredients anyway. Between store bought and homemade? It was a no brainer. I had finally mastered the family recipe and it was favorite, as well as go-to, dessert for any and all occasions. I spent the next few weeks putting more effort into my job search and for once I was finding some decent leads.
Life was good. Well, it was damn near perfect if I were being honest. But there was something we had to deal with that we had both been neglecting. I wanted Claire’s parents to come over for a family dinner at our apartment, and I wanted Lio and I to be in charge of it all.
It was what families did for one another, right? And I figured it was time I treated the people in my life as more than temporary fixtures. They were here to stay, just like I was. Which is why Lio and I were frantically moving around our small dining room slash kitchen trying to get everything together for dinner.
Not only were Claire and her parents coming, but Emily and Lio’s dad, whose first name I really needed to remember, were coming too. It was going to be a legitimate family evening, and I had giant-sized butterflies floating around my stomach courtesy of the nerves and excitement I was feeling over it.
“You’re shaking a lot, Everly,” Lio said with a laugh as he arranged the food on the table. “You have no reason to be nervous. You’ve met them before, so things should be fine.”
“Yeah, I met them when they were dropping this huge bombshell, I’ve never hung out with them in a civil environment,” I huffed. “Besides, what if they don’t like my cooking?”
“Considering we ordered takeout and took all of the food out of its original containers and traded them in for fancy dinnerware, I’m willing to bet that they’re going to love it.” He sounded so confident and sure.
Typical Lio, I thought, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Everly.” He shook his head and pressed a quick, reassuring kiss to my lips. “Everything is going to work out fine, don’t worry.”
“Fine, fine, I won’t.”
Just as quickly as the not-so-confident words left my mouth, there was an insistent knock on the door. My eyes widened and the butterflies grew, flying around every space in my stomach. It was goi
ng to be a challenging night, that much I knew for sure.
“I’ve got it, Everly, you go take a breather or something.” He squeezed my shoulder as he walked toward the door.
I watched with fascination as he opened the door to the smiling faces of his parents, Claire, her parents, and another head I couldn’t quite make out. Had they invited a friend? I didn’t remember Claire mentioning it when I had spoken to her on the phone earlier.
They trailed in, one after the other, giving Lio a hug as they walked fully inside the apartment. I walked over a bit awkwardly and greeted them as well. I hoped I didn’t look as worried as I felt, but judging by the sympathetic smile on Claire’s face, I knew I wore my anxiety all over my face. She knew me too well.
“Hi,” I said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me, these nerves will fade as soon as we get things rolling.”
She shook her head, searching for words. “Everly, I’m so sorry, I would have called but I had no idea they had planned this. I texted you but judging by the confused look on your face right now, you haven’t gotten it, have you?”
“No, I’ve been too busy setting things up with Lio for tonight, we even had a couple of games set up in case conversation really halted. Why, what happened?”
“They invited him here to see me, and to meet you,” she rushed out, nervously looking over her shoulder.
“Invited who?” I asked, confused. “Who are you talking about?”
“Shawn, this is Everly, isn’t she beautiful?” Mrs. Davis said as she walked over to where Claire and I stood, dragging someone along behind her.
My eyes left her face and trailed up, looking at the person behind her.
My heart left my chest, that was the only to explain it. I now knew what people meant when they said they felt like they had been punched in the gut because it felt like I had been punched multiple times.
What. the. Eff?
I blinked. Several times. Slowly.
“Shawn?” I croaked out, shaking my head.
My legs were going to give out at any moment, I knew it, and then I would really have to think of an excuse as to why I was freaking out over a guy I had never met before.
But I had met him. I had known him, quite literally in another life. I stared at him, silent, as I waited for my heart or soul to make the connection. Neither did a thing. Instead, when he held his out for me to shake, I placed my palm in his and shook it like I would anybody else.
Nothing. Happened.
I stood, more shocked than before.
“It’s nice to meet you Everly,” he said.
I closed my eyes, absorbing his words. His voice had changed. It was more mature. I opened my eyes and stared up at him. He was handsome, he always had been from what I could remember, and his blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
I smiled at that. He had smile lines. That, to me, meant he really was happy. Good, because he deserved to be.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Shawn.”
Lio walked over to me then and placed a protective hold around my waist. It wasn’t necessary, but I smiled at his touch and gripped his hand with my mine.
My stomach fluttered at his touch and my heart skipped in my chest.
I gasped, the realization hitting me as I stared up at Lio.
My heart and soul truly did belong to him. They hadn’t reacted to Shawn the way that I thought they would, the way I always feared they would. When I let Penelope go, all of her really did leave me.
I turned in Lio’s arms, leaned up on my toes against his body, and pressed a hard, sloppy kiss against his mouth. “It really is only you. I love you so much, Lio. So freaking much.”
Consecutive sounds of awhing ensued, and I thanked whoever had given me this life for giving me Lio, too. He was my saving grace, my way-too-good-to-be-true future, and I was going to enjoy every moment of it.
Life was too short not to.
Dinner wasn’t so bad. It was one hundred times better than I thought it would be. We all laughed, shared stories, and devoured our meals.
Shawn was happy, and I clung to that. He found happiness after losing a huge part of himself, and that was inspiring.
My grandparents? They were equally as great and incredibly loving, just like I always knew they would be, and Claire had finally forgiven herself for leaving her parents and Shawn.
“We have no control over the past,” she had said. “We can be and do the best we can in the moment and hope that our futures are bright, but nothing is ever certain.”
As for Lio’s parents? Well, they were the same as they had always been.
Needless to say, dinner had been a success and our families were on the right track to being whole.
It had been a long time coming but it was more than worth the wait.
Lio and I were laying on the couch, watching reruns of our favorite show and enjoying our lazy Sunday. It was the only day we were both free, so we took advantage of it and spent it together. It was honestly pure bliss.
His fingers slid up and down my arm seamlessly and I snuggled closer against his side.
He brought my left hand to his mouth and gave it a gentle kiss, adjusting the engagement ring he had given me a few months before.
“I can’t believe you agreed to be my wife,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “Well, actually, I can believe it.”
I gently smacked his arm and laughed. “Your confidence knows no bounds, Lio.”
“Not where you’re concerned, it doesn’t.”
We were officially planning our wedding and Lio had reluctantly agreed to let Jeremy attend as long as he stayed at least one hundred feet away from me at all times. I thought it was hilarious and teased him about it every chance I got.
Everything had fallen into place, and we were happy, disgustingly and blissfully so.
“Life with you gets better every day,” I said, twisting my body around so that I was sitting in his lap with my knees on either side of him, holding myself up. “I’m so ready to grow with you and experience life. Where you go, I go, even when we’re physically apart.”
“I love it when you talk sweet to me, Everly Hope Davis,” he said with a smirk. “Soon to be Everly Hope Smith.”
“Remember at our graduation get-together when you fully denied us getting married so soon?” I asked with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “But I had to pretend because when I asked, you were actually surprised. Besides, I really didn’t want to risk one of them spilling the beans before the timing was right. We both know they would have been too excited to keep it to themselves.”
“That’s totally true.” I laughed out loud. “Ugh, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He pressed soft kisses along my neck before connecting his lips with mine. “I can’t effing wait.”
I deepened our kiss, communicating what words would never be eloquent enough to.
This was happiness, this is what one of the brighter sides of life was about—loving and being loved, unconditionally and unapologetically.
I used to believe that this life wasn’t mine. But I was wrong, because it was.
This life was mine. It always had been, and it always would be.
I didn’t know when my end would be, none of us did. I just needed to be the best version of myself that I could and give all of me to everything and everyone around me.
Life was short and the future wasn’t guaranteed, so instead of spiraling back, I was going to fly forward and never look back.
The End
Other Books By Dominique Laura
Trusting the Surface
Trusting My Own Heart
I started working on this story in June. How did it come about? Well, I’ve always sort of believed that when babies cry, it’s because they’re remembering their past lives and as they get older, those memories are replaced with new ones. I’ve also believed that dreams are memories from our past lives a
s well, but again, those memories are replaced with new ones—usually. This wasn’t the case for Everly, and I was fascinated, absolutely fascinated by the whole concept of this character.
There were some areas of the story where I had to decide how deep into detail I wanted to get or how many twists to add, but I wanted it to feel as real and authentic as possible. If this were to happen to someone in real life, what would happen? How would they react? And those questions are where the story really stemmed from.
I loved writing this book, so much. This story took me by complete surprise, and I hope it did the same for you. I had no idea where it was headed when I first started working on it, but I absolutely fell in love with Everly’s character. She represents a little bit of all of us, I think.
If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are always appreciated, and a really great way to show your support.
I can’t thank you all enough.
If you have any questions or comments, you can contact me at the links below:
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/dominiquelaurawrites
Instagram: @dominiquelaurawrites
Twitter: @domlaurawrites
Edna — My best friend, my soul sister, I love you for your undying support when it comes to any and everything that I do. Thank you for being my first set of eyes and for being as excited as I am about this story.
Liv Moore — You have gone above and beyond in helping me with this story, from lending me an ear to designing all things having to do with this book. I can’t thank you enough. I am so grateful to call you a friend. You’re the greatest BBBFL a girl could ever ask for.
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