AllFreeNovel
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She already knew, though. She’s known forever.
“I love you, too, West.”
“After all that.”
“You know I do.” She tightens her arms around me. “Come inside me now.”
She lifts.
I thrust.
Gliding, sinking, easy and hard at the same time, but perfect, because me and Caroline—that’s who we are. That’s the way we’re going to be.
Deep, deeper.
Hard, harder.
Fast, faster.
Clutching, gripping, grabbing, pulling, kissing, holding on. There’s nowhere to go and nowhere else we have to be.
This is what I want.
The first thing, the main thing—this woman in my arms, in my life. This woman next to me. As long as I’ve got her, I can figure out the rest of it.
I can do whatever I’ve got to do and be whoever I need to be to keep her.
Caroline
There’s a reason they call it falling in love—because of the way it tips you ass over teakettle and then shakes your life up, hard.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing like it. No better drug. No adventure more fantastic.
But it changes things.
It changes you.
I got West back that November and fell in love with him all over again. It was like that Gravitron carnival ride where you stand against a wall and they spin you and spin you until the floor drops away and you’re stuck there by centrifugal force.
I never could stop myself from laughing on that ride. I’d try so hard to peel my hand off the side, lift my arm, wave at my sisters across the way. My oldest sister, Janelle, always tried fancy stuff, walking her feet up, posing kind of silly. Alison would be white-faced, scared.
I would laugh until my cheeks hurt, slain by the hilarity of my own helplessness.
It snowed early and often that winter, and West and I laughed so much. Talked so much. Fucked all the time, everywhere, completely helpless against the urge to put our hands on each other.
School. Sleep. Food. Sex. West.
I didn’t have the strength for anything else. I was falling, swooping, drifting, whirling around.
Laughing.
When I finally hit the ground, I hadn’t braced for the impact, but I was too dizzy, laughing too hard to care.
I wouldn’t have changed the ride for anything.
When the phone rings, I’m on West’s couch. I’ve got a library book in one hand, Frankie’s head in my lap, and no way to reach my cell.
“Can you get that?” I ask.
