Page 127 of Let the Light Shine Through

This wasn’t supposed to go on this long, but I’m not sorry it did. If that makes me selfish, then oh well. I’m selfish. I wanted Roz all to myself, just for a little while, before the reality I feel like I’ve been outrunning my whole life caught up to me. I want Roz all to myself. Still. Even with disease invading my body, my thoughts, and my own bleeding heart, I still want him. He’s the one adventure I wish didn’t have to end.

But I don’t just love Roz, I fear him, too. I fear he’s going to take my life’s projected path and shape it into his own with his skilled hands.

I fear he already has.

Roz stands suddenly, asking, “Have you heard of a sympathetic trigger?”

“A what?”

He drops down a couple stairs.

“A sympathetic trigger. It’s when one avalanche sets off another.”

A few more steps down.

“Don’t tell me. I’m the second disaster?” Kori said it best, I’m a hurricane that leaves messes everywhere I go.

He lands on the last step, coming face to face with me and looks directly into my eyes.

“The second one happened when I met you because I fell for you faster than any of my record-breaking times that won me medals. All-consuming, blanketing everything in sight, I never stood a chance.” His hand comes up to cup my cheek. “I didn’t leave my heart on the slopes, Gia. It’s been with me this whole time, leading me to you.”

My nose stings and a hiccup burns my throat.

“You said if you loved someone enough, you could walk away from them, so please…walk away. I’m begging you.”

“I didn’t know what I was talking about when I said that. You were the one that had it right. If you love someone enough, you can’t walk away. I can’t walk away, baby.”

“Key,” I say while I still can, holding out my free hand. “I earned it.”

Roz hesitates, his eyes searching mine, but he places it in my palm, saying, “It was a cheap shot, but a deal’s a deal.”

“Cheap shot was having Rowdy do your dirty work. This was payback.” I yank the dart off his bare chest, pushing past while sucking in mouthfuls of air to hold off the tears.

“You’re lucky I love you,” he says to my back, and only when I’m out of earshot do I respond, whispering, “I know.”

The warm water mutes all sound to the outside world and accepts my tears, claiming them as its own. It even imitates the fluid in my body, tricking me into believing I’m somehow safe.

Lies.

I don’t need any more lies. I’m already full of them. Lies for the right reasons still taste like lies, but they’re easier to swallow when they’re for the ones you love.

A shadow falls over the bits of my face still exposed and I look up to find Roz standing above me.

He jerks his head to the side, then climbs in as I sit up. Still wearing his shorts, he positions himself behind me, pulling my back against his front. His arms wrap around my middle, and he holds tight, allowing me to fall apart at the half-assed seams I’ve been working like hell to fasten before anyone could notice. His sobs mix with mine, and soon, we can’t get close enough. We’re both grasping for help, begging for someone to feel what we’re feeling.

The thing is though, I do. I know what he’s feeling because I’ve felt it. I lived it. I lost the person I loved most and I would’ve rather died myself than have my mom push me away like I’m doing to Roz.

How can I not though? How can I continue letting him love me, knowing it will only end in heartbreak?

Do I even have a say? In any of this? It’s starting to feel like I don’t.

Maybe I never did. Maybe it really was some natural force, bigger than either of us, that caused our paths to collide, then intersect again and again until they merged into one.

“I need you to make me a promise, Gia. Promise that no matter what we find out, you’ll fight. I need you to fight.”

“I’ve been fighting,” I say, wiping my cheeks. “Fighting to live a life I’m proud of, one that I love and cherish. For me. Not for anybody else.”

And that can’t change. I refuse to stay afloat because someone tells me to, even if I love that someone with every breath I take.