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Adrian picks me up and heads toward the stairs.
“But the trick-or-treaters!” I laugh as I try to wiggle out of his grasp.
“They’ll be there later.”
“My crafts!”
“Fuck the crafts,” he says with a possessive rasp. “Fuck all of it. I want to be the only thing you see or touch for the next month.”
He puts a kiss on my lips that makes a flood of happiness fill me.
This Halloween has been perfect.
And I know there are a lifetime more of them to come.
Epilogue
Adrian — 6 Months Later
“I love this,”Emma says as she smiles at the trees and wipes the back of her hand across her forehead.
We’re about two miles out now. The terrain is getting rockier. The tree roots are knotted and tangled, and there are patches of mud everywhere.
Emma shields her eyes from the sun and points down the path we’re on. There’s a craggy little hill made of a solid piece of rock jutting from the side of the mountain, with a flat part about halfway up, which will be the perfect spot for us to watch the sunset.
“Want to go up there?” she says, jabbing the tip of her walking stick into the soft earth.
“Let’s do it.”
I help her climb, guiding her by her hips up the side of the hill. I know it looks much bigger to her than it does to me. I think she chose it because she knew I’d have to put my hands all over her to help her climb.
I guide her to solid ground and hoist myself up with one small leap.
“Huh,” she says, peeking over the edge of the rock. “You made that look easy.”
“It was easy,” I say as I wrap my arm around her. “Everything with you is easy.”
We look out at the vast forest below us. At the tops of trees above us. It’s all so amazing.
I look down at Emma.
It’s all so perfect.
“Emma,” I say, taking her hands and turning her toward me.
“Adrian, what is it?”
“I just wanted to tell you how amazing my life is now that I have you in it.”
“You do every single day,” she says, putting her hand on my chest. I put my hand over hers. My heart is beating like crazy.
“You’ve completely changed me, Em. Before you, I thought I wanted to be alone. I thought it was a choice, to never get close to anyone, to throw myself headfirst into my work and just be consumed by this one thing, this one need that just gnawed at me, this calling, vocation, whatever you want to call it. But I now realize that I didn’t want to be alone. It was just a fiction I told myself because it was easier than facing the truth: I went thirty-six years without falling in love. And life means nothing without that. It’s meaningless—”
She cuts me off. “Unless you can share it with someone?” she says with a little smile.
“No. Unless I can share it with you.”
I get down on one knee and pull out the ring box. I never let my eyes leave hers. Not for a second. Not for a millisecond. I need to see all of this play out on her face. I need to remember everything about this moment. I’m going to memorize it and let it play out in my head over and over and fucking over.
