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“Hey, man, I'm Auden.”
I give his hand a firm shake. “Cole.”
“This is my wife,” he tells me, his voice thick with the kind of pride only a man truly in love can feel, “Summer-Raine.”
“I prefer Summer, though.” She smiles at me, but it's shy and reserved. Her eyes are green like Thea's, but darker and more haunted. They speak of a pain I've never known and monsters I'm grateful to never have met. But they also shine with courage, determination and incredible strength. They remind me a lot of Thea's eyes, actually. And I take an instant liking to her and the man who's got a protective arm currently swung around her shoulders.
“It's good to meet you both.”
“Likewise,” Auden says. “So, you're Althea's boyfriend, huh? I've seen a lot about you online the last couple of days.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, that's me.”
He claps me on the shoulder. “Don't worry too much about it all. The craziness will die down soon.”
“Will it?” I arch a skeptical eyebrow.
He chuckles. “Just tryin' to make you feel better about it.”
“Appreciate it, man. So, how do you guys know Thea?”
“We met last year when she read for the main part in the film version of a book I wrote,” he says, never taking his hand off Summer. “Now she's working with my wife.”
“The partnership we're announcing tonight is with Summer's non-profit,” Thea offers, her small hand settling over mine. Studying her face for signs of the tortured expression that's been plaguing her for the past hour or so, I breathe a sigh of relief when I find that it's mostly dissipated. “I'd tell you more about it, but I'm due onstage for my speech in five minutes.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask as she pulls out her seat and stands, conveying with my gaze that I'm not only talking about her speech.
She gives me a small smile and cups my cheek. “Fake it 'til you make it, right?”
As she walks away, my attention catches once more on the couple beside me. They're so fucking in love it should make me sick. And maybe it might have if I'd met them three months ago, before Thea came back into my life, but I can barely tear my eyes away from them. Because the way they look at each other, like the other hung the damn moon or some shit, makes me wonder if the same expression glitters in my own eyes whenever I look at Thea.
Something tells me it does.
Because what Thea and I have, and what Auden and Summer-Raine so clearly have as well, is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Rarer, actually. It's the kind of love so deep that not all hearts are capable of enduring it. And that's a fact that terrifies me. Because I wouldn't survive it if something happened to steal Thea away from me again.
But as she walks out onto the stage, lit by the lilac glow of a single spotlight in front of several hundred people, I can't find it in me to care. That woman could shatter my heart to pieces and it would be an honor just to feel the pain. I've been in love with her since I was a kid with floppy hair and ears I hadn't yet grown into, even if I haven't actually said the words since we lay in the park beneath the stars six years ago—the night before she left and never came home.
And though the fear that she'll leave again if I finally tell her how I feel haunts me like a malevolent ghost, I vow to tell her anyway.
For a womanwho has built a career around being in the limelight, I actually hate being the center of attention. Every pair of eyes in the room turn to fix on me, standing on the stage, drenched in light, with a microphone in hand. And god help me, I've never felt so uncomfortable.
Public speaking has never been a forte of mine, yet it's something I've been forced to do countless times over the course of my career. And sure, one might wonder why I hate it so much when I can perform on a theater stage in front of thousands or film intimate scenes in movies with little to no problem, but the truth is that it's much easier to act the part of someone else than to be myself.
No matter how many times I've had to do it, it never gets any easier.
“I want to start by thanking each and every one of you for being here tonight,” I begin, my voice steady but my hands shaking. I hope to all that is holy that I'm a good enough actress to conceal the incredible amount of stage fright I'm experiencing in this moment. “Your attendance means so much. Our mission here at Empower is to nurture girls and young women through the early stages of their career as we strive to overturn the systems entrenched in our society that work so hard to prevent their success.”
I pause momentarily as polite applause ripples through the crowd, though I'm sure most of the people clapping aren't even listening to me at all.
“I was four years old the first time I played with a Barbie doll. She was beautiful. She wore this little pink workout set with leggings and a sweater that only covered half of her upper body. I remember, as young as I was then, running my fingers over her tiny waist, her wide hips, her generous chest and long legs, and wondering if I'd look like her when I grew up.”
Finding Cole's gaze in the crowd, I hold it like a lifeline.
“I was eight years old the first time I worried about my appearance. I was a lanky girl with awkward proportions, buck teeth and ginger hair. I didn't look like the doll I still had in my bedroom or the women I saw on TV.
“I was fourteen years old the first time someone called me fat. I'd just hit puberty, my body was growing and changing in ways that I didn't understand. People started treating me differently and I didn't know why. I'd spend most evenings crying on the floor of my bedroom and wishing that I could look like the dolls I used to play with when I was a kid. Even as I grew older and my body started filling out, I still didn't feel good enough. I still didn't look like Barbie.
“Perhaps the saddest thing about this is that a woman with Barbie's bodily proportions wouldn't even be able to survive. She wouldn't be able to walk. The constitution of her body would mean that she'd have to crawl, because it would be literally impossible for her to stand.
