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“You’re like that too,” I murmured, “Except I’d call your laugh sexy, not ridiculous.”
Lincoln scrunched up his face like he didn’t believe it.
After a second, though, he chuckled softly. "There was this other time when some kids had been jerks to me at school. And Tyler took me to this county fair that was going on nearby. He took me on every ride, and we both stuffed ourselves with all the fried food they had. And then I threw up all over Tyler’s car at the end of the night…And he just laughed. He wasn’t mad at all; he just was glad I felt better.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
I smiled at the memory, feeling a sense of longing for something I’d never experienced. “It sounds like he loved you a lot," I said softly.
"He did. He was probably the only person who did growing up," Lincoln murmured, his voice filled with emotion. He turned to look at me. “I miss him so fucking much.”
I laid my head on his shoulder, crying for him because life was so fucking unfair sometimes.
"As you can probably guess, I don’t have a lot of great memories of my mom,” I whispered a little while later.
Lincoln’s entire body flinched, because my mother was someone Inevertalked about.
But I felt like telling him this; he deserved that at least, when he was so free with his own pain.
“But the grief still comes in waves sometimes, you know? And anger too. Because even though she couldn’t be who I wanted…who I needed…she was still my mom. And maybe she did the best she could, and I just need to accept that—anyways—what I’m trying to say—is that sometimes when it hurts, when it hurts so bad I feel like I can’t breathe, I send her light.”
“You send her…light?” Lincoln asked, clearly confused.
I nodded against his neck. “I think of the happiest things I can, and I picture sending them to her, wherever she is. Every time it hurts, I send her light. I tell her that I hope she’s happy, that I love her…and, that I forgive her. And then I release whatever emotion I’m feeling at that moment, and I send it her way.”
I gazed up at him and saw he was staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“I think, maybe, you should send Tyler light. You should talk to him. Tell him you hope he’s happy, that you love him, and then…you shouldforgiveyourself.”
His silence was deafening. Watching his face was like watching a storm gathering on the horizon. There were so many emotions flicking across his features.
“I don’t think I know how to do that,” he finally whispered.
“I think you do. I think that you just won’t let yourself do it.” I rushed on, even though I was terrified I was going too far.
“What if the best way for you to honor Tyler’s memory is to live…for him? And I mean to truly Iive—to strip off the pain that makes it so you can barely say his name. What if we talk about Tyler all the time? What if we honor his memory by making it happy—like he was.”
There’s my own lessons in these words, and I’m unpacking them at the same time as I’m unpacking everything else.
And it’s a little overwhelming, to be honest.
“Fuck,” he finally murmured, and then his lips crashed against mine and he was giving me more passion in that single kiss than I think I’d experienced across my entire life.
“Thank you,” he growled when we finally came up for air. His eyes were starstruck as he stared down at me.
A girl could fall in love in an instant being looked at like that.
"I spend so much fucking time thinking about how much I miss him, I forget torememberhim. It’s been forever since I’ve thought of some of those memories. It’s been forever since Tyler was anything but a knife in my gut, a memory that made me want to die.”
“Did I make it better, or worse?” I asked.
“Better. Always better, dream girl. You’ve changed my whole life. I love you so fucking much,” he breathed, his lips slamming against mine once again, his tongue sliding inside my mouth. I could feel him everywhere. And if there was one moment for me to tell him I loved him, to tell him I’d do anything for him.
It was that moment.
But I didn’t.
Not because I was terrified of it anymore.
