AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“…what?”
His voice lowered to just above a whisper. “I’d say, ‘This is it. This is all you’ve got. Today. This minute. Nothing else matters. Live your life and love every second of it, and don’t worry about me. Don’t look back. Live life to the fullest, ‘cause when it’s all over, the only regrets you’ll have are the ones where you didn’t take every single shot at happiness you could.’”
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t tear myself away from his eyes.
And then he stepped forward and kissed me.
It was electric. Like a power greater than me swept me up in its wake. His lips on mine… soft yet forceful, sweet but aggressive. My head was lighter than air; I could feel my body on fire, and the only thing that could quench it was his tongue. I kissed him back, hard, and opened my mouth to him – felt him slip inside me as his arms encircled me, crushing me against his rock-hard body –
And then, like a subliminal frame in the movie of my mind, a single image of Ali, seven years old. Young and sweet and alive.
I broke away and lowered my head against Jack’s chest.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He spoke to me, and I felt the rumble of his words more than heard them – felt them reverberating from his chest into my body. “You’re here. She’s not. I’m sorry she’s not, but do you really think she’d begrudge you the chance to go on living? To be happy?”
But I’m not here to go on living or be happy.
I’m here to find the man who took that away from her.
I didn’t answer.
After a full minute of silence, he finally kissed the top of my head and took his arms away from me.
I immediately felt cold and alone, even though the air was warm.
He walked over to his bike and got on.
“When you change your mind… I’ll be around,” he said gently.
Then he started up the engine.
Seconds later, he was gone.
24
Back in my motel room, I opened the photo album, my hands shaking.
I wasn’t crying, exactly, but it was taking everything I had in me not to.
I looked at her photographs. Back when we were infants and our mothers held us next to each other for the camera. We were smiling at each other even then.
There we were at five, in pigtails and pink overalls, best friends for life.
Another photo when we were thirteen. I remembered the first time I had alcohol; it was a bottle of Boone’s Farm she’d gotten from an older boy she was seeing.
My first kiss, at fourteen, was with a guy she’d introduced me to. It was a good first kiss, too. One I still remembered.
There she was at fifteen, tattooed and pierced, already a wild child, already starting down a path of self-destruction.
I looked at her and cried. Wanted to reach out to her, reach back through time, and pull her away from the edge of the abyss.
But you know what?
I realized that, even if I could have gone back in time, she would have ignored my warnings.
She was one of those souls that flies too close to the sun.
