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that. I have all these other moving parts that make me whole.
You’re the one who made me feel like that was real. You’re
the one who made me see it.”
She wanted to surge forward and pin Coralyn against the
door. Tumble into her apartment and slam it shut and hold her
there like she’d held her against the wall. She wanted to hug
her, curling into her to protect her. She wanted to trail hot
kisses down the length of her body, pressing each one into her
silky skin, into her pulse, her heart, her lips where her breath
spilled, until she could taste the desperation and the honesty
and everything that Giana didn’t know how to put into words.
She kept still, allowing the silence, allowing Coralyn time.
Giana wished Coralyn would smile, even if it was sad. She
wished her eyes would light up again, those summery blues
that had entrenched themselves into her soul like fallen
raindrops spattered onto wet concrete.
The time I’ve spent with you has been the only time I’ve felt
anything close to restfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness,
and peacefulness in the past twenty years.
“I don’t want that for my life,” Coralyn whispered, and
Giana’s heart sank. “The bitterness, I mean. I don’t want to be
numb. I don’t want to turn to ice. I want to heal and be happy
and live the way my parents would have wanted me to. I don’t
want to use their deaths to fall into bitterness and emptiness.”
“You think that’s how I wanted to live?” It was an honest
question, with no accusation behind it.
Coralyn winced anyway. “I think that it really is a choice,
and I know you don’t like the therapy talk, but I really think
we make ourselves who we are going forward. But that’s also
easy for me to say because the things that happened to me
