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“It broke mine, Julia, and I didn’t even know I had a heart left in me to break. A shocking discovery. Even more shocking is the fact that you make me want to feel. I thought…I thought I would get to a certain position in life and nothing would touch me. Nothing would hurt. There would be no more shame or fear, but it was always there. Money, things, didn’t fix it. I was to the point where I was a man with billions of dollars, afraid to sleep outside because it might make me cold. Because it might take me back to the places I’d been. But, Julia, you make me not so afraid, you and the feelings I have for you. The answer has never been in money, it’s never been in status. Those things didn’t change me.”
“Any more than my clothes changed me,” she said.
“No. What changed me was you. Loving you. You put the pieces of me back together. You made me whole. And if you can take me…a man who has been where I’ve been, done what I’ve done, if you can take me and love me, then I really can let it go. If you can forgive it, I can, too.”
She kissed him, hard, with everything she had. “There is nothing to forgive. Nothing in your life makes me feel ashamed of you. I am proud. Proud to know you. Proud to love you. Because of you I’m even proud of me.”
“I love you, Julia. I have never felt this emotion before. I’ve never said those words before.”
“I am honored to be your first lover. Your first love,” she said. “Oh, and I have something for you.” She reached down into her desk drawer and pulled out a folder, the folder he’d given her, and handed it to him. “For you. To do whatever you see fit with.”
He turned around and put the file through her industrial shredder. Then turned back to her. “How’s that?”
“I hope you aren’t still planning on not taking me down simply because you’re attempting to pay me back.”
“No. But I’m not ever going to try to take Anfalas down because you fill a space Datasphere doesn’t. The world needs you. Needs your creativity. Your passion. Just like I do.”
“Now that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“You deserved to hear it much sooner.”
“I’m fine with the fact that I heard it first now. That I heard it from you. You’re the first person who’s made me feel like being me was enough. The first person who’s ever made me feel like nothing was wrong with me.”
“Your parents…that boy at your school…they wanted you to be a garden variety flower, Julia. To put you in your place. Something they could understand and manipulate with ease. But you are something much more beautiful, much more rare. That they couldn’t see, and that is a commentary on their vision, not on you. They were threatened by you because you’re a force, a beauty that can’t be contained. It is…a crime that those people stole your color. That they made you feel you had to hide it. I believe you were made to shine.”
“See, you say things like that and…and I believe them.”
“I’m so glad you do. Perhaps we can’t make each other see exactly what we see in each other. But we can keep saying it.”
“I have no problem with that.” Julia looked down at the shredder, where the file with all the ill-gotten information about Anfalas had gone. “Hey, Ferro…how would you like to do a little partnering?”
“On what?”
“Have you ever thought of expanding in to the auto industry?”
“The auto industry?”
“Our kick-butt GPS needs some cars to go into. Seems like it might be a pretty cool adventure. And the JulErro page has like…fifty thousand likes at this point, so it seems to me like we could really get some easy buzz going.”
Julia was off and running with her idea and Ferro could only watch in awe as she explained, with grand hand gestures and glittering eyes, how they would make the dream into a reality.
Emotion expanded in Ferro’s chest and he embraced it, allowed himself to feel, wholly and completely, the love he had for the woman in front of him.
Then he pulled her into his arms. “I love it when you get excited about a project.”
