Always and Forever (33 page)

Giggling like a delighted little girl, I sat up and waited while he fetched my coat and some extra blankets. After he bundled me up like an infant, he hauled me up into his arms and carried me outside.

The air was cool and crisp, and even though the sun was shining, the ground was still hard and frozen from a long winter. Birds were chirping, though, and I soaked it all in. Dad perched us on the stoop where Kal and I had exchanged Christmas gifts. That night seemed so long ago now. Another world. Another life.

“You know I love you, princess,” Dad whispered in my ear.

I turned to him, finding his misery, his grief running down his face in long winding rivers, probably a mirror image of my own. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

He hugged me tight. “I wish I could've done more for you, Mia. I wish we could've found some way—”

“Dad, don't. This isn't your fault. There was nothing you could do, that anyone could do.”

“But I'm your father,” he croaked out, his pain rolling over me in hard, crashing waves. “I'm the one who's supposed to protect you. Make everything all better. I'm the one who's supposed to die first. You deserve a life.”

“So do you and Mom and Ben,” I said, the words so hard to push out past the softball-sized lump in my throat, the aching pressure in my chest. “You deserve a life, too.”

“Not without you, Mia,” he sobbed, pulling me in closer. “Not without you.”

“But you have to,” I whispered, agony racing through me, splintering my toes, spiking my fingers. “Don't you see, Daddy? You have to go on. For Mom and Ben. You have to hold them together, help them through this. You have to do this. For me.”

One more loud wail, and then he dragged in a hard, hitching breath. “I will, princess. I will. We'll be okay, but we'll miss you so much.”

“I'll miss you, too.”

He yanked me back in. More sobs. More tears. From both of us. And, so it began, there on the stoop where I'd had my first real honest to goodness kiss, I now had another first.

The first goodbye that I'd make on this, the last day of my life.

T
HIRTY
-S
EVEN

“YOU LOOK TIRED, MIA,”
Mom said from her perch on the couch. “You should get some rest.”

She and Ben had only just arrived home from their donut run. The box of assorted pastries lay untouched on the coffee table, while Ben lay next to me on the bed, curled up in a feeble ball, thumb inserted into his mouth.

“No, I'm okay.” I reached out my good hand and curled my fingers for her to come over. She did so without hesitation. Once she was lying next to me, her body pressed to my dead side, I reached out and touched her cheek. “I love you, Mom.”

Tears instantly sprang up, and she shook her head. “No, Mia. Not yet. Don't you do this now.”

“I can't,” I whispered. “I don't think I can hold on much longer, Mom. I…I feel so weird.” How could I explain it to her? Everything just felt so wrong. So insubstantial. It felt like my body was filled with lead but at the same time like I was floating away. “I just…I just wish I wouldn't have taken you for granted like I did.” A small smile. Even that took so much effort. “I wasn't very nice to you sometimes.”

“Typical teenager,” she sighed dramatically, going for the joke, but her eyes were wet. Her lips quivered. “You weren't mean to me, Mia. You're the best daughter I could've ever asked for. You're smart and pretty and…and…” She broke off on an anguished cry. “I love you so much, my little girl. I just don't want to let go of you. Not now. Not yet.”

“I'm sorry, Mom, but I can't…I can't…not for much longer. I just…I'm just so tired.”

“Then, take a nap,” she pleaded. “Just close your eyes, Mia, and rest. You'll feel better when you wake up. I know it.”

“I'm not so sure I will wake up,” I whispered. Fright closed in on me, dark and ominous. Yes, I was ready, well, almost, but now that Death inched closer, the panic set in. What would happen once I closed my eyes and drifted away? Would anything actually happen or would I just be gone, blinked out of existence for all of eternity?

“You will wake up,” Mom commanded. “Are you listening to me, Mia? You will wake up.”

Slowly, I nodded. There was no fight left in me anymore. For anything. I was done. There was just no way I'd last for even a few more minutes. It was coming. My eyelids started to drift shut. My head lolled to the side.

Kal…I wanted to say goodbye to you…Kal…

The front door slammed open, yanking me back up to consciousness. Just barely. The room came back into focus, and there he was, standing at the foot of my bed, fright twisting his beautiful face.

“Kal,” I whispered, my lips making a valiant effort to curve up into a bright smile. “Kal.”

Mom pushed up off the bed, looked from me to Kal and then back to me again. Then, she leaned back down and pulled me into a fierce hug. “You will wake up,” she ordered me once more.

“I-I'll try,” I answered, but we both knew it wouldn't happen. This was our final farewell. “I love you, Mom.”

She bit her lip and nodded as even more tears gushed out. “Ben,” she choked out. “Come on. Let's give your sister and Kal a minute.”

Then, Ben flew up at me, unfurling himself from my side quickly to throw his arms around me. Loud wails crawled up out of him, scratched at my skin, and drew blood with their every high-pitched keen. Mom pulled him away, with gentle hands and soothing words. Within minutes, they were gone.

Kal wasted no time crawling up onto the bed. He climbed right up from the foot, shimmying up my body so that when he got to my head, his body hovered over mine. He didn't say anything, just
pressed his lips against mine in a kiss fraught with fear, desperation, and above all, love.

“I'm not losing you, Mia,” he said firmly when our mouths unsealed. “I'm keeping you with me. In my heart.” He turned slightly, reached out and lifted my dead arm, looped it around his neck. I, in turn, pressed my other hand to his chest, right over where his heart was pounding out a sorrowful, grieving rhythm.

“Promise me you'll move on,” I whispered. He started to shake his head, to deny me this one wish. “Promise me, Kallie. Promise that you'll find someone real, someone nice, and love the hell out of her. Marry her and start a family. House in the suburbs. Two point five kids. White picket fence. The whole nine yards. Promise me.”

“I'm never going to stop loving you, Mia. You can't ask that of me.”

“I'm not,” I replied, my voice cracked and bleeding out my life's essence. Why? Why did I have to die now? After I'd found love, the kind that transcended time and space. Life and death. Why did this have to happen? Why did I have to break him so badly? I never wanted to ruin him. Never. I shook my head, sniffled softly. “I'm not asking you to stop loving me, or forget me. I'm asking you to honor me by living your life the way it was meant to be lived. I want you to have everything that you deserve and more, Kal. So much more.”

“I just want you,” he whispered, brokenly. “That's all I'll ever want.”

“Just promise me you'll try. Promise me you'll have the best life you can possibly have. Please.”

He leaned his forehead against mine. His hot breath fanned minty waves over my face, lulled me away. “I promise,” he finally whispered.

A light smile lifted up my lips, and I slid my hand up to his face, fingers becoming wet with his tears. “I've always loved you, Kallie. Ever since that first day in the sandbox.”

“When you threw the bucket at me?” His own mouth tipped up in a smirk. “That was the day you stole my heart, Amelia Gordon.”

“I carry your heart,” I whispered to him.

His face lit up, his chocolate eyes shining with pure and honest love. “I carry it in my heart,” he returned.

“I'm never without it.” My eyelids were growing so heavy. It was all I could do to keep my gaze trained on Kal's face, my hand pressed to his cheek.

“Anywhere I go, you go, my dear,” he recited and leaned forward to drop a sweet kiss on the end of my nose. “And whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling.”

“I fear—” My voice started to tremble with the sheer effort of forming words. “—no fate.”

“For you are my fate, my sweet,” Another light kiss to my forehead.

“I want no world.” Could he even hear me anymore? I couldn't. The noise in my head was just too much. My arms were so heavy, as were my legs, as was my body.

“For beautiful, you are my world, my true.” He leaned back, looked deep into my eyes. “Just a few more moments, my Mia. Please,” he pleaded. The kiss he slanted across my lips bespoke his fear, his determination that I stay with him for just a little while longer.

I would try, but it was getting so difficult. “It's you…are…” I choked out a small strangled sob. “What a moon…has…meant…”

“And whatever a sun will always sing is you,” he finished for me. “I love you so much, my Mia,” he whispered along with another kiss. Now, his voice trembled, too.

“Deepest secret,” I shoved off my tongue. “No one knows.”

“Here is the root of the root,” he said, quickly, desperately, as he peppered my face with feather soft kisses. “And the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of this tree called life—”

“Grows high,” I said. “Soul…hope…mind…hide…”

“Yes, my Mia. Yes,” he sobbed against me, his lips sliding along my skin, too greedy to even allow a hair's breadth between us.

“Keeping…stars…apart…” My chest was so full; my breathing slowed down with all the pressure. My brain fogged. Dark clouds rolled in. This was it. This was the end. And, it was so beautiful. “I carry your heart,” I pushed out with one last burst of strength.

“I carry it in my heart, my Mia,” he finished. “I promise I will. Always and forever. I will carry it with me.” His lips met mine again, but I was past the point of being able to participate.

“Kal…I…” I tried to lift my fingers back up to his face. Just one last tousle of his soft locks. Just one last time to trace my thumb over his lower lip. But I couldn't do it. “I…love…you…” My hand fell back to the bed, not even halfway to its goal. My dead arm dropped back to my side, and his tears landed on my face.

“I love you, Mia. Oh, God, I love you so much,” he whispered fervently while he pressed kiss after kiss to skin that was already starting to grow cold. “Please, Mia. Do you hear me? I love you. Always—”

“For…ever…” I whispered, my lips barely moving now. I couldn't feel my body anymore, could barely feel Kal's lips brushing over my skin.

It couldn't be much longer.

But I didn't want this moment to end. This memory, right here, right now, was the one I'd take into eternity with me, wherever I might go from here. A snapshot in time, a tiny piece of life I'd wrap up and carry in my heart.

Always and forever.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing may be a solitary effort, but editing, revising, and polishing a book takes the Herculean strength of many. Without communities like YAHighway, Absolute Write, YAlitchat, and a little known place called Twitter, I wouldn't have found half the people in my “many”.

Many, many, many thanks to my literary brain twin and kick-ass beta reader Elizabeth (LizPage!) Page, who not only endured reading multiple drafts of
A&F
but also patiently held my hand through every rambling email where I asked “
what if this happened?
” over and over and over again until I'm sure she wanted to pound her head against her keyboard.

Much love to my family and friends, who might not have always understood my obsession with the people living inside my head but still forgave me for brushing them aside in order to play with my characters. A big shout out to my cousins, Heather Pung and Casey Bruff who gifted me with such a classic line as, “
I don't have a pony in that race
.” It still makes me smile when I say it.

Virtual hugs to my Book Hungry gals: Patty Blount, Kelly Breakey, and Abby Mumford for letting me ramble on and on about books I've read and loved and that they just
have
to read. I'm so glad I met these “friends who live in my computer”.

A very special thanks to those in the
Circle of Trust
: Dennise Main, Yvonne Rush, Dawn (Dawn, my friend) Davis, and Eileen Smith for just letting me be, well, me.

Great love to the team at Booktrope. Heather Ludviksson for believing in
A&F
from the moment she laid eyes upon it. Sophie Weeks for her awesome ideas on making me seem a whole lot more interesting than I actually am and also for her patience when I all but fell off the face of the earth during the dark time of revision. Lots of virtual hugs for Corinne Fleming, super ninja copy editor who spent countless hours (and boxes of tissues) on
A&F
. Also, thanks to Nikki Van De Car, editor extraordinaire for not only hunting down all my little plot bunnies, but helping me get rid of them once and for all.

A huge debt is owed to Tracey Hansen, one that can only be repaid by a grand gesture. Something along the lines of giving her one of my kidneys, but since I'm kind of attached to them, she'll just have to settle for my eternal gratitude for all that she's done to get me and
A&F
out into the world. I owe you one, Tray…but just not a kidney. MMMkay?

This book is for all those who have loved and lost a Mia of their own.

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