Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(89)

“I love you too, my darling,” she says quietly. “And if one day you do set off on all those adventures you imagine for yourself, I’ll be proud to have raised a daughter who’s brave enough to have followed her dreams. I promise.”

“Even if I’m leaving you behind?”

“You’ll never do that, baby,” she says again. “I’ll always be with you.”

· · · · ·

That night, I cry in Kal’s arms.

“I did leave her,” I say into his chest, so snotty and muffled that I have no idea if he can understand me. “I left her for an adventure, but for all she knew, I died.”

He presses a soft kiss to my hair. “To her, you died pursuing your dream. You were living your life just as she told you to. A life well lived, of any length, is as much as any of us can hope for, be’shmai.”

Later, I make us potatoes and carrots and lamb and barley and gravy, and I show Kal how to cook the stew, and my mom’s Irish brown bread. And we sit side by side, shoulders pressed together, and I tell him stories about growing up on Earth.

By the time I’m done explaining field hockey to him—he’s baffled by the fact that it’s against the rules to use the sticks to hit your opponents—I’m all cried out, and all laughed out.

I’m lighter, and I’m easier, because the truth is, just being around Kal calms me. His touch, his gaze, the small smiles I draw from him—those especially are something I never could have imagined back when we met. But all of it grounds me, when the pressure of this place might otherwise break me into pieces. Being in the Echo has allowed us months together, to learn each other in the way you only can with time, and I’m so grateful for this gift I don’t even know how to tell him.

One thing I’ve learned about him is that when his gaze slides to my mouth the way it does now, he’s thinking about kissing me. And I don’t want to wait for him to get around to it, not tonight.

And so I reach across to take hold of the front of his shirt, and he allows me to pull him effortlessly toward me as I lift my chin, a tingle of anticipation starting between my shoulder blades, zipping down to the small of my back as our lips meet.

We’re sitting side by side, and as he shifts his weight to lean over me, I curl one hand up around his neck. His hand slides around to support me, and he lowers me down so I can lie back against the soft grass, pulling him with me. His shape blocks out some of the stars, and the soft sound I drag from him when I deepen the kiss makes me forget where we are.

There’s an excitement and a familiarity to him that make these moments perfect, and even as I arch my back to press up into him, I’m smiling against his lips all over again.

This is what I needed. Between the lesson from Esh today and now Kal’s quiet, solid—and hey, incredibly sexy—comfort, I feel like there’s some … weight that’s been lifted off my shoulders. Some shadow inside me that’s been washed away.

I think I’m finally understanding what it is I need to do here. I can feel all of it—the guilt at leaving my family behind, the anger that they were taken from me, the sorrow that I never got to be part of the lives they made when I was gone. But at the same time, I hold on to the knowledge and the realization that they did make lives.

Because everyone does.

Here in the present moment I have Kal. He’s everything I could ever have wanted, and I don’t have to feel the Pull to know that I love him—not suddenly, in a rush, but piece by piece, moment by moment, each new lesson I learn adding another layer to the way I feel about him.

And curling up in Kal’s arms later that night, my cheek pressed to his bare chest, I know what I need to do with all this weight that’s been dragging me down.

Holding me back.

I need to let go of my past, and focus on my present.

I need to abandon who I was, and embrace who I am.

I just need to burn it all away.

· · · · ·

The next morning, Esh and I return to the cliff top. I feel light as air as we soar over the Echo, all its beauty laid out beneath us. I sit on the edge of the drop, staring out over the edge of the world. And this time, it’s my father I see when I close my eyes.

I’m six or seven years old, and he’s come in to read me a bedtime story. We have a big book of fairy tales and folktales from around the world. He sits on the bed beside me, and we leaf through the pages together, him reading and me tracing one small finger over the illustrations.

He wraps an arm around me, and in a well-practiced move, I prop my knees next to his so he can shift the book over and I can turn the pages for him.

I let him read for a long while. I breathe in the smell of him, feel the warmth of his skin, remembering the time when his arms felt like the safest place in all the world. But eventually he looks down at me, brow creased in that way I always loved.

“Is there something on your mind, Jie-Lin?” he asks quietly.

He’s so tuned in to me, so carefully attentive. All I can think about is our last conversation—or at least, the last conversation we ever had when he was actually himself, instead of part of the Ra’haam.

I shouted at him and Patrice and hung up before he got a chance to reply.

“I’m thinking about someone I left behind,” I tell him.

“… At your last school?”