Space (Laws of Physics #2)(74)

Ugh!

My eyes were stinging, and my emotions were banging at the door with a battering ram. Let us in! We want to hurt you!

“Abram—”

“What I’m telling you is this—” His fingers flexed and he bent his head, forcing me to maintain eye-contact. The courage and determination within his gaze stole my breath, it seemed endless, boundless, immeasurable. “I am not built that way. Being sober isn’t hard. Keeping my temper comes naturally unless it comes to you asking me to consent to a fling. I haven’t been with anyone in over a year, and I don’t miss it. I don’t miss women. I don’t crave women. I’ve never craved women. I crave you. There is no substitute, there is no additional accessory required. But if you don’t feel this way about me, if you don’t, you have to tell me. Now. Right now.”

It was no use. Feelings bashed through the last barrier, pitchforks in hand, and punched smart Mona in the face. She was down for the count, leaving stupid Mona to throw herself into Abram’s arms. I bawled. He caught me, cradled me, brought me to his lap on the floor, stroked my hair, kissed my face, held me close. He was so warm.

“I love you,” he said. “Trust me,” he said.

What else could I do?

I did.





I looked around the empty room, my gaze focusing on dust dancing in a beam of sunlight. A reminder.

There was so much, in life, in the world around us, that we rarely had a chance to see, but it didn’t make those things any less real. We might experience and have access to the by-product, but rarely the thing itself.

Invisible forces, energy, quarks, radiation, dust dancing in a sunbeam, Abram.

Abram wasn’t here. I couldn’t see him. But I could remember his words, his smile, his touch, the sound of his heart. When I left Aspen, I would download and listen to his music. He was real.

Nodding at the truth of this, and trying to find comfort in it, I fought against the rising wave of tears. I took several deep breaths, blinking my eyes, and promising myself I wouldn’t cry. I won’t cry, not until I made it to the bathroom for a box of tissues. And then I would cry like crying was my job.

Tossing my legs over the side of the bed, I paused to drape a blanket along my shoulders, smelling it because it smelled like him. And that’s when I spotted an envelope on the side table.

The outside read, Do not burn, but it wasn’t my handwriting. My heart leapt, and then fell, and then recovered enough to settle someplace in the vicinity of my throat. He hadn’t woken me when he left. We’d lain together, talking, holding each other, sometimes kissing, until I’d fallen asleep.

And when I awoke, he was gone.

I snatched the envelope and stared at the blank ink on the white paper, the remarkably elegant cursive, and I opened it, feeling greedy for even a small portion of him.

Within was a piece of lined white paper that looked like it had been ripped out of a notebook. I unfolded the paper, taking care to press the crease neatly open, and I read the words.



* * *



Thoughts come easiest in the night.

In a room of light,

I see only the absence of you.

Darkness, though I cannot see,

Embraces me.

I’m blinded, yet my view is clear.

It feels possible that you are near, present, here.

So when you view your evening sky

Reach out to the night and there I’ll be.

This is not goodbye.





—Yours always, Abram

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