Sweet Soul (Sweet Home #5) by Tillie Cole
Dedication
For my readers.
This novel exists because of you.
And for those made to feel small by others, made to feel inferior by hurtful words.
Keep wading through the pain. Keep fighting.
One day it will end, and you’ll again find your voice…
… You’ll again find your smile.
Author’s Note
As you all know, I planned for Sweet Hope to be the final novel in the Sweet Home Series. I ended that novel with a finite tone, and I was content. I loved how it ended.
Then I began to receive messages from you, my readers, asking about Levi Carillo. What happened in Levi’s life? How did he meet Elsie? What was their story? Could we possibly know his story too?
Before long, those questions began to invade my head too, until I knew I had to give Levi his story. I had to give the final Carillo boy his turn—I needed to give him his happily ever after.
At first, I planned Sweet Soul to be a novella. I wanted the story to be sweet and beautiful—just like our shy and reserved Levi. But as I began to write, a new, more meaningful story began to form, and I knew that the sweet novella I had planned for, would become a full-length novel. A novel exploring topics that, in my opinion, need to be brought to the forefront of conversations. That need more exposure.
I still regard the ‘Bonus Chapter’ in Sweet Hope as the final chapter in the Sweet Series, the one to give this series closure. But I am beyond thankful that your support and requests for Levi’s novel brought me to this heart-wrenching, yet beautiful story.
I hope you all fall for our shy couple as hard and as fast as I did.
I believe I was meant to write it. So as always, I thank you all for guiding me in this direction.
Thank you for inspiring me to give Levi and Elsie their voice.
They truly deserve it.
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.”
Anne Frank
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Playlist
Acknowledgements
Author Bio
Follow Tillie at:
Prologue
Levi
The rain pelted hard. I pulled the collar of my jacket higher on my neck. Reaching the warehouse door, I made to unlock it with the key I’d secretly copied from Axel’s master key, my warm breath ghosting into a white mist as it collided with the cold air.
Thunder rumbled around the distant edge of a dark gray sky. When the lock clicked open, I ducked into the dry building. I flicked on the lights in the ceiling, revealing a mass of covered statues. My eyes scanned the interior of the warehouse, immediately stopping at the back of the large space. A sculpture, shrouded in white cotton, stood higher than the rest. My heart skipped a beat. Even before I moved an inch, my eyes began to sting with the threat of tears.
Inhaling a deep breath, I forced my feet forward. The wooden floorboards creaked below my chucks as I moved slowly to the sculpture. I hadn’t seen it in over nine months. But I’d thought about it every day. I had to think about it: memories of the real woman who had inspired the art were beginning to fade. To my utter horror, I’d started to forget her. She’d started to melt from my mind. Day by day, hour by hour, she was disappearing to dust. And I could do nothing to stop it.
Lifting a hand, I gripped the sheet and ripped it from the white Carrara marble hidden below. Throwing the sheet to the floor, I lifted my head, and there she was; bright and innocent as the angel I knew she had become. I blinked away the moisture from my eyes as I gazed upon her smiling face.
Inching forward, I laid my fingers upon her cold marble cheek, drinking in her features—her eyes and nose—and her long brown hair. I closed my eyes, committing each intricate detail to memory. I never wanted to forget these details. I couldn’t bear to forget again.
This sculpture, this marble face, was all I had left.
The rain outside grew heavier as the sky roiled with storm clouds, the small windows lining the roof of the warehouse were awash with sloughs of water. Then a bright flash of lightning bathed the room. Instinctively I reached into my pocket. My hand wrapped around the string of brown beads, and I pulled out the rosary, lifting it to my mouth to kiss the old silver cross. My jaw clenched as I forced myself to look again at the angel’s face. And just as I did, a crack of thunder roared above.
As though I was a child once more, I reached out and held the angel’s hand in mine. Feeling the fragile fingers so small in my palm, I kept tight hold and dropped to the hard floor.
And I breathed.
I breathed through the pain of loss that I lived with each and every day. I breathed through the fear that, before long, all the memories of her would fade to nothing, leaving me with a black void where her face used to be.