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Story: Blood Secret

“I do worry about it. That I’ll bore you or annoy you after long enough.”

“Are you kidding? I learn something new about you every day. Sometimes, I wish you weren’t so damn interesting and a little more boring.”

“And you’re the one who likes to keep moving! Isobel’s going to have to start paying you for all the work you’ve done around the farm.”

“It’s the least I can do,” he reminded me, as he always did. “Meanwhile, you’re always working on something new. Putting together new shows at new galleries. Meeting buyers.”

“Ugh. Having to put in contacts,” I muttered, shivering.

I hated wearing the lenses that made my eyes look human again.

“It’s not a bad trade-off when you’re earning so much money for your work,” he reminded me. “Pretty soon, you’ll want to leave the farm, and we’ll end up running around all over the world when you’re a famous artist. Maybe you’ll get tired of me when that time comes.”

“Never. Not ever, ever.” I sat up, taking his hands. “I mean it. Nothing means anything without you. I wouldn’t want to be popular or successful if I didn’t have you to share it with.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’m sure.”

“Absolutely?”

“Uh, yes. Why are you being so weird?”

He withdrew one of his hands and reached into the pocket of his jeans. “You wanted to know why I was so fidgety earlier,” he murmured, looking down.

“Yes…” I looked down in time to see him pull out a diamond ring. My mouth fell open.

“This is why. I didn’t know how you would react to this. And this is why I want to be sure you’re in this forever, because I know I am.”

I pulled my eyes from the ring—it was so big! So sparkly!—and looked at him. I couldn’t have loved him more if I tried.

“I’m in it for the long haul,” I whispered before tears choked me.

He slid the ring on my finger, and something seemed to slide into place when the band slid home.

The one missing piece in my life. I had a career, a mother who supported and encouraged me, and a love stronger than death itself. A love that had not just saved my life. It had given me life. It continued to give me life every day.

I held his face in my hands and kissed his forehead, nose, cheeks. “I love you,” I whispered before each kiss, like a mantra. I love you, I love you, I love you.

I was more than happy to keep it that way for the rest of my life—no matter how long it lasted.