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“Okay,” she responds tentatively, her fingers skating across her lips, like she already misses me. “Is something wrong?”

“Maybe?”

“Clementine,” she says apprehensively, clearly confused by the sudden change in my direction.

I quickly kiss her cheek. “I love you.”

Hating myself for not doing this sooner, I rush off the bed and walk toward the overnight bag I brought with me, and pull out the velvet pouch I always keep with me. Climbing back up onto the mattress, I cross my legs and return to sitting opposite her. Her brows are drawn together in confusion, and I know there’s absolutely no way I can erase that expression without explaining myself. And soon.

“Here,” I say, handing her the pouch. “Open it.”

She wastes no time, sticking her hand inside the velvet bag and then pulling out her necklace. Her eyes stay trained on the piece of jewelry, and when she finally recognizes it for what it is, her eyes dart back to mine, widening in disbelief.

“I’ve been looking for this for months,” she says, raising it in the air so the overhead light catches on the small diamonds that rest in the pendants. “How do you have it?”

“It must’ve fallen off you that first night at the hotel,” I explain. “You’d already left, and my first instinct was to keep it and find a way to return it, but then I told myself that would be too awkward, and before I knew it, I was just wearing it.

“It reminded me of you and that night,” I confess. “Sometimes I don’t know if you realize just how out of character that whole thing was for me, and yet, in hindsight, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more myself than I did with you.

“So I kept it, because I wanted to be closer to you, or closer to that version of me.” I shake my head. “I’m not too sure.”

Reaching for it, I take it out of her hand and turn the key around to show off the engraved letters. “I know it means a lot to you, and when I realized these letters were for Raine and Lola, it made it harder to give back. And in the end I kind of thought…”

My voice trails off as I try to find better words to get my point across.

“You kind of thought what?” she prompts.

Shame courses through me, but I have the decency to keep my gaze locked on hers as I explain.

“I kind of thought if we didn’t work out, at least I would still have something to remember you by.”

Zara takes it back out of my hand and puts it around her neck, her fingers playing with the lock and key. “I bought this for myself the first Mother’s Day after Lola died.” She raises the heart pendant. “This is supposed to be my heart. And this”—she raises the key—“is Raine and Lola. Because they’re the only ones who would ever have my whole heart,” she explains. “The only ones who would ever have every part of me.”

She lets out a huff. “Tell me you didn’t think, for even a second, that you having my necklace meant any of what I just said to you would change. Or change how I feel.”

I shrug, years of insecurities and always expecting the worst rushing to the surface. I want this life that I had no idea existed or could ever be within my reach, and that meant every moment I was scared that something could take it away.

“I want you to know something,” she says. “When I say forever, I mean it. The good times and the bad, Clementine. I will not walk away from you, even if you begged me to.”

An unexplainable amount of relief settles in my chest. Loving Zara means realizing everything before her was like living with your eyes closed, and I don’t want to go back to life before her.

“I love you.”

Our mouths fuse together, heated and passionate. The kiss is filled with clarity and confirmation, an ode to finding your person and being completely different yet very much the same. As certain as the sun and the moon, I know we will show up for one another every day.

When it’s easy and when it’s hard.

When she’s happy and I’m sad.

When tears stream down her face and my smile is too big to bear.

We will break. We will heal. We will love.

The kiss is as fierce as a promise and as soft as a prayer, with every swipe of her tongue against mine, her kiss tells me. This. Is. Forever

I love you hard. I love you soft. I love you always.

EPILOGUE