Page 104 of The Same Backward as Forward

The ground shifts beneath our feet as a rock plummets to the base of this almost-cliff. By the rules of the game, neither of us can look down, but I squat and pick up another rock and hurl it toward the ocean. I remember Hannah asking me on our second night together if I was scared.

I am terrified, and I pretend with everything I have that the best, most precious things in life always last.

A bolt of lightning flickers in the distance, far enough awaythat we can’t even hear the thunder. “There’s a storm coming,” I say.

“Looks like it could be a big one.” Hannah takes possession of her own rock and hurls it even farther than mine.

Neither of us looks down.

I step back from the edge first, wrapping my arms around Hannah and pulling her gently against my body. I breathe in the scent of her, like jasmine, like vanilla, like wildflowers and wild grass. It’s a scent with as many layers as there are rings of color in her eyes.

“As far as I’m concerned, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, you’re the storm.”

She leans back against me, and neither one of us says a single word as the rain rolls in. Neither of us backs away from the storm—or the edge.

Neither one of us says what I believe we both know.This is it.

At some point, Hannah turns toward me, and I break the silence between us. “You look like a wet cat.”

“You look like a wet dog,” she counters, and I give in to the urge to push her sopping hair back from her face. Starlight and moonlight do little to illuminate the features I know so well, but it doesn’t matter. It hasnevermattered.

I can see every part of Hannah, even in the dark.

“You look like a fairy tale,” I whisper, and the moment I say it, I know that this really is it, that I won’t be waiting for the perfect moment whenthismoment feels so much more like us. “Come with me, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward. When I leave, come with me.”

I hear her breath catch in her throat. “I am coming. Across the rocks. I’ll get you to where you can call for help, and—”

“No.” I bring my hands to cup her strong, strong jaw. “Comewith me, Hannah.” I wonder if she knows—surely she must—that I have just removed my heart from my rib cage and placed it in her hands. I should feel vulnerable, but I don’t. Because now that I’ve finally asked her, it’s clear to me—suddenly, undeniably clear—that my heart is not fragile. It is not at risk of breaking, because it beats for her, and my love for Hannah is no more fragile than the ocean, the storm, the sky.

My love for Hannah simplyis.

“I can’t go with you,” she says, but there’s something about the way she says it that gives me hope. She brings her lips closer and closer to mine.

“Why not?” It is not a question ofifwe are going to kiss at this point. It is only a question ofhow.

Gently.

Slowly.

Our lips touch, then separate, touch and open and separate, and the poem I wrote for her reverberates through my body, like a whisper through my veins.Reified at lover, revolt a deifier.

She made me real. She gave me something to fight for. Something to believe in. I stop kissing her only when she begins to shiver in the now-pouring rain.

Once upon a time, I was a person whoran—but not from her, never from her. I take Hannah’s hand and lead her back to the lighthouse. For so long, she was the nurse, and I was the patient.

But for this night—quite possibly our last night—turnabout is fair play.

Chapter 33

Inside the lighthouse, I think back to the beginning, to Hannah’s eyes and her steady, gentle touch, to the way that she was light when my world was nothing but darkness and pain. I wring the water from her hair. I let my touch be my love song, not a grand gesture but a small one as my fingers slowly work out tangles.

I rid myself of my shirt for one reason and one reason alone: Whatever heat I possess is hers. I don’t care that pulling her against me gets my bare skin wet. I only care about protecting Hannah from the cold.

I am gentle. I am steady. As my hands find their way to the back of her neck in the dark, I am made real all over again.

I became real that night…

“You don’t have to do this,” she murmurs, like taking care of her is a burden and not my life’s greatest joy.