Page 170 of The Sun & Her Burn

My fingers shook slightly as I took it from her and flipped it over to read the inscription on the back.

For the man who wants to move the sun and the stars.

When I looked up at Savvy again, I felt a hairline fracture in my already broken heart, just a crack for her to wedge into, one hammered there by long-lost hope.

“That watch was a promise,” she told me earnestly, taking my numb hands in hers, the watch between our fingers, “to loveyou in a way that rearranged the universe so that we could be together forever, no matter the obstacles between us. I wanted to give that back to you so you would know I meant it this time. I want us to be together no matter what it takes. I want to be yourduchessaagain. I want to love you again.”

My universe felt as though it had been flipped on its head. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening in the wake of grief I felt leaving Adam and Linnea, but a part of me that had existed for ten years reared its retired head and looked at Savannah’s proposal with eager eyes.

This was all I’d ever wanted once, for a very, very long time.

And in the wake of losing Adam and Linnea, was there room to find solace with an old love? Could we mean anything to each other again?

The whisper of an eighteen-year-old boy who spoke in my own whispered,yes.

Even though my shattered heart screamed no.

They would never forgive me for taking up with Savannah again.

But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing?

How else could I convince them that what we were was over than to move along with the one woman they couldn’t stand?

They had to believe I was done with them at least until I could try to figure out a way to fuck Oscar over without him fuckingthemover. And they were both too loving, too eternal to take my leaving lying down.

I stared at the watch and thought about the kind of love that moved the sun and the stars.

The kind of love I had for them.

“Okay,” I told Savannah as I shifted my wrist for her to put the watch on me. “How do you feel about a trip to England?”

The End For Now.