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He rubbed his eyes with the fingers of one hand. “You have to stop, Sebastian. You have to stop with all this constant guilt. You keep acting like everything bad that’s ever happened is your fault.”
Silence crawled into the space between us. It brimmed with unshared emotions. “So what? You won’t forgive me?”
He scoffed. “It’s too late for that,” he said flatly, his gaze on me, his eyes glimmering under the street light. “I’ve already forgiven you. Right then, in the park.”
My mouth opened and closed silently. “What are you…?” But again, my voice failed me.
“Sebastian, you are so much more than you’re letting yourself believe,” he said. “Your low opinion of yourself needs to go because I won’t let you push me away again. Not because you’re not good enough or because your family’s a mess or any other reason you can make up.”
I moved closer to him. “Do you really mean that?”
“With my whole heart,” Tyler said. “And you better believe it, or I’ll kick your ass right now.”
A laugh burst out of me so abruptly that I had no chance to stop it. “I love you, Tyler,” I said. The words poured out of me without thinking, without a single moment to consider them, and with no ceremony. They simply tumbled out and I had to stew in the deafening silence that followed.
It only lasted a heartbeat or two, but it felt like it would never end. Tyler’s eyebrows dragged up and his eyes grew twice their size. “I love you, too, Sebastian.”
My heart tripped and sped as if to catch up. Shivers ran down my arms as I took the final little step and closed the distance between us. “Even after all I said and did?” My hands rose slowly, carefully, to rest on his sculpted chest. How I loved him.
“My love,” he whispered, testing the words. “If you think I don’t know where that was coming from, then you don’t fully understand just how much I love you. And how well I know you.”
I threw my arms around his neck before I knew it. I pulled him in, my eyes closing while his face was still in front of them, etched into my memory for all the years to come. His warmth, his strength, and his love wrapped around me, holding me close and keeping me safe.
Our lips met gently at first, savoring the fact that we were kissing each other after I thought I would never get to be this close to him again. But as always with Tyler, this kiss grew hotter and brighter and more endearing with each beat of my heart. It was everything I lived for and more. It was the safety and the well of happiness that never went dry.
Again and again and again, Tyler would look into my eyes and prove he was all I could wish for.
Our blazing kiss lifted us off the ground, carried us so far above everyone and everything else, and let me see glimpses of a long and happy life with the only person I’ve ever truly wanted to be with. Since we were small boys, our futures were intertwined in my mind. And now, we were finally awarded that future. Once and for all, I was his, and he was mine.
When Tyler pulled his head a little back, I discovered that we were still on Earth. “So, you’re running away from home?”
“If you rat me out, you’ll never hear the end of it,” I warned him.
Tyler threw his head back and laughed. “Actually, I was about to steal you away for myself. You beat me to it.”
“Your dad?” I asked.
Tyler nodded. “He knows. Not that it’s you, but he knows.” After a short silence, Tyler’s eyes went so soft that my heart melted. “He told me this morning to fight only for the things that make me happy. ‘Fighting for the sake of fighting never made anyone richer,’ he said.”
I nodded. There was still something good in our lives. Mr. Morgan. Eryn. The two of us. I didn’t know what tomorrow might bring. I didn’t know if I would ever believe Tyler’s opinions of me. Surely, I couldn’t be as special as he believed. But he was to me. Every little bit and more, he was so special to me.
Tyler took my hand as I picked up my duffel. We turned in the direction of his house. Looking into one another’s eyes, shoulder by shoulder, we paused. There were no words I could say to him that could even hint at how much I loved him. But I told him anyway. I told him he was my everything and always had been.
“You know I feel the same, Sebastian,” he said. “Always and forever.”
“Always and forever,” I echoed.
After another heartbeat, we looked ahead, and we took the first step together.
Epilogue
Two and a half months later
Sebastian practically jumped off the sofa. “She got in!” he all but shouted. “Eryn got accepted! With a full biology scholarship.”
“At Northwood?” I asked, his excitement wrapping its long fingers around me and lifting me up with him. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. She just texted,” he said. “She’s in.”
