Part One
Octavia
Once upon a time I entered a dark den. A bear of a man greeted me, then pushed me away. Locked up inside himself, curled in the darkness, he fed on his own pain and slept through his days. He was lost. He’d lost himself.
I set out to find him.
It was a long trek through his walls and defenses, slogging through the memories that had turned him into a beast.
The same memories that made him human.
His memories were like thick sludge, like blood, dragging us both down. They blinded him, deafened him, isolated him from the world he lived in. Like a strange spell, they kept him raging and smashing against his own walls, with no way out.
He was a beast, but reminded me more of a bird in a cage, with his wings clipped. I longed to free him, but I couldn’t give him wings.
He had to find his own. Had to remember he still had them, that his own mind had clipped them and could restore them.
If he let it. If he managed to move through the memories to the other side—where life still went on, same as before, where leaves fell, babies cried, people smiled and made new memories. He was stuck.
And I fell in love with him.
I glimpsed beneath the sorrow and fury a flash of kindness, of protectiveness and goodness that brought me to my knees. Maybe not everyone deserves to be saved, I don’t know.
But he did.
Life had dealt him a bad hand, had dragged him down until he hit rock bottom, but he was still in there, inside that hard shell. All I had to do was reach out my hand to him. Try and catch him.
At first, he didn’t know what that touch meant. He’d grown used to his loneliness, his pain. He’d forgotten the good things, the gentle things. Joy. Pleasure. Calm.
Love.
But slowly he remembered. He inched closer. He broke down his walls, one by one.
And one day he reached back.
That day I thought—everyone can be saved.
I thought—everyone can fly again.
I thought love is stronger than rage. Stronger than sorrow.
Love wins.
Of course, it was much more complicated than that. Not everyone can be saved. Not everyone finds love and salvation. Matt Hansen broke the spell that kept him captive and gave himself to me, just as I gave myself to him, and together we moved on through life, one entity, one heart—a new challenge to fate’s games.
Here is the thing, though: I can’t save everyone.
They have to find their other half and grow back their wings on their own.
I should have realized that from the start…
Chapter One
Matt
The applause starts again, and I rise from my seat, clapping like a maniac and wolf-whistling as my girl walks to the front to receive her Associate’s Degree. She’s dressed in her long gown and Oxford cap, her smile radiant.
Octavia. My girl. My wife.
My life.
“Go girl!” I holler, and don’t give a damn if people around me start and give me the stink-eye. “You’ve got this!”
“Tati!” Cole yells from beside me, and Mary rolls her eyes at both of us. At eight, she’s a little lady, while at six Cole is still every bit the little boy he was when we first met Octavia.
“Boys,” she sighs, and flips a lock of blond hair over her shoulder. In her blue dress, with tiny gold earrings dangling from her ears, lip gloss on her lips… God damn, my daughter is turning into a woman. When did that happen?
“Is Tati coming down here?” Cole asks, eyes turning up on me.
I ruffle his dark hair and pull him so that we both sit back down. “Soon. When the ceremony ends.”
“And she will never go back to classes again?”
“No, she’s done with them. She will look for a job now.”
“But she’s sick!”
“She’s not sick, she’s—”
“Shh.” Mary glares at me. Well, mock-glares. I think. “Quiet.”
I nod, because she’s right, and yet my heart feels too big inside my chest. I want to jump and shout and tell everyone just how fucking happy I am. Everything’s perfect in my life right now.