Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
My hand fell over her chest where her heart was. I felt its erratic and too-slow beat under my palm. The feel and sound were a pulsing circle of auburn in my mind. She stilled as I touched her. Then she covered my hand. “How is it possible, Cromwell?” She took in a shallow, wheezy breath. “How can a heart be so damaged yet feel so impossibly full? How can a heart be failing when it’s filled with so much life?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, devastation sweeping through me until it was all that I could feel.
“And how can I live with the sadness of knowing that I won’t get to compose with you? That I won’t finish what we started?”
“We will finish it.” I held her tighter. “I don’t care if you’re bedbound. But we’ll finish.”
Her eyes closed. “You promise?”
“I swear it,” I said firmly. “And when you get your heart, we’ll hear it performed by the school’s orchestra at the end of the year.”
“I won’t be able to play anything as we compose,” she said, humiliation lacing her words.
“Then I’ll play.”
“I won’t be able to write.”
“Then I’ll write it for us.”
“Us.” Bonnie smiled. This time there was no sadness in her eyes. “Us,” she repeated. “I like the sound of that.” She closed her eyes. “It sounds like a song.”
“You’re the lyricist.”
She nodded. “It’s my dream. To put words to music. To bring them to life. I’m not much of a performer.” I wanted to argue that fact. The night I’d seen her at the coffee house, that’s when everything changed. “But my dream would be to write for others.” She looked to me. “What’s yours?”
“To just make music.” I sighed. “Music that means something.”
“Wouldn’t it be something if our two dreams collided?” I smiled, because I saw it in my head. Saw Bonnie by my side, writing lyrics as I composed the music. Her by my side, bringing life to my notes.
“It would be something,” I echoed. Bonnie yawned. As her eyes began to drift closed, I heard her song, “Wings,” which I’d layered over my mix. And I smiled.
Us.
“Cromwell?” Bonnie sat up, putting on her pajamas. I watched her. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to take my eyes off her again. She lay down, her eyes pulling shut. “Put your clothes on, Cromwell. Before my papa comes down in the morning and shoots you.”
Despite feeling the rawness in my chest, and despite the fucking ten-ton weight of fear I felt knowing that Bonnie didn’t have long until her heart could take no more, I laughed. Bonnie smiled, eyes still closed, and I dressed. But I lay back on the bed, not even giving one shit about my damp clothes or the fact that her parents could find us like this in the morning. I pulled her to me as she lay under the comforter, vowing to never let her go.
“Crom?” Bonnie said, her voice laced with sleep. I smiled at the nickname that had just slipped from her lips.
“Mmm?”
“I love you,” she whispered and obliterated what was left of my heart.
“I love you too.”
Music filled my head as I thought of her fight. As I heard her wheezing breath and saw her lips deepening in color through the lack of blood from her heart. It was a melody just for her. To keep her strong. To inspire her to fight.
I knew I’d record it as soon as I went home.
Because she had to survive.
I couldn’t take another loss. But the loss of what could be, that was what scared me most. Because I was sure we could be something special.
She just had to survive.
Chapter Twenty
Cromwell
Two weeks later…
I walked back into the dorm room to darkness. I went over to the curtains and pulled them back. Easton was in bed again. He threw the duvet over his head. “What the hell, Crom?”
I stood beside his bed and pulled the covers back. Easton whipped around. He stank of alcohol. I’d just got back from sleeping over at Bonnie’s, but I knew he’d only just got in.
“Get up. I need your help,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I looked at the painting on the easel. Another dark, messed-up piece. I got it. Christ knew I got it. I could see the pain he was in every day as he walked around, lost.
He saw Bonnie, and when he did he was all smiles. Even as she started to fade. As her days at college became less and less frequent. As her legs grew weak and she had to use a wheelchair, and when her breathing got so bad she needed oxygen through her nose every day. A piece of me died each time I saw her body giving up. And I wanted to scream when I saw the fight in her eyes. As she held my hand, gripping on as hard as she could…the once hard grip now as light as a feather.