All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One (32 page)

I stared at the floor. “What if that’s not enough?”

“It is enough. You both just need to realize that. Once you do, then everything else will work out.”

I wish that were true. Nothing felt like it would end with anything positive. Just death. There was too much out of my control and it was tearing me apart.

Luc’s phone rang and I told him to answer it.

“Everything alright, Little Thief?” he said into his phone.

“Yeah. Just wondering if you were doing okay. We were going to put on Harry Potter and we wanted to know if we should wait for you,” his wife said.

He smiled. “I’ll be home in a couple minutes. I love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

He put his phone away and said, “My family wants me home. It was nice meeting you, Rory.”

“You too. Thanks for Kenna. And everything else.”

“No problem. Just remember that you can’t get this time back. You can’t undo what you feel for him. The very best you can do is love him as much as you can with the time he has. Also, on occasion, things do work out. So don’t stop trying just because things get hard.”

He vanished into thin air and left me alone in the empty room. I stared at nothing as I tried to figure out what I wanted.

The door opened and Hale poked his head through. “Are you ready to go?”

I blinked a few times. “Yeah. Sorry.” I started walking over to him. We made our way down the empty halls.

“Where did your brother go?”

“Home. His family was waiting for him.”

“Ah. Well he seemed very nice. Helpful.”

I took Hale’s hand and he smiled down at me. “He was.”

“Stop it,” I snapped at Hale as I finished up our project. We were sitting on my bed while I made the ship. He was spending his time alternating from poking me with a pen to kissing my shoulder.

“I can’t. Not when you keep letting me do it. I really wish you would stop me.” Despite his words, he pulled the shoulder strap on my dress down to give him more access to my skin.

“You’re pretty much an adult. Make your own choices. Don’t put it on me.”

He sighed and pressed his forehead to my back. “Sometimes I think that you’d just let me take you if I went for it.”

“Condoms are in the drawer,” I pointed with my paintbrush. “But you’re a chicken. So I’m not worried about it.”

“I am not a chicken. I just don’t want to ruin you.”

“Sex would ruin me?” my voice sounded uninterested. Because I was. I didn’t want to hear his self-deprecating comments.

“Yes. Because right now,” his hand moved slowly down my arm and his lips pressed against my back, “you’re innocent and pure. If I was the one to change that it would only further prove that I’m what I know I am.”

“I don’t think any of that is true. Your vision of yourself is off.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“The conversation is over, Hale. Let me work so you don’t fail this class.” I wasn’t even halfway done painting and I’d been at it for an hour. I still had to add the people and the other stuff. Odds are that I’d be at this all night.

“I can help you with that if you want.”

I moved on to painting the sides. “Not really. Only one person can do this at a time.”

“Then let me do it for you.”

“I’m fine doing it.”

“But you did everything alone.”

“Because I knew more about this than you. I didn’t mind.”

“Maybe I mind.”

I huffed and handed him the paint and the ship. “Knock yourself out then.”

He took what I gave him and started painting while I watched. It took about a minute for me to get bored. I could see why he decided to mess with me as opposed to just watching TV. But if I tried what he did, I think he would shut that down quickly.

I laid on my back and crossed my ankles, hoping that a ceiling view would keep me from doing something I’d regret.

I felt guilty. Luc opened up to me in hopes that it would help. I did, but it wasn’t enough to get me to look past that dark day that was to come. But what I was doing was wrong.

So I decided I’d stop.

I wouldn’t string Hale along. I’d let him live his life like he should. If that meant finding a mortal girl, then that was what I’d let happen. He shouldn’t miss out on living just because I was frozen.

The decision came with something that I was still trying to work my way up to. If I was going to keep him in my life then I needed to tell him what I was. Lucifer was right. I had maybe a decade before he notices when I stop aging. I just needed to find the right way to tell him. And the right time. It might be years from now, but I would do it.

Hale finished painting the ship and he set it down on the nightstand to dry. He laid on his stomach next to me and didn’t say a word. His hands were covered in paint.

I looked at him and I swear, it was like I was the only thing he was seeing. The feeling was overwhelming and intoxicating. “What do you want to do now?”

  He rested his chin on his arms in front of him. “We can just lie here for a while. I wouldn’t mind that.”

I smiled at him. “Okay. We can do that.”

And we did. For who knows how long. Eventually my eyes got heavy and I fell asleep watching Hale watch me.



When my eyes opened it was dark in my room. I couldn’t see a thing. So I sat up and called out for Hale, thinking he fell asleep too. But he wasn’t in the room with me. I felt around on the bed and came up empty. He’d left me when I was sleeping.

I moved to get off of the bed and I heard something crinkle. I flipped my lights on and the brightness made me see spots. Once they faded I saw a piece of folded up paper on the bed. On top of it was a little velvet box. I picked up the note.

To my Lamb,

I didn’t want to wake you but I couldn’t bear to leave you all alone in the dark. Mason called me home and I had to go. But know that I left my heart with you. It isn’t much, but it’s everything I have. And it’s yours. I know that now. You are my heart.

I meant to give this to you before, but I kept losing my nerve. So I decided to just let you find it.

Love, Hale.

I folded up the note and looked for a place to put it. I stuck it in the pages of a book and set it on my bookshelf.

Then I went for the little box. I flipped it open and there was another note. All it said was ‘The necklace is old but the inscription is new’.

The necklace was a locket. Silver and flat. The face had a symbol on it. Two hands holding a heart with a crown above it. The heart that the hands were holding was made from a sapphire and the crown had diamonds in it. The locket had both of our birthstones.

I opened the locket and read what was inside. I look at you and I’m home. It was engraved across the two sides of the locket. The surface was flat and not meant for pictures. The back said With love, H.

My hands almost started shaking when I realized what it was. It was his mother’s. And he gave it to me.

I sat on my bed and stared at the little piece of silver, trying to fathom just what this means. This was the thing that meant the most to Hale. The only thing he had from his mother.

I wanted to call him. To try and explain what this meant to me. But I couldn’t do something like that over the phone. Not something as personal as this. I just hoped that he wouldn’t take my silence tonight as something bad.

The clock said it was midnight. He was probably asleep by now anyway. It could wait until the morning.

I slipped the necklace on and wandered out of my room. The house was pitch black except for one dim light coming from the kitchen. I followed it.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table in her nightgown. She was picking at a carton of cookie dough ice cream. Her face was heartbreaking.

“Mom?” I approached the table.

“Oh,” she looked startled. “I didn’t know you were awake. Hale left a few hours ago. He said that you fell asleep. What’s that?” she pointed to my necklace.

My hand went to the pendant. “Hale left it for me.” I sat across from Mom. “It was his mother’s.”

She offered a weak smile. “That’s sweet of him to give that to you. I can only imagine how much it meant for him to give it to you. It lives up to the symbol on it.”

I looked down. “How so?”

“Do you know what that means?” 

I shook my head.

“It’s a Claddagh. It’s an old Irish symbol for loyalty, friendship, and love.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. But I needed to talk to someone. I needed to not be alone with this knowledge in my head. “I’m in love with him. Every second when I’m not with him is an empty one. I didn’t realize how lonely I was until I met him.”

Everyone but me had it right. I knew that now. My life didn’t mean much before. I just didn’t know yet. Now I was awake and I could see things with perfect clarity.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I have no clue what to do now. I’m in love with someone that’s dying. Every second he gets closer and closer and I can’t stop it. I’m going to lose him. It might be a hundred years from now or it might be in a week. It doesn’t matter because no matter what, it’s going to happen. He can be taken away so easily and I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive that.”

The woman I was talking to knew more about this than anyone I knew. She was the only one who knew what I was feeling.

She reached her hand across the table and held mine tightly. “Aurora, people die. They get old, or they get sick, or they get hurt. It’s the only thing in life that you can’t fix. That you can’t undo or stop. In the end, death takes us all. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is what you do with the time you’re given.”

“How do you do it? How do you fall in love again and again? How do you live after they stop?”

She let go of me and slid the ice cream over to me, then handed me the spoon. I started eating and she started talking. “That very first time I fell in love, I was only twenty-two. A baby. It felt all consuming and forever. When it ended,” her eyes became glassy, “I wasn’t sure that I would move past it. But a day passed. And another. A week, a month, a century. Time goes on and wounds heal.”

“Did it feel like you’d ever love again?”

She stared down at her hands and looked guilty. “Not at first. But I did.”

“Do you think you’ll get married again?”

The guilt grew. “I’m sure I will. Some people can love many times in their life. Some only once. I’m the former. It’s just who I am.”

I scraped the ice cream with the spoon. “What about me?”

“What do you mean?”

My eyes went up to hers. “Do you think I’ll love again? Once he’s gone.”

She swallowed and her face was grim. “Only time will tell.”

“No. You know me. You know who I am and how I am. How I feel about things. Take what you know about me and tell me if you think I’ll love again.”

“Aurora…”

“Please. Tell me, because I don’t know,” my voice broke. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. And it’s terrifying. What do you think is going to happen to me once he dies? Do you believe I’m someone who can love again? Who can survive him?”

She pressed her lips together in a hard line. “It’s late, Aurora. I think you need to go to bed.”

“Please, Mom… I need to know.”

“No. We’re not having this conversation.”

There was my answer.

I stood up and did as she told me.



When I woke up again, Hale wasn’t in my bed. Instead he chose to wait for me by my bookshelf. He was reading one of my books while he sat on the floor.

I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. “Morning.”

He looked up at me and smiled. “Good morning.” He stood up and put the book away before he joined me on my bed. Like all of the sudden he needs my approval first.

He leaned over and wrapped his finger around the chain on my neck. “I see you got my note.”

“I did. I really love the necklace. Is this the one your mom gave you?” I was hoping he’d say no.

“It is.”

“Why in the world would you give this to me?”

He opened the locket and stared at the text inside of it before his eyes met mine.