prologue
Nisha - Sixteen Years Ago
Our breaths ghost over our faces, transparent against the sparkling sky. Our chests rise and fall dramatically with each long, quiet pull of air after having climbed what felt like an unending hill.
The cold ground, sparsely dusted with mossy green grass, provides little in the way of comfort. But it’s not the comfort of the earth I seek, anyway. Not whenmyearth is lying right next to me—shoulders touching, fingers entangled, hearts embracing.
Silence stretches out above us, as expansive as the dark sky. But in contrast to its vastness, the silence is familiar, intimate and calming. It’s as if we’re the only two people looking up into this very patch of the universe. Like it belongs to us.
“It looks unreal, somehow,” I breathe, eyes skimming over the ethereal green waves dancing in the midnight sky. “Man-made instead of something created by nature.”
It was the first time in my sixteen years that the Aurora Borealis could be seen in Boston. And though we had school tomorrow, Dad granted me my wish to see it, miles from home and the city. As long as I was withhim. . .
The boy my heart had claimed.
The one it beat for, out of rhythm and achingly loud, whenever he looked at me like he was doing now. Like I was the wonder and not the magical sky.
“Beautiful,” he whispers, and I stop myself from turning to him, from meeting his eyes or his lips.
Because what if in that first kiss, we stilled the magic?
What if my heart went back to beating like normal?
But deep down, I knew that wouldn’t be the case. It would never be the case. Because he shone brighter than every twinkle on the clearest night. Because his magic was inconceivable, yet lying right beside me.
“Didn’t you say your name meant ‘night’ in Sanskrit?” I hear the grin in his voice.
He feels my silent nod.
“I guess your parents knew what they were doing when they named you. Nisha Arora, Northern Lights of the night sky.” His voice takes on a husky edge, and I wonder if he can hear the butterflies taking flight inside my chest. “It’s like they knew you’d be the most beautiful thing to see, even in complete darkness.”
This time I do turn to face him, bringing our lips millimeters apart. “That has to be the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
His grin—God,thatgrin—coupled with the ever-present mischief in his chocolate browns, makes me feel like I’m floating.
“I always aim high,” he says.
Above us, the aurora dances the way my soul does in his nearness. As if it knows it’s found its other half.
“Little Borealis,” he murmurs, testing out the nickname he’ll call me for years to come. “My personal northern lights.”
And then he’s kissing me, beneath an impossible sky and countless possibilities. Anchoring me to him when all I know how to do is float.
The magic doesn’t still.
It magnifies. Defies. Solidifies.
Like it’s been waiting for this exact moment, under this exact sky, to settle into something that feels . . . like home. Like forever.
He may say I’m his light in the dark, but he’s the sun—the one who lights up galaxies and tethers planets.
I’m just lucky to be caught in his orbit.
I don’t know it yet, but that nickname will follow me. Through the brightest days and the darkest nights. Through near and far, laughter and tears. Through vows made . . .
And promises broken.
It’s a name that spans a love so eternal and soul-deep, it’ll save us . . .
