“There is no one I’d rather have near me than you. But you’d have to change your whole life to make that happen. You’d have to live according to whatIneed, and I have nothing to offer you but a life of uncertainty. And me allowing you to take this risk was selfish.” He crushed Stella against him. “I almost let you give up your life just for the slim chance that I could be with you inmyworld. I’m no different from Wade.”
Stella pushed away from him. “You arenothinglike Wade.”
“Aren’t I?” he asked.
“I’ve been avoiding my life for years. Leaving with you is so tempting, but I don’t belong in your world. My life is here. In the library, writing, chasing words.” Stella wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you, Jack. For being you, forseeingme, for making mefeel special, for helping me believe in love again. I’m going to miss you terribly.”
Jack squeezed her against him and kissed the top of her head. “You’re one in a gazillion, Stella. You deserve all the love in the world.”
Ariel gasped, staring wide-eyed at Jack and Stella.
“It’s happening,” Stella said, stepping away from Jack. His body illuminated as though he were made of starlight. “You’re glowing.”
Arnie approached them. “You take care of yourself, Jack.”
Jack nodded. “You take care of her.” Then he smiled at Stella as he placed his hands over his heart. His eyes turned the golden color of a summer sun. “I will never forget how wonderful my time with you has been. Never.”
“Never ever,” she said.
A windstorm of air and light swirled around them. Within seconds, Jack was gone.
Stella pressed her hands over her mouth, closed her eyes, and cried.
Chapter 26
The next day Stella showed up for work at the library and engaged as little as possible with anyone. Arnie wasn’t allowed to return to work, but he stopped by that morning to check in. He tried to talk with Stella, to check on her, but what was there to say? She wasn’t fine. She understood sheshouldbe fine with her decision not to drink the magical liquid, with her decision not to escape her life again. She didn’t exactly regret her decision, but she also wasn’t overflowing with joy. She needed time to process the last few days.
Both Percy and Ariel texted a few times during the day, so by the afternoon she finally silenced her phone and tossed it into her purse in a desk drawer. Before closing the drawer, Stella noticed her journal and remembered she hadn’t written down the last set of violet words—the ones that came out of the bottle of magical liquid. She flipped to the page and wrote.
I fell in love once. Did I ever tell you that? He was excruciatingly handsome and no ordinary man, but one built from paper and rich black ink. He talked about eternity and love as if the two were impossibly entwined. Timeless. And he was right.
These words were about Jack. Her mind created a blank sheet of paper, then a full sheet of paper filled with her handwriting, then page after page of her written words. Enough pages to fill a book.The story of us, she heard Jack’s voice say in her head. Was that her next step in this new life? To write a story about the time she fell in love with Jack Mathis, a man built from paper and ink?
The familiar swirl of sorrow orbited her. How could she wait an entire year to see him again? Was that preposterous? Waiting an entire year for someone, only to spend two weeks together before he was gone again? She couldn’t devote the rest of her life to following that pattern. She would age and Jack wouldn’t. She couldn’t trap herself in an impossible relationship. For the millionth time, she wished for a way to alter that part of their story.
Stella riffled through the desk drawer where Arnie hid the box containing the ink pad and stamp. Huddled with the box was Arnie’s personal copy ofBeyond the Southern Horizon. He hadn’t returned Maria’s book, and she hadn’t asked about it. Eventually she would. Whether that would happen before or after all the pages were blank, she didn’t know.
Stella pulled out Jack’s book and flipped it to the library due date card in the back. She slid out the card. Her gaze wandered over the years Jack had been to Blue Sky Valley. He couldn’t return until next summer, which sounded like a lifetime away, and in a way, it was. Who would she be in another year? She returned the box to its concealed spot but left Jack’s book on the desk like a friend she wasn’t ready to part with.
The rest of the afternoon and evening passed uneventfully. Stella eventually texted both Ariel and Percy and told them she needed time to herself. Percy was flying back to Florida the next day and asked if Stella would be home later so they could talk before he left. She reluctantly agreed to make time if he promised not to offer life advice. Percy’s response was an emoji with zipped lips. Ariel agreed to give Stella space, but only until the morning.
After closing down the library that evening, Stella turned off the lights except the one hanging high above the circulation desk. She grabbed her purse and journal, and as she dug around for her keys, illuminated words lifted from the cover of Jack’s book.One more try. Believe. Reborn.Stella picked up the book, and the words faded back into the cover. She tucked the book beneath her arm and locked up the library’s main entrance.
She set the alarm, then closed and locked the library’s back door behind her. As she descended the back stairs, a firework of heat exploded inside the area behind her rib cage. Stella stumbled into the handrail. Out of a pavement crack, glowing violet words emerged. They soared upward like magical creatures emerging from the bowels of the earth.
Against the star-filled backdrop of the night sky, Stella read them aloud. “‘Dazzled by the power of love and moonlight, I called to him and asked him to stay. He said yes.’” The words rippled as though windblown and then shot toward her purse.
Stella sank onto the concrete step and inhaled deep breaths while her heart beat erratically. With shaking hands, she pulled out her journal and wrote down this new set of words. Then she read all of them out loud.
“‘I fell in love once. Did I ever tell you that? He was excruciatingly handsome and no ordinary man, but one built from paper and rich black ink. He talked about eternity and love as if the two wereimpossibly entwined. Timeless. And he was right. Dazzled by the power of love and moonlight, I called to him and asked him to stay. He said yes.’”
Stella laid her hand on the journal page and gazed up at the waxing moon suspended above Blue Sky Valley. “If only it were that simple,” she whispered to the listening moon. She reached for Jack’s book and flipped it open to the back cover where the dates were listed. “I would stamp you again and again and hold you in the sunlight so you could come back to me.”
Her fingers warmed on the pages. The stamped dates began to shimmer and take on a silvery outline. She glanced up at the moonlight, then back to the now-glistening dates.
“Love and moonlight.” She reached out her hand to catch moonbeams in her palm. “Sunlight brings you here, but what is moonlight doing? Could it...?” Stella raised the book so the moonlight covered it. Feeling foolish, but doing it anyway, she asked, “Jack, would you like to stay?” Tingles and goose bumps rushed over her entire body.
An illuminated figure appeared in the darkened parking lot. A form made of silver moonlight and shooting stars approached her. Stella scrambled to her feet. The book dropped to the ground. The closer the figure got to her, the more fully formed it became.
