But then her lips split and that pretty grin came out, and Winona stretched out over top of me, her hands entwined in mine. “I’m gut-foundered,” she said.
She was covering every part of me, but somehow she still wasn’t close enough.
“Aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.” I smiled at her, my heart pitching.
I wasn’t hungry. All I wanted to do was hold her.
I wrapped my arms around her, trying to absorb her into me by osmosis. To imprint in my brain all the pieces of her I loved.
I loved the scar on her left pinkie finger—a pumpkin carving accident, she told me. A little lower, the pink line on her palm she’d gotten with me. The tooth next to her front two, which was slightly smaller than the rest. I loved the way her hair dried wild when she got out of the pool. And that smile that made my chest ache. I loved how she was passionate about everything she talked about, but especially about Heartbreaker Trades, and all things Newfoundland.
Since that day in the library, she’d seemed lighter. She hummed while she brushed her hair, like a Disney princess, and she did this thing when she was reading where her tongue stuck out of her teeth.
I’d known her for two months. Two months, three days, seven hours, and maybe… thirty-five minutes. That time had changed my whole fucking life.
And now it was all about to end.
I told her it didn’t have to. Late at night I whispered into her hair that I’d figure out a way. But none of the ideas I’d floated to myself made sense.
“Actually,” I said, “Iamgut-foundered.”
Winona grinned. “Then let’s go eat.”
We hunted around for our strewn clothes.
My phone had a string of texts on it when I found it again. All from Sal, needing confirmation I was on my way.
I considered putting her off one more time.Forthe love of God, tell them we’ll meet stateside. I need this last week in this fairytale world with Winona like I need air.
I knew once I got to work there would be no going back. The world would know where I was, and every piece of that life would grab onto me, need me, turn me into theirs and not hers. I’d been counting on this last week so this wouldn’t have to really be goodbye. I’d been leaning on it, like crutches.
But I knew it wouldn’t stop there. I needed a year. A lifetime.
I knew what Sal would say if I texted, though. It was the same thing she’d said in earlier emails when I’d put her off again and again.They won’t take anything but proof of life after this, Mitchell. Real, in-the- flesh proof.
But as I closed the car door after Winona slid into the passenger seat, another face appeared before me. That was the face that had me quickly jotting out a last message to Sal to have the jet fueled and waiting for me in Greenville tomorrow morning.
It was my mother’s face.
Mom was the reason I’d launched my research foundation five years ago. It was her face, with its always loving and now vacant smile that I saw now. The “I’m sorry. Have we met?” The pain of her being there but gone.
We had the power to save people from that fate with the work Zynstyr was doing. Was I really so selfish that I’d deny the world a lifesaving treatment to spend more precious hours with Winona?
Yes. If she asked me to, yes. I would. I’d burn everything down for her.
But she’d never let me.
“What do you want to eat?” I asked her, running my thumb along her cheekbone, trying to memorize every contour, every angle. “More Thai?”
She laughed. “No. Though it would be fun to see Arthit again.”
Arthit was the chef at the restaurant in Birmingham. He had a shaved head and sleeves of tattoos and looked at her a little too warmly.
I snarled, grabbing her by the shoulders and planting a possessive kiss on her before starting the car.
Winona gave me that devilish giggle that always made me smile. Then she pursed her lips and said, “There’s a local place in town. Betsey’s. They make the best club sandwich you’ve ever tasted. Crispy local bacon, plump red tomatoes. Sourdough so tangy your face puckers up like this.” She made an adorable face, like she’d sucked on a lemon.
