“This past week has been hell,” she murmured. His eyes tightened a little and she knew that he’d felt the same. Maybe a part of it still haunted him, the way it haunted her. “But it helped me understand.”
“Tev?”
“It brought clarity. Clarity that I desperately needed,” she told him, taking a shuddering breath. “I felt what it was like to lose you. To losethis. And it damn near tore me apart. So yes, Iamcertain, Cruxan. And I know that I will probably never see my sister again. Thathurts. A lot. I can’t lie about that. It always will hurt. But Beks told me something this past week that made me think.”
“And what was that?” he murmured, stroking her skin, comforting her.
“She told me that Lauren will always be my family, but that she has a family of her own too now. Beks asked me: didn’t I want a family ofmyown? A husband, children, afuture,” she whispered, feeling that longing in her chest. “And when I imagined it, I saw you. Only you.”
Cruxan’s breathing changed, his eyes rapt on her.
“My sister will always be my family and I will always love her,” she said. “But I realized that I want to have a family withyou. And if that family is just us, or if there will be children with time, then I would be perfectly and absolutely happy. As long as we’re together. And I’m sorry it took me a little while to realize that. I’m sorry for the pain it caused.”
Cruxan pressed his forehead against hers and she saw the raw emotion in his eyes when she looked deep into them.
“I love you,luxiva,” he rasped. “And I would have waited for as long as it took, as long as there was hope.”
She grinned, tears welling in her eyes. “And I love you. You’re, without a doubt, the best male I’ve ever known and I will spend the rest of our lives proving that to you.”
“As long as you arewithme,luxiva, nothing else matters.”
Epilogue
Dear Lauren,
There is too much that I want to say and a lot of it, I don’t think I can even convey through this letter, no matter how long it might be. But I will certainly, certainly try.
By now, the woman who is delivering this letter to you, my friend Bianca, will have told you a seemingly crazy story. But it is a true story nonetheless and one that might require time to digest and come to terms with. Remember when you forced me to binge-watch the X-Files a couple summers ago? Well, all jokes aside, Mulder was right. We are not alone. We arefarfrom alone, as crazy as that idea might seem.
Case in point, I am writing to you from a planet called Luxiria. By now, hopefully, Bianca will have told you all about it, about how we came to be here. By ‘we,’ I mean the women who I consider family. With the exception of Bianca, who has a family of her own on Earth, a family she was desperate to return to, we have all decided to stay here on Luxiria, though we were given the choice to return.
And I want to explain to you why I decided to stay. I know you might not understand or you might be worried.
But simply, the reason is this: I fell in love with a male named Cruxan. And Lauren? He is everything to me. He is honest and kind. He makes me feel safe and protected. He inspires me to create. He makes me laugh, he makes me wantmorefrom life, he makes me want to be better.
It was the most difficult decision of my life, choosing to stay on Luxiria with him, knowing that I would never see Earth again, knowing I would never see you again. I think about you everyday. I think about my future niece—all my future nieces and nephews actually because I know you and Jared want more than one—everyday.
But with Cruxan…it was fate. We were meant to find each other. That might not make sense to you now, but it is a powerful thing. You know I’ve never believed in soul mates, but I believe in them now. Because I’ve found mine.
Cruxan runs an outpost on Luxiria called Otala. It is where we will live, it is where we will raise our children when we eventually have them—and yes, we can have them together. It is a mountainous region with steep cliffs, but it is majestic and breathtaking nonetheless. On a clear day, I can see for miles and, as you can imagine, I have been drawing up a storm. I’ll include some drawings in the back of this letter.
Speaking of drawings, remember Krane and Jron? Well, I’m finally writing their first book. I started on the first draft last week, the story about Krane confessing his love to the goblin princess. Remember that? And you were right. Itwasterribly romantic. It wasn’t embarrassing at all. Kate, one of the women here, used to work at a publishing house, and we hope that with the book’s eventual publication, it can bring a little bit of Earth to our new home.
There is still so much that I want to tell you, Lauren. So much that I’ve thinking about, about the past, about Mom. At the time of writing this letter to you, Bianca isn’t set to leave Luxiria for another week or so. I will write to you everyday though, so that she has a bundle to take home with her, but in this first letter, I just wanted to assure you that I am safe and I am happy. That you don’t need to worry or fear the worst about my disappearance.
And I also wanted to thank you. Thank you for being there for me, not just when we were kids, but during those dark times for us all. You were my rock. You are the best sister anyone can ask for and I couldn’t have gotten through that time without you. I don’t know if I told you enough, but I wanted to tell you now.
I will write to you tomorrow, I promise. For now, Cruxan is almost home and he is taking me to something called a Lunar Celebration. There will be food and music and dancing…and I’ve been looking forward to it since he told me about it.
I love you, Lauren. I always have and I always will.
Thinking about you always,
Crystal
“Luxiva,”Cruxan rasped when he saw her.
He entered their bedroom just as she was folding the letter closed. Cruxan had found something that resembled paper for her to write on. In reality, it was a stiff, but thin cloth used by the vendors for certain styles of shirts, but it served its purpose well.
