I don’t think I’ll have to pretend anything. If there’s one thing my time with Grant has shown me, it’s that fiction and reality are night and day—not opposites, but the same world in different colors. Our story will be always be as true to me as any part of my life. The only unrealistic thing is the idea that I would ever walk away from him if I really had a choice.
But the idea of watching it all end—seeing him disappear when it’s over, like he was never there—I can’t bear that.
This way, I get to imagine what happens next for him. That he gets on a plane and goes home. He inspires his students. He writes his book. He lives his life as only he could—thoughtfully, honestly, always a little afraid but always showing up. Caring and passionate and far braver than he knows.
I want so badly to kiss him, one last time. And I’m also sure that if I do, I’ll never be able to leave. So I stay where I am, eyes shut tight, memorizing the feel of his hands in mine. Like some desperate part of me still thinks if I hold him close enough, I can hide him and smuggle him back to my life.
After a few silent moments, he kisses my forehead and doesn’t have to speak the goodbye in it. I let go of his hands.
I don’t look at him as I descend the steps, angling so he doesn’t have to see me cry. But then I hear his voice behind me.
“Roxie.”
In my final glimpse of him, he’s lit gold in the sun, his brow furrowed, his eyes damp.
“Tell her I said thank you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The reading is well underway when I drag myself into Bramble Books and slump into one of the last available seats. I can barely see Anna from where I sit and can’t bring myself to listen to her words, which is just as well. It’s surreal enough just to be in the same room with her after all this time. The crowd bursts into applause, and I sit in numb silence while everyone files up to get their books signed. But the longer I sit, the more I feel myself breaking. Like something frozen inside me is splintering and cracking into a choppy sea of emotion.
Heartache. Helplessness. Exhaustion.
And as she bids the last of her fans farewell and I finally see her face-to-face, anger boils to the top.
She doesn’t notice me at first. She seems contented, this little redheaded woman who ruined my life. Smiling serenely, gathering up copies of her romance novels as if she hasn’t been quietly dragging Grant and me through hell for the past month. It fills me with a bitterness that finally propels me from my seat.
“Hey,” I bark at her, barreling down the aisle to where she sits at her table. She looks up in surprise.
“I’m Roxie Mitchell,” I bite out, “and I’d like a word.”
She stares at me in silent shock, probably assessing thequickest way to alert security about the deluded stalker fan standing before her.
“Fuuuuuck me,” she finally breathes. Then, without so much as blinking, she says, “Yes, you are. And I expect you would.”
• • •
I’M AS SHOCKEDas she is now, and she’s still waiting for me to speak, so we’re locked in a stupefied stare-down across the table.
“What?” I manage. “You … know who I am?”
“Well, I should hope so,” she says. “I wrote you. I’d know you anywhere. My question is, how are you standing in front of me in a real-life bookshop right now?”
How indeed. “You’re not going to believe me,” I say. “It … involves magic.” Even now, weeks into this impossible, supernatural experience, that feels ludicrous to say.
She arches a brow. “I’m a romance author. If anyone believes in magic, it’s me.”
So, with a bracing breath, I tell her how it happened. I tell her how I’ve always loved her books and secretly wished I could live in them. How I met the Gifter and how that wish becamenotso secret and a little too come-true.
“Oh, dear,” she says, her bangles clinking together as she leans back and crosses her arms. “So when you first met Jack …”
“I thought it was a meet-cute,” I say, smarting at the memory. “In a rom-com.”
She grimaces. “Ouch.I’m sorry.”
It’s genuine, the way she says it. Suddenly, I see her for what she really is: not a sadist but a dreamer with a big imagination. A storyteller. And as much as it hurts—or maybebecauseit hurts so much—I have to admit she told a good one.
All at once, my remaining hostility fizzles out.
