Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,99

said after a long pause.

This is going to hurt even more than I imagined.

"But I really wish you would start using the word 'we' more often. I want you to wonder what the hell we do now," he said and turned to her. "I'm all in, babydoc. This isn't going to make me walk away from you. If I beat the crap out of cancer, then we can deal with this."

Aislynn laughed and cried all at once, tears steadily rolling down her cheeks. He pulled her into his lap and held her, his hands roaming all over her back, almost like he wanted to make sure she was alive and real. She hugged him tightly, craving the contact and the feeling of his warm breath on her neck.

"Why the tears?" he said softly in her ear, and she pulled away to look at him in the face.

"I just…I really needed to hear that. I'm so sick of being alone, of sabotaging myself into these situations."

"I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Thank you…I love you, too. More than you could possibly know."

They sat together for a long while and finally decided to go to bed. Aislynn hoped to wake up the next day somehow having figured out what step she—they needed to take next.

But old habits are hard to break.

The following week went by at a slow pace. Jace and Aislynn settled into a routine of work and writing, dinners together, long talks in the evenings, and lovemaking at night. Jace hadn't been afraid to ask Aislynn more questions about Christopher, their life together, and the hallucinations.

The very first time he had said the word out loud, Aislynn had to run to the bathroom to throw up.

Well, Reality, that was quite a bitch-slap.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror for a while and opened up her mind to the reality before her.

"Okay, enough of this. Time to call things for what they are," she told herself before forcing several deep breaths in and walking back out into the living room.

"I’m sorry. That kind of caught me off guard," she said, and welcomed the feeling of Jace’s hand in hers.

"We need to keep talking about this," he said, gently pushing her to address the elephant in the room.

"Yes, I know. I’m just…scared because, even though it’s not uncommon for people to have these exper—hallucinations—after the loss of a loved one, mine have lasted for a while now."

"We’ll deal with this, babydoc." The level of support Jace had given her up to now was immeasurable.

Ellie, oblivious to everything that had happened to her best friend back in San Diego, had spent the week in Chicago ironing out her new work deal.

"So, what did your boss say?" Aislynn asked her excitedly on the phone.

"The proposal went just like we rehearsed it. I totally made her think the idea of opening up a branch of the company in the West coast and make me the director had been all hers. She wants me to start the process right away, so I’m coming back with all my stuff next week."

Witnessing Ellie and Evan prepare for their new life together made Aislynn think more about her own future with Jace, which was a scary place for her to go. The mere thought of allowing her mind to consider the possibility of—

Okay, not going there, yet. Not ready.

Aislynn met with Lana, her editor, to discuss her most recent work. It was the most bizarre meeting she had ever been to in her life, primarily because she only managed to utter about eight words max throughout the entire time they were together.

"Okay, listen up, Aislynn. I want more of this," Lana had said, slamming her hand down on top of a printout of the excerpt Aislynn had emailed her. "This right here is everything you've been trying not to write about, but absolutely need to. This is what's going to turn you into a best-selling published author. Now, I realize this is very personal material, but you need to make it work. Give yourself some time. Keep writing it, sleep on it, drink yourself silly thinking about it, shop your worries away on shoes if you have to, but do it."

"Lana, I—"

"I know you have more written down, and I want it in my email by tonight. Don't review, don't outline, and don't you dare edit. I want it just the way it is. I already talked to an agent. We just need you to keep writing."

"I