The Reality of Everything - Rebecca Yarros Page 0,143

felt like a betrayal to put it up without reading it, so I did.

The only sounds were turning pages as we soaked in the quiet, and from time to time, I would stop and pause over the beauty of a well-written line as I savored the last book in my binge of Virginia Woolf novels.

I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.

Though the confession belonged to a man who had never lived, published in a book that had been written over a hundred years ago, my chest tightened and my breath caught because I knew that feeling with an intimacy that shook my very being.

I saw him everywhere. He was in the ocean and on the beach. He was in my bedroom and my kitchen and in the clouds that blew by overhead. He was in the rain that pelted my glass and the sun that warmed the deck in the morning.

Somewhere in the last five months, my existence had shifted. My center of gravity had moved. He was my reality of everything.

Jackson.

I closed the book and held it to my chest as an ache of longing consumed me.

“What’s wrong?” Paisley asked from the other end of the couch, looking over her e-reader.

“How did you let Jagger fly again?”

Her eyes widened, and she sat up, placing her tablet on the coffee table. “What do you mean?”

“He almost died. Will died saving him, so I’m asking you how you let him fly again.” I held the book like a shield.

“Well, I’m not sure you really let Jagger do anything,” she muttered with a sigh.

“You do. If you asked him never to fly again, he would. That’s how much he loves you.”

She pressed her lips in a line and looked around my house, her eyes never focusing as she thought about my question. “I fell in love with Jagger just the way he was, and asking him not to fly would change him into someone I don’t know. It’s a part of him. I could no more ask him to stop flying than he could ask me to stop reading.”

“But reading won’t get you killed,” I challenged.

“My heart almost did.” She shrugged. “You don’t have to go to war to put your life in danger. You can just get in the car, or walk down the street, or step into the ocean.”

“But after…what happened…aren’t you scared?” I whispered the question, afraid of the answer. Afraid that I might be the coward in the pair of us.

“Terrified,” she admitted. “Every time I see his scars, I’m reminded. Every time he flies, I hold my breath. I’m amazed I don’t pass out some days.”

“But you put yourself through it, anyway.”

She sighed and adjusted the blanket over her lap. “I do. How long does he have left on his flight school obligation?”

I didn’t feign ignorance. “Six years.”

“So he can’t stop flying even if you asked him to.” Her voice softened.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. We broke up. We’re not together.”

Her eye roll involved her entire head. “Right.”

“I can’t go through it again. If something ever happened to Jackson…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and slowed my breathing. Not today, Satan. “When Will died, he took my heart.”

“I know.” She nodded with a sad smile.

“But Jackson…” I pulled the book from my chest and laid it across my lap. “He would take my soul. There wouldn’t be anything left to keep me breathing.”

She moved to my side, and I turned so we sat shoulder to shoulder.

“You have to decide what’s bigger—your love for him or your fear of losing him. And you’d think they go hand in hand, but they don’t. My love for Jagger wins out by a hair. And it’s the smallest darn hair, but it’s there. I’d rather risk losing him than spend my lifetime not loving him.” Her green eyes locked on mine.

“But I don’t love Jackson,” I whispered.

She took my hand. “Call it what you want. Whatever you feel, if it’s bigger than your fear, then you grab onto it with both hands and you don’t let go.”

“But what’s the point? What if I do, and I’m not enough for him? What if I can’t let go of the past? What if…” I sighed.

She pinned me down with her gaze. “What if you don’t learn from that past?”

I startled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, Morgan.” She squeezed my hand gently. “There is