let you go.” The pig bit into her fingers when she gripped it, the wings slipping against her knuckles. “We would have shamed them all. We would have had the most epic love story…wouldn’t we?”
“I think, maybe, I could be happily entangled with you…for the rest of my life.”
“You…stupid boy,” she told him, the tears welling up, clouding in her eyes. “You stupid, brave man.” He’d stared at her that last time like there was so much he’d wanted to say but couldn’t quite manage it. Like he thought there would be a hundred more nights like that last one.
Gia knew what she felt was irrational. It was stupid. But the swarm of what she kept buried, what she’d always kept hidden began to surface and those arms she knew were only part of her imagination wrapped closer around her.
“Sometimes I hate you for leaving me,” she told him, the tears falling in heavy streaks now, burning over her cheeks. “I hate you for loving me so much.” She sat up, glaring at that beautiful picture, wanting to hit or kiss it or scream at the unfairness of it all. “I hate you for playing the damn hero.”
Forever love? He’d been so sure of that then. Luka had known, at twenty, what forever with Gia would have been like…if they’d gotten the chance. And he wasn’t wrong. He had been happily entangled with her for the rest of his life. So had Gia. But this wasn’t the rest of her life. The rest of her life hadn’t happened yet.
She wiped her face, knowing her anger was useless. It wouldn’t bring him back. If there had ever been anything that would…Gia would have tried it.
“I would have given up my life…anyone else’s just for you to be here. I would have sacrificed my future, given up my dreams…” She stared at that picture again, her head pounding at the thought of what he could have been, all the beautiful things Luka could have done. “My dreams, my ambition, I would have given them away for you to be here.”
But Gia had never been able to do anything but wallow. She had swum in a pit of sadness. Her grief cloaked her, consumed her. It took hold of her life and she let it numb her from all the things that could have been better, sweeter.
She’d hurt Joe. She’d hurt Kai. She’d hurt so many people because she refused to let go of something she thought she’d never get back. She’d been scared, terrified of what would happen if she lost it again.
“There are a hundred reasons you’ve given me. There are a hundred I’ve told myself, but this thing, Gia, this you and me thing…it feels damn good.”
But she had lost it. Kai had been right. What they had…it had felt so good, so right and she let it slip between her fingers. She hadn’t fought for it. She’d done to Kai what she’d done to some many others: she’d let herself wallow in that pit. But he was different. He was so different from everyone else.
With Kai there was a spark. There was a hum and light that threatened to break her free from the murky bog she’d let consume her for twenty years.
She couldn’t let it dim.
She loved its light too much.
“Luka,” she said, sitting up straight, finally ready for the one thing she never thought she’d ever be able to do. “Thank you for loving me.” Her words were ragged, breaking apart on each syllable. This felt like coming out of a fever—each word stripping away little bits of the past Gia knew she’d never cling to again.
She leaned forward, setting the pig on top of the headstone, staring at Luka’s beautiful, smiling face, reaching up to kiss him one last time. “Thank you for showing me your forever love. You’re always with me. Always.”
She hated to leave him.
She didn’t want to go.
But life was waiting for her; waiting for the chances Luka could never take. He had given her the wings. It was time she learned how to fly.
26.
GIA
GIA LEFT THE STADIUM LIGHTER, freer. There was a weight that seemed unhinged from her and she didn’t think it had been the result of what she said to Ricks or McAddams or anyone staring up at her in the boardroom. But now, as she moved into the lobby of Kai’s building, nodding to the security guard who thankfully let her inside, she wondered if all that grandstanding, all