“Hey, Mom.” I perch on a patch of grass by her grave. “Any idea where Joe is?”
Even when she doesn’t answer, I can feel her presence. I shake my head, rolling my eyes. “No, we didn’t have a fight. He asked me to come here. What the heck?”
I pull out my phone to call him. I’m swiping the screen when I hear a voice behind me.
“Your turn.”
I whip my head around. Joe is standing there, among the graves. The most beautiful Graves I have ever seen. In a peacoat and with tousled hair.
“My turn?” I swivel to him fully. There is not enough air, not enough oxygen for me to fully function.
“To save me.”
“How?” I want to know. I think I might know, but I want to hear it.
His face breaks into a heartbreaking smile of the Joe Graves variety. “Be my forever, Ever. Be my wife. The mother of my children. The person I file joint taxes with. I want it all. The good and the bad. The boring and the interesting. And the in between, which we will determine ourselves.”
I know what he is asking, even if he doesn’t go down on one knee.
Even when he doesn’t produce a ring.
Even when we are both as still as the gravestones we are surrounded by.
In another world, in another universe, we’d have been married. Maybe even with a kid. In another universe, maybe Mom would still be with us. Maybe tonight, we’d be having dinner while she babysat our child. And then there’s another world. One where Joe and I went our separate ways. One where Joe is asking someone else to marry him right about now—maybe Presley—and I’m sitting in my room, rearranging my album collection and still hating my life.
There are so many versions to reality. All of them dictated by the slightest decision. But right now, I know I made the right one.
I reach my arm between us, opening my palm. Guiding him to safety.
“Come with me,” I say, paying him back for all those years when he saved me from drowning. “There’s another chapter in our story I want to write.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was terrifying to write, but I’m happy I wrote it nonetheless, because it threw me out of my comfort zone. Change is a scary place, but it is the only place where you can grow, especially as an artist. I’m incredibly grateful for the support and the encouragement from the following people who helped me in this journey: Tijuana Turner, Vanessa Villegas, and Ratula Roy, for reading and rereading this book over and over again. Yamina Kirky, Marta Bor, Sarah Plocher, Pang Theo, Jan Cassie—you ladies are my ride or die. Special thanks to Parker and Ava, who chanted YES, YOU CAN every time I thought I couldn’t. There’s a slight chance you were right.
Huge thanks to my agent, Kimberly Brower, at Brower Literary, and Tijuana Turner and Jill Glass for being PR superstars. A lot of thanks go to Caroline Teagle Johnson and to the amazing editorial team at Montlake, who are an absolute delight to work with, including Anh Schluep, Lindsey Faber, Cheryl Weisman, Bill Siever, and Elyse Lyon.
Most of all, and as always, I would like to thank my readers. In an ever-changing world, there is one constant I will never take for granted—you. Thank you for taking a chance on my books. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
L.J. Shen
PREVIEW: TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF PLAYING WITH FIRE: A ROMANTIC STAND-ALONE
PROLOGUE
GRACE
The only thing to remain completely untarnished after the fire was my late momma’s flame ring.
It was a cheap-looking ring. The type you get in a plastic egg when you shove a dollar into a machine at the mall. Grandma Savvy said Momma always wanted me to have it.
Fire symbolized beauty, fury, and rebirth, she explained. Too bad in my case, it symbolized nothing but my demise.
Grams told me bedtime stories about phoenixes rising from their own ashes. She said that was what Momma wanted for herself—to rise above her circumstances and prevail.
My momma wanted to die and start over.
She only got one out of the two.
But me? I got both.
November 17th, 2017
Sixteen years old
The first time I woke up in a hospital bed, I’d asked the nurse to help me put the ring back on my finger. I brought the ring to my lips and mouthed a wish, like Grandmomma had taught me.
I didn’t wish for the insurance money to kick in quickly, or to end world poverty.
I asked for my beauty back.
I passed out shortly after, exhausted by my sheer existence. Asleep, I caught specks of conversations as visitors flooded my room.
“。 . . prettiest girl in Sheridan. Elegant little nose. Pert lips. Blonde, blue-eyed. Crying shame, Heather.”