Page 153 of Learning Curve

I may have convinced myself I don’t need anyone helping me, but I sure could use a knight in shining armor right about now.

“Scottie!”

The sound of my name urges my eyes forward, and I see Finn running toward me.

“Scottie!” he calls out, and it only makes me laugh more. I call out to the universe for a knight in shining armor, and it sends me one. Maybe my luck has finally taken a positive turn for a change.

“What are you doing? The nurses are looking for you,” he says when he stops right in front of me. The rain has drenched his hair and white T-shirt and jeans, and his brown eyes implore mine as he kneels down in front of me. His face is gentle, as gentle as I’ve ever seen it, and another flashback to our first encounter in the rain steals any decorum I have left.

“Man, this is something!” I say, my laugh almost hysterical now. “You and me, meeting in the rain like this.”

“Let me help you,” he says, and I shake my head. I don’t want to go. I know it’s dangerous, and I know I’m soaked, but I’ve never felt more in a moment of kismet than I do right now, and I don’t want to let it pass me by.

“You remember the day we met, Finn?” I ask, looking up to the sky again and putting my arms out to my sides to soak in the rain.

“Of course I do.”

I nod, a run of tears joining the rain on my face now. They’re not sad, though. They’re just me. “Here we are again, the damsel in distress and the mysterious man of her dreams.” He smiles, and I reach out to touch his handsome face. “I didn’t know anything about you that day and I don’t know where you came from now, but I don’t care. I love you. And I know I should let you go, but—”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t let me go.” His voice is the most determined I’ve ever heard it, and his eyes never break contact with mine as he shoves to standing. “I don’t want you to, Scottie. Can’t you see that?”

“Finn—”

“I love you, Scottie. I choose us. I choose you. Do you hear me?”

Between one breath and the next, he lifts me out of my chair and up and into his arms. Rain pounds from the sky but all I can feel is the warmth of his skin as he cradles me close to his chest. “I love you. I love you more than anything in this world, and I refuse to let you push me away.”

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve felt his arms wrapped around me. Forever since I’ve felt his touch. And it’s all so powerful, so intense, that I bury my face into his chest and sob.

“I love you,” he whispers and kisses my forehead and hair. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I choose us,” I whimper. “Because I’m ready to choose me, too.”

Finn

“You have me, Scottie. You have all of me. And there isn’t a single fucking thing that will ever change that.” I grab her hand and put it right above my heart. “You’re special, Scottie. You were before, and you are now,” I say, and more tears stream down her cheeks. “And fuck, I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be a man who deserves you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

I yank down the neckline of my soaked t-shirt, lift her hand up, and purposefully take her index finger to trace over the black ink that sits above my heart. Scottie. In her handwriting. From that first note she passed to me in English Lit class all those months ago.

“Finn?”

“When I say I love you, I mean it. When I say you have me, I mean it,” I whisper. “Nothing has changed for me. Nothing will change for me. Because, Scottie, to me, you’re not defined by that fucking wheelchair. It’s a part of you now, but it’s not you any more than my dad’s bullshit is me. We’re kindred. Meant to be. And I refuse to move forward without you. You have me. Period. End of story.”

“I can’t believe you did that,” she says, and her eyes well with more tears. “Tell me it’s fake. Tell me it’s like the silly temporary tattoo I did for you that one night.”

“It’s permanent. It’s forever. Because it’s how I see you and me.”

“We’re young. There’s no way you can know that.”

“Scottie, that day in Daytona, when I saw you fall, when I saw you get injured, I feared the worst. I feared I’d lost you. I feared that I would never get to hold you. That I would never get to kiss you. That I would never get to see your smiles or hear your laughs or see how fucking cute you look when you get all flustered and your cheeks are stained red.”

I lean forward to press my lips to hers, and I feel tears in my eyes when she actually lets me do it.

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