Page 95 of Forever We Fall

I hate the growing distance between us. It hurts to be away from him even for a few minutes. But it’s for Hota’s own good.

He needs more than his broken suitemate.

“Ready?”

Hota towers over me. His hands are in fists at his sides, and he’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.

The cut of his face is art on skin.

“What was that about?” I counter.

“Just my dad being an asshole.” He waves me on and takes off toward the town’s main street.

The man could lead the world. He has the charisma, the looks, the brains, and the authority. He would speak, and they would listen.

I shove off the low stone and catch up to him. “An asshole about what?”

He scrapes a hand over his beautiful face, and I wish I could do the same and map it with my fingertips. I’d spend an entire day on his cheeks. One on his jaw. One on his brow. Two or five on his lips.

My fingertips tingle, and my heart burns with want.

Inevitably, as it always does, my uncle’s image looms over my shoulder, tainting my joy.

“He’s thrown away all of my mother’s things,” he hisses. “Not donated. Not a few items. Everything, like she was nothing more than trash. Like he’s trying to erase her.” He walks faster and faster, blowing by shop after shop.

I keep in step with him. Eventually, we reach the far side of the town, and Hota stops, staring off into the distance. Sheep and trees dot the pastures beyond. He braces his hands on his hips.

If I could rub a lamp and wish for anything in the world, if I only got one, shamefully at this moment, it wouldn’t be to bringmy parents and brother back. It wouldn’t be to erase my uncle from ever existing.

I would wish to hold Hota, to touch him and love him, without torment.

“I don’t even have a picture of her. Like a real picture. There’s the fake one on my desk. It doesn’t show her real smile.” His shoulders hunch. “That’s it. All I have left of her.”

“You have your memories, Hota.”

He winces.

“Not the last memories.” I step as close as I can to him without sweating or seeing my uncle’s cursed face. “You have good memories of her. Tell me one.”

Finally, he faces me. There are tears in his eyes, but the set of his jaw refuses to let them fall. “My tenth birthday. Mom was often in bed for days at a time, depressed, and despondent. Most of my birthdays were celebrated over a cake from a store sometime during the week of my birthday, but usually not on the actual date.”

He blinks up at the sky as though begging the tears not to come.

“On my tenth birthday, on the actual date, my mom woke up early. She cooked me breakfast and brought it to me in bed. We ate together on my blankets, just talking about school and my friends and the puzzle I was working on at the time. She let me stay home from school, which never happened. We baked a cake together and ate it for lunch and dinner.”

Hota smiles at me. “It was the best birthday ever.” He swallows, and I watch the way his throat contracts and his skin moves. “Thank you for making me remember it.”

I nod, hating that I can’t do more for him. Comfort him physically. Give him a true picture of his mother.

“What do you want to get today?” Hota asks, eager to move past his pain.

Only we were moving right into mine. That’s okay. I can do this for him. “A new duffel bag.”

“Planning on running away?” He eyes me.

“No.” I shake my head. “The old one…It’s the last piece ofhim.”

All hint of amusement falls from his face.

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