Page 91 of A Novel Love Story

“Fictional men can’t hold them,” he added, and my heart lodged in my throat. “There’s someone for you. Someone real.”

“Did my love line tell you that?”

The edge of his mouth twitched. “Call it wishful thinking.” He sat back on the curb, and we watched a couple walk down the street on the other side, and disappear into Lyssa’s vibrant garden shop. “But what I can’t guess, is of all the book series in the world, why this one? Why do you love these stories so much?”

I studied the town square, wishing I could soak in everything—every color, ever sound, and heartbeat. “It’s silly.”

“I doubt it,” he replied.

So, I took a deep breath—and I told him. “I think … it’s because of the way anything feels possible. The soft tenacity of the narrator, the cozy familiarity. Like when the author told the story, she was telling it tome. Only me. It’s like she wanted me to come to Eloraton, and she took me by the hand, and we went through story after story, and I didn’t have to worry about if there would be a happy ending. I knew there would be.”

Year after year after year, books that ferried me through heartbreak and hope and those terrible nights after Liam left. They were words that tucked me into bed at night when I was alone, they were words that played the soundtrack of my heartbreak, the what-ifs, the second-guesses, the nights I sat alone and wondered,Why notme?Those books were like arms I fell into, armor that protected me from the world when life got too hard.

“It was a love that I knew wouldn’t fail me. It was safe. It was a comfort when I was heartbroken and yearning to feel somethinggood, because I couldn’t imagine it on my own.” I leaned forward a little, blinking back tears. “I think that’s why I love these books so much. Because even when I felt broken, Rachel Flowers was always there to show me that there were still happy endings to be found … even if they weren’t mine.”

He said quietly, “She was magic that way.”

“Yes, she was.”

We sat there for a long moment, watching the couple on the green kiss, and split a sandwich. I dried my eyes and felt a little better.

After a while he asked, “Do you want to go on a walk with me?”

“Is it one to remember?” I replied, unable to hide a clever grin.

He groaned at the pun, and then pushed himself to his feet. “You have to ruin everything, don’t you?”

“Ithought it was a good joke.” I stood with him, brushing the dirt off my jean shorts.

“Of course you do. Come on,” he said, and nodded toward the far side of the town square. I wasn’t sure where he was leading me, until I saw the trailhead at the edge of town—

QUIXOTIC FALLS—1.2 MILES

I stopped once I read it. He didn’t notice until he was already a few feet into the trail, and then he paused, and turned back to me. I remembered how adamant he was about not going to the waterfall, how it wouldn’t fix my life—but of course it wouldn’t. And even if that was why I wanted to go in the beginning …

I just wanted to see it now.

“Well?” He outstretched his hand to me, and it reminded me so much of the way Liam used to as well, our fingers intertwined, leading me up around mountains, down rolling hills—and my heart twisted. But, I must not have learned, because I took his hand, expecting him to pull me up the trail, but he just held it and said, “I’ll follow. I think you know the way.”

Those words settled against my anxious heart like a salve, so powerful that even though I only knew the way to the waterfall through pages in a book, I set off up the trail with him at my side.

The day grew warmer as the sun made its slow progress across the sky, and the leaves somehow seemed to turn greener. The trail was shorter than I imagined—or maybe time just flew by as we walked in silence, listening to the hum of the woods—but finally we came to the top, where a wooden sign readQUIXOTIC FALLS, with an arrow pointing left, over a rickety wooden bridge.

He let me go first, and I didn’t think anything of it until he hesitated on the other side.

“Everything all right?” I asked. He shifted nervously on his feet, eyeing the wooden bridge. “Haven’t you done this before?”

“No,” he replied truthfully. “Never really had a …reason… to come up here.”

I inclined my head. “Why now?”

He took a hesitant step, and then another, white-knuckling the rope handrails as he made his way over. His eyes were glued to the ground. “Because I didn’t want to come alone.”

“You could’ve asked Maya, or Junie, or—”

He scowled. “They’ve allbeenhere before.”

“So?”

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