Erik Fiskare once had
the bravery to make a gunman stand down. But now he lacks the courage to
confront his own past.
As a college freshman,
is drawn to the world of theater but prefers backstage to center stage.
The moment he lays eyes on a beautiful, accomplished dancer named Daisy Bianco,
his atoms rearrange themselves and he is drawn into a romance both youthfully
passionate and maturely soulful. It is a love story seemingly without
end. But when a disturbed friend brings a gun into the theater, the story is
forever changed. Six lives are lost and Daisy is left seriously injured, her
professional dreams shattered.
Traumatized by the
experience, the lovers spiral into depression and drug use until a shocking act
of betrayal destroys their relationship. To survive, Erik must leave school and
disconnect from all he loves. He buries his heartbreak and puts the past
behind. Or so he believes.
As he moves into
adulthood, Erik comes to grips with his role in the shooting, and slowly heals
the most wounded parts of his soul. But the unresolved grief for Daisy
continues to shape his dreams at night. Once those dreams were haunted by blood
and gunfire. Now they are haunted by the refrain of a Gershwin song and a
single question: is leaving always the end of loving?
“A gorgeous, riveting
novel with a cast of complex and memorable characters. It seduces the reader
with its engaging storyline and depth of emotion, and resonates long after the
last page is turned.”
—Ellen Harger, author of
Strong Enough and The Anonymous Blog of Mrs. Jones
Excerpt
Erik
left the wings, leaped off the apron of the stage and ran up the aisle to the lighting
booth. Seizing his jacket, he bolted out the lobby doors, out of Mallory Hall and
into the icy November night. He ran. Ran for his life. Ran to start his life.
Across campus to the south quad, to Daisy’s dorm.
Heart
pounding in his heaving chest, he knocked on her door.
It
opened.
Daisy
stood before him. Sweats and her Lancaster hoodie, her hair down, the makeup
scrubbed off her face. Her hand reached out to touch him. Her brimming eyes
glowed blue-green. She drew him in, closing the door behind.
The
room was dark except for a reading lamp clipped onto one of the beds, and a
string of Christmas lights around the window. She slid her arms around his
neck. Her head settled on his chest. He put his hand on her head, the other arm
across her back, pressed her to him. He exhaled. Thank you, he thought, rubbing his cheek against her hair.
For
a long time they held each other.
“I
can feel your heart,” she whispered.
“I
can feel everything,” he said. A thudding pulse in his ears, the hum and roar
of his own blood coursing through his body. Daisy unzipped his jacket and
peeled it down his back and off his arms. She put it down on the bed and
switched off the reading lamp. They stood together, her hands lightly touching
his chest. His fingers traced her eyebrows, pushed her hair behind her ear. He
felt himself expanding, swollen with emotion, unfolding for her like a map.
“Have
you ever felt this way,” she whispered, beautiful in the Christmas lights.
“Never,”
he said, his voice squeezed tight through his throat. He thought about maps,
roads taken and untaken. The twists and turns of life, choices and the consequences
sending a person in a certain direction. He could have chosen a different
school. He could have come to this school but not gone with the tech theater
minor. Anything could have thrown him off course. He could have missed her. He
might have gone his whole life not knowing who or where she was.
“I
don’t think I can explain,” she said slowly, “what this week has been like for
me.”
“Dais,
I—”
“No,
wait,” she said, a finger at his mouth. “Just listen. Let me say this. You have
to understand something. I’m such a practical person. To a fault. A lot of
people think I’m cold but it’s just… I don’t like drama. I don’t like
ooey-gooey sentimental shit. I don’t coo over babies or cry at movies. And I
never believed in love at first sight. I don’t write love notes, either. I
mean, I don’t bleed my feelings on paper. Especially for someone I just met.
But I swear, Erik, I wrote to you tonight and I… I just breathed it. Breathed
myself onto the paper. It was so easy and it was like seeing myself for the first
time. Who I really am. I should be thinking ‘This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’m
about.’ But it is. This is me. I just didn’t know it until I met you.”
Running
his hands over her face and hair, Erik could not speak. He had made her become
herself. What else could love be? How could he have imagined love was anything
but a force which made you your most authentic being?
“God,
I love looking at you,” she said, putting her palm on his face. Her thumb ran
along his bottom lip and desire smacked him hard in the chest. He closed his
eyes, leaned out over the edge of the abyss behind his lids. He opened them,
kept them open as he brought his mouth to hers.
“Keep
looking at me,” he whispered.
They
kissed, staring at each other, breathing each other’s air. Each touch of their
mouths was longer, and in between her fingertips grazed his lips. He’d never
kissed with his eyes open like this. Never known a girl who made her fingers
part of a kiss. He would never want it any other way now. Already he was
changed.
Long,
magic, elastic stretches of time, holding each other, kissing. He gave her a
little of his tongue and her throat let loose a tiny sigh. Then her tongue
against his, their kisses blooming like flowers. He took it all in, how she
opened her mouth for him, her arms twining up around his neck, her body
pressing against his, fitting into his hands.
I want to be inside you, he thought, following the
aching, physical concept into another dimension of need. His soul cried out for
her. He wanted to be conjoined. His atoms and cells combined with hers. Their
perceptions melded so he could see the world through her eyes. How different
this was from being fifteen and consumed with desperate, hormonal curiosity.
Willing to take it from anyone, just for the sake of getting it. His brain
swirled in a mature and masculine revelation as his mouth found her neck, sweet
with her sugar-soap scent. He tilted her head back, set his tongue in the
hollow of her throat and tasted what was there. Carefully. Selectively. He
didn’t want just any experience. He wanted hers.
“Kiss
me,” she whispered. The bite of her fingernails was in his skin as he worked
his mouth up her neck, over her chin, and then onto and into her mouth again.
Finally their eyes closed and they fell into each other, kissing deep, kissing
like lovers, sighing, clinging, drowning in each other.
“I
want you so much,” he said against her mouth.
“You
know I’ve never—”
“I
know,” he said. “You said you were waiting for the one.”
“I
think I was waiting for you.”
He
slid all ten fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. “What is
happening,” he whispered. “I only met you a week ago.”
“Do
you feel it’s going too fast?”
“I’m
feeling a lot of things. But doubt isn’t one of them.”
“I’m
feeling so much. I don’t even have names for what I feel.”
“I
know.” He wrapped his arms around her slender body. She fit him. Fit him
perfectly.
“I’ve
never wanted something so bad, Erik.”
“I’ll
wait. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll wait, I don’t care how long.”
She
put her hands on his face, her eyes wide and shining, a cluster of Christmas
tree twinkles pooled in each iris. “I’m so happy,” she whispered.
He
stared down at her, transfixed and transformed. “I love seeing you happy.”
She
was all up in him again, her mouth wonderful. She kissed like a dream, kissed
him like she was born to. Born to, he
mused, lost in her. I would move in her
like I was born to.
He
pulled her tight against him. Let her feel him hard for her. Let her feel his
want while his hands stayed soft and patient on the bare skin of her back. Let
her know he couldn’t wait. And yet he would gladly wait. It was all there for
the taking. Time was plentiful, a spilling basket of golden minutes and hours.
Time was a gift from this girl who had waited for him to find her.
.jpg)
