Page 56 of Beautiful Forever
Suddenly needing some fresh air, I bound off the couch and rush out the front door. As soon as I get outside, my lungs pull in deep gulps of air. Bracing the porch railing, I close my eyes and count backward from ten, hoping like hell I can stop the imminent freakout I feel coming.
Suddenly, strong, feminine arms wrap around me from behind. “You okay?” Syn asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
She ducks under my arm, wedging herself between me and the railing. Cupping my face between her hands, her touch is the lifeline I desperately need to bring me back from the brink. “In and out. Breathe with me,” she says, inhaling slowly in counts of three, then exhaling in counts of five. “It’s okay if you need to fall apart. I’ll be your safe place.”
Goddamn this woman. Why does she have to be so…perfect?
Not able to hide my vulnerability from her, I choke out, “I miss them so fucking much.”
I don’t have to say who. Somehow Syn knows.
Moving her hand down to my chest, she splays it over my heart. “They’re always with you right here. I know they are,” she says, touching her chest with her other hand. “Because that’s where Mama and Papa are. Close your eyes and listen. You can hear them with every beat of your heart.”
I follow her instructions and focus on the sounds around me. The hush of the falling snow. The creak of tree limbs in the wind. Syn’s soft breaths. The beat of my own heart.
I love you, my sweet boy, Mama’s voice whispers.
Will you fucking kiss her already?I grin when I hear Aleksei. Typical.
When I open my eyes, Syn’s beautiful face fills my vision.
“I forgot you had a small scar right here,” she says, tracing the faint raised line that mars the underside of my jaw. She said almost the same thing to me the night at the gala when I asked her to dance. Her fingertip moves higher and brushes across my eyebrow. “When I first saw this, I thought it was a mole. Why a star?” she asks about the tiny star tattooed in the corner of my left eye.
“Mama and I used to go out into the gardens right after the sun set and wait for the first star to appear.”
Syn’s smile is like sunshine breaking through the darkness. “Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight.The wishing star.”
I nod.
My breath tangles and stutters to a standstill when she rises on tiptoe and softly kisses the corner of my eye before lowering back down.
“What did you wish for?” I ask.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t come true.” Slipping something out of her sweater pocket, she holds it out to me. “Merry Christmas.”
“Dildos aren’t my thing.”
Laughter spills out of her. “I promise, it’s not that. It’s not much. I made it.”
I take the thin rectangular box from her hand and read what’s written on the small tag attached with tape.To Aleksander. From Syn.She made me a gift?
“Do you want me to get yours?”
I didn’t know what to get her, so I asked her friend Raquelle. I had a silver charm bracelet custom-made for Syn, along with some charms to go with it. A rooster, a songbird, a phoenix, a book, a stethoscope, baby booties, and a flower.
“I like opening presents on Christmas morning.” She steps closer. “But I want you to have yours now. Open it.”
Like I’m holding something fragile, I carefully peel back the tape on the wrapping.
“Oh my god, you’re as bad as Constantine.” She makes a grab for the box, intending to hurry me along, and I hold it high above my head where she can’t reach.
“It’s my present. I can unwrap it how I want.”
“This baby will be born by the time you do.”
I humor her and shred the wrapping off in one go.
