Page 46 of Yours, For Good

No, don't.

I didn't know if the last part was to her, or to myself. It should have been to myself.

"I'll finish securing it," I managed through tight lips. "It's too cold to do without."

She took the other corner and tucked it in her coat.

"We'll be cozy enough," she said. "Especially once we have our drink."

I handled the basket and served us each a small cup. She sighed and gazed around the beach, smiling at the children and laughing at their antics. I gave her one of the metal tumblers, we clinked them together, and sipped in silence for a few minutes.

"Are you cold?" I asked after a while.

"No. I'm very cozy now, thanks."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She smirked and glanced sideways at me. "I'll share for a million."

I copied her gesture. "A million what?"

"A million guesses, but you'd never get it right, so I'll tell you."

I sipped from my coffee again and arched an eyebrow as I waited for her reveal.

She sighed again. "I'm thinking about happiness."

"Yeah? How it always feels far out of reach, even when you have everything in place to feel it? How it's such a fleeting emotion, that it doesn't make sense to bank everything on it?"

"Wow." She laughed, and it pulled a smile out of me. "There's the cynicism you keep threatening me with."

"I'm just being realistic."

"Okay, no." Her head and shoulders turned to me, bringing her closer somehow. She challenged me with humor tilting her lips, and fire in her eyes. "That's such a pet peeve of mine. Pessimists always call themselves realists and it's never the case. What you said was pessimistic, Javier. A realist would own it."

"Woah." I chuckled. "Thanks for speaking your mind."

"You're welcome. Now tell me the actual truth."

"That was my truth. Do you know a better one?"

"Yes." She cleared her throat and lifted her metal cup as if she were making a toast. "Joy is fleeting, but happiness is stable. It's a way of being. Happiness is knowing that even as the waves come and go on the surface, cresting in sadness and anger and fear, the depths of the ocean don't change. The core of you remains content, and trusting, and hopeful. That your life might be unpredictable at the edges, but the part of you that is really you? That part knows things are still good underneath."

I blinked. Her words sucker punched me— once again. In more ways than one.

What she said… that was her truth. It was the source of that light within her, glinting in her bright smile and her defiant eyes. The final puzzle piece.

Yes, I craved it, wanted more of it… but I could never make it mine. She was too good. Too sweet for my bleak spirit. Out of my league.

A ton of dynamite went off between my lungs.

"Don't leave me hanging, Javier! Accept the truth of my words and make a toast with me."

I clung to her teasing like a raft in the sea. The waves up here needed to drown the explosion, stat.

I gulped and clinked her cup with mine. "I accept this truth. You're right, and I've been a pessimist."

My voice came out rough.