Two Hearts Forever
Page 10
We sit in silence for a while. Being with Anna has taught me to appreciate silence. Living in this house with her has brought me a kind of peacefulness I’ve never previously experienced. I’ve gotten used to following the slower rhythm of Anna’s days, to taking the time to process emotions like she does, to relish in the kind of routine which I always believed could only end in a rut. Or maybe I’m just getting older and I want different things from my life these days.
“Eve texted me,” I say, after a while. As much as I’ve learned to enjoy silence, I will always enjoy a conversation more. “She has asked us and Brooklyn and Jaden to dinner.”
“Hm,” Anna grunts, pauses, then asks, “When?”
“Whenever suits us.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar,” Anna says, as though her weekends are always jam-packed with social activities and it might be hard to find a day that she’s free.
“Let me know and I’ll set it up.” I reach over to her and put my hand on her arm.
“When you and mom were in the kitchen,” Anna says, “Jeremy asked if I could teach him how to paint.”
“Really?” Jeremy reminds me of Anna, and her father, so much. “What did you say?”
“I said yes because I don’t think he’ll need much teaching.” She looks at me. “You’ve seen his drawings. The kid is crazy talented.”
“He comes from a talented family.” I give her arm a squeeze.
Anna, still utterly unable to take a compliment, shrugs off my comment. “It’ll be different than with Brooklyn. She’s also talented, but in another way. She needs more guidance. All Jeremy really needs is some supplies and a space to paint.”
“He can use Brooklyn’s studio.”
Anna shakes her head vehemently. “No way. I can’t let him invade Brooklyn’s space.”
“She really won’t mind.” I wish she were here to mind, though.
“Jeremy will mind. He needs his own space in his own home. I’ll help him set it up.”
Hemingway and Chico run toward us. Hemingway, forever loyal to Anna, puts his head in her lap immediately, waiting for Anna’s hand in his fur.
Chico tries to jump into my lap, but no matter how hard he tries—and he does, every single day—his legs are too short to bridge the distance. I pick him up so he can sit in my lap.
“Hello, my Chico baby,” I say, in the voice I used when Brooklyn was little.
“You should really stick with one name,” Anna says. “He only has a tiny sausage dog brain. It’s confusing for him.”
“I’ll have you know that sausage dogs are highly intelligent. Aren’t you, my little darling?” Chico perks up his ears as though he knows we’re talking about him. I give him a good scratch behind his ears. “Who loves you the most?” I ask him, because this question he can reply to—in a way that is most pleasing to his human.
He tilts his head and gives me the most adorable look, his eyes moist with love for me.
“You and that dog,” Anna says.
“You’re no better with Hemingway,” I argue.
“Of course I am. I don’t tell Hemingway how much I love him every time I see him.”
“Maybe not in words.” Hemingway still has his head in her lap and Anna rubs him softly between the ears. “I’m just more verbal.”
“Tell me about it.” Anna turns to me and smiles.
“You don’t regret inviting us to move in with you?” I wouldn’t ask her on this lovely Sunday afternoon if I wasn’t sure of the answer. It’s just nice to hear her—to make her—say it once in a while.
“Sometimes,” Anna says, which is not what she usually says. “When I so obviously have to fight with Shadow for your love.” Her smile turns into a broad grin.
“I have plenty of love for the both of you.” I smile back at her. I pick up Chico, get up, and put him down in my chair. I stand in front of Anna’s chair, my hands on the armrests. “Would you like me to prove that to you?”
“Not in front of the children, babe.” Anna shifts forward and grabs me by the collar of my blouse.
Before I kiss her, I pause, and look her in the eye. “I love you.”
“Do you love me the most, though?” The skin around her eyes crinkles with mischief.
“I’m feeling suddenly less verbal.” I lean in and kiss her on the lips. Hemingway scurries off. I lower myself into Anna’s lap and kiss her again and again.
“It’s good to leave some words unspoken between us,” Anna says, with the small amount of breath she can manage. “We have forever to say them.”
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed Anna and Zoe’s story.
If you liked this book, you may enjoy my other deeply emotional romance: At the Water’s Edge.
CLICK HERE TO READ AT THE WATER’S EDGE NOW >>
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Throughout writing this book, I debated whether I should ever disclose that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder. At first, I thought I should never tell anyone at all (apart from my wife). But because this book took me so many months to write and my own process of acceptance has gone through various stages at a pretty swift speed, I have decided to disclose that I have Autism. Not just for the sake of doing so, but because of representation.
Being a lesbian, I already knew how vitally important representation is. I know it even more now for the very simple reason that if another woman hadn’t been open about her Autism, I would maybe never have known about my own.
Until recently, I had no idea. Not the slightest inkling. It never occurred to me that I might be on the spectrum. Even though, these days, after the proverbial penny finally dropped, it couldn’t be more clear to me that I am. All because another woman talked about it. She didn’t talk about it because she was brave or courageous or anything like that. She talked about it because that’s simply who she is. But in doing so, she changed my life.
As Anna’s therapist says in the book, “Knowing who you are is a great gift.” It has been a great gift to me to learn this about myself because it has explained so many things about me and my behaviour that were previously utterly inexplicable.
Even though it’s not about the same characters at all, for me, this book is the ‘spiritual sequel’ to At the Water’s Edge. The writing process of the two books was very similar because I had to dig deep and push away a lot of shame and guilt in order to get the words out.
At times, it was so hard that I wondered whether I was doing the right thing, but then it dawned on me that it might just be so difficult because it was the right thing to do.
I will always be an author who puts a lot of herself in her work. It’s how I roll, because writing—and writing alone—allows me a vulnerability I can’t reach in any other aspect of my life. It’s the closest to truly expressing myself that I can ever come, therefore my fiction will always contain a little piece of my soul, even though it remains fiction. But fiction is quite magical like that.
Writing this book has changed me. I might have known that I was on the spectrum when I started writing it, but I was by no means accepting it. In some sort of meta turn of events, I wrote the scene where Anna visits her therapist for the first time to convince myself to do the same. I basically wrote myself into seeking out my own therapist. And it worked. But I’m not sure I could have done it without having Anna go through it first.
I’m also not claiming that writing Two Hearts has magically made me accept myself—fiction might be a touch magical, but it does have its limits. But I now realise much more than before that writing is my refuge. It’s where I make sense of a world that is often quite hard for me to comprehend. It’s my thing, to put it quite simply. My saving grace. Some days, it’s my superpower; other days, I never want to do it again, although I always do. But what I’ve come to realise is how incredibly lucky I am that I get to do this. For me, writing is the most perfect job to suit my neurodiverse brain. Thanks to you, I get to do it for a living.
Not every neurodivers
e woman is as fortunate as I am—quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve read so many books written by women with Autism and some of them I just couldn’t finish because they were too depressing. There’s so much doom and gloom about the subject, which I do understand, but I wanted to create a different voice. I wanted to inject humour and hope into my book. Because it is possible to find happiness, no matter how your brain is wired.
I’ve had a lot of emotional hardship in my life. I’ve never fitted in anywhere. I’ve always felt like the odd one out. I’ve always struggled to make and keep friends. I’ve always been half-paralysed by anxiety. But throughout all of that, I’ve also managed to have a good life, meet so many lovely people, and experience some truly amazing stuff. One does not have to exclude the other.
The one thing that has always helped is knowing and sharing (and having a few laughs along the way).
Now that I know, I had to share.
Thank you for reading. It means so much more than I can ever say.
Harper xo
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About the Author
Harper Bliss is a best-selling lesbian romance author. Among her most-loved books are the highly dramatic French Kissing and the often thought-provoking Pink Bean series.
Harper lived in Hong Kong for 7 years, travelled the world for a bit, and has now settled in Brussels (Belgium) with her wife and photogenic cat, Dolly Purrton.
Together with her wife, she hosts a weekly podcast called Harper Bliss & Her Mrs.
Harper loves hearing from readers and you can reach her at the email address below.
www.harperbliss.com
harper@harperbliss.com
Also by Harper Bliss
Next in Line for Love
A Lesson in Love
Life in Bits (with T.B. Markinson)
A Swing at Love (with Caroline Bliss)
No Greater Love than Mine
Once Upon a Princess (with Clare Lydon)
In the Distance There Is Light
The Road to You
Seasons of Love
Release the Stars
Once in a Lifetime
At the Water’s Edge
The French Kissing Series (Seasons 1-5)
High Rise (The Complete Collection)
the Pink Bean Series
More Than Words (Book 9)
Crazy for You (Book 8)
Love Without Limits (Book 7)
No Other Love (Book 6)
Water Under Bridges (Book 5)
This Foreign Affair (Book 4)
Everything Between Us (Book 3)
Beneath the Surface (Book 2)
No Strings Attached (Book 1)
For a complete list of all Harper Bliss titles, please visit harperbliss.com/books-in-order
Copyright © 2020 by Harper Bliss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Edited by Cheyenne Blue
Proofread by Claire Jarrett
Cover design by Caroline Manchoulas
Published by Ladylit Publishing - Hong Kong
ISBN: 978-988-74415-1-9
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