“Of course I do!” He reaches behind his neck, grabbing my left hand and holding it in front of me. “I didn’t put this ring on your finger for the Hell of it. I didn’t put this ring on your finger because it’s the cool thing to do. I put it on your finger because I want to be with you forever. Because someday soon, I want to stand in front of all our friends and family and show them our love for each other. Because someday soon, I’m going to write my vows to you and promise myself to you for all the days of our lives. Because I want to marry you and grow old with you and be with you through sickness and health, for better or for worse. Because from the moment I met you, I didn’t care about the darkness you held inside you. I cared about what I could do to shine enough light on you to extinguish it. That’s why this ring is on your finger, baby. Because I love you, and I want to be the light of your life, just like you’ve always been the light of mine.”
His words strike a chord in me. I can’t help but believe in him, believe in our love, because it’s what got us both here.
His promises are what gives me hope that we can and will survive every hardship. He’s never broken a promise to me, and I know that if it’s in his control, he never will. That’s something I can hold on to whenever I feel like the darkness is about to consume me.
I slide down the door, and Colin follows me down to the floor. He pulls me into his lap. “Nickayla?”
“Mmm?” My eyes are closed as I lean against him for support.
He’s silent, holding onto me and pressing a kiss into my hair. “I don’t want you to get out of bed at night again—not unless I’ve done some asshole move and you’re pissed at me.”
“Colin, I’m afraid to go to sleep—”
He cuts me off with a raise of his eyebrow. He only does that when he’s totally serious about something and he has something important to tell me. He shakes his head before taking my chin between his thumb and index finger. He tilts my head backward, and when he does this to me, I don’t have a choice but to look directly at him.
“I know you’re afraid. I know it. And I’m going to do my best to love you past your pain, and to love you past your fear. But let me tell you one thing,” he says, sternly. “It doesn’t matter how afraid you are…or what time it is. I want you to wake me.” I start to object, but he places a finger to my lips. “I want you to wake me. I’d rather be woken up out of a deep sleep because you need me than be woken up because I don’t feel you beside me and I’m worried about you. Your place is in our bed, right beside me. Always. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say quietly.
He nods, leaning forward to kiss me on the lips.
“I love you, Nickayla Quinn.” His breath teases my lips before he kisses me again. “So fucking much.”
I force a smile through my tears. “So fucking much.”
Thirty Six.
He looks sexy in his white cap and gown, with a silver Valedictorian’s sash draped over his shoulders. He stands behind the podium, his hands shaky upon it as he peers out over the class of 2013. His hair flies a bit in the wind, and he gives me a wink.
It’s surreal being here right now. I never thought I’d make it here. Not because of grades, not because of missing school because of my accident. But because of all that happened to me. I never imagined a future for myself. I felt like a piece of me died in Ben Kingston’s room with Kyle, and I couldn’t imagine a life for myself. I was just existing until Colin came along. I didn’t start living until he showed me what life was about. And when he proposed to me, he literally put a future in my hands, and it rests on my ring finger, connected to my heart.
I watch him now, and I can’t be prouder of him than I am at this exact moment. He’s worked so hard to get here. I know he’ll never admit it, but he worked his ass off to prove to his father—even all the way to the grave—that he’s someone to be immensely proud of.
“David Zucker once said, ‘Quit now. You’ll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you’ll be halfway there,’” Colin begins, looking down at the note cards that contain his speech. “Some of you have attended Valley-PHASS since the first day of freshman year. Some of you, like me, came here late in the game. Our journeys here may be different, but if nothing else, we have one thing in common: we’re here. All the naysayers, all the people who wanted to see us fail will now have to eat their words. The easiest thing in the world to do is to quit. And there are a million people who will tell you to do so. Quit while you’re ahead, because nothing is certain, right? There’s still a chance of failure, right? While there’s always a chance of failure, there’s an even bigger chance of success. Now is the time for us to grow into our own. Where all of our dreams are at our fingertips. Where there’s an endless stream of possibilities awaiting us. Now is the time for us to shine. It’s our time to be the champions. It’s our time to become the people we’ve always hoped to be. Our time to get out of our comfort zones and take the chances that will change our lives forever. Our pasts don’t matter. Because we’re still here. We’re still standing. And we’re stronger than ever. It’s our time to be great.” He pauses before clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you with this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes. ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.’ Congratulations, class of 2013!”
The entire crowd bursts out in applause, and most of them get to their feet. I cup my hands over my mouth and yell out his name, tears in my eyes. He’s done so well up there, and I know how nervous he was to speak in front of all these people.
He takes his seat on the stage near the principal and all our counselors, and he peers past our keynote speaker to smile at me. I give him two thumbs up, and he beams. I remind myself to let him know how proud I am of him once we’ve got our diplomas.
Within the next thirty minutes, the keynote speaker finishes her speech, the principal gives us his words of advice, and our counselors stand up to begin handing out the diplomas.
Brody and I are in the top twenty five of our class—me at number six and Brody at number eighteen—so we’re among the firsts of our group to be called. After the top twenty five, the remainder of the class gets called in alphabetical order.
The only thing I’m concerned with, however, is how the fuck I’m going to get up the stairs of this stage while on crutches.
“Colin Westwick,” Mr. Bruno says, reading Colin’s name off his diploma.
He stands up, and I watch as he scans the crowd for his family. The people that he really wanted to be here aren’t here. His parents. His grandfather. But the people who deserve to be here and rooting for him are. His grandmother. His brother and sister. His best friends Jamie and Wes from home. They’re here to cheer him on, and I hope he can focus on their presence rather than on everyone else’s absence.
He walks up to Mr. Bruno and shakes his hand, then turns to give me a smile as I raise my camera and snap a picture of him with his diploma. Walking off the stage, he waves to his guests, and they cheer him on along with our fellow graduates.
Abigail Wright, Adam Prescott, Christian Leyva, and Carina Marquez are called up to get their diplomas, and the minute Carina is seated again, I take a deep breath. I don’t struggle to my feet, because Brody helps me up and assists me in getting settled on my crutches, but I’m already exhausted just thinking about that trek up the stairs of the stage.
I’m about to head out into the aisle when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn my head fractionally to the side, and I’m surprised to find Colin standing right beside me.
“Mind if I give you a hand?” he asks with a crooked smile.
“Please,” I say.
I’m expecting him to just walk behind me and make sure that I don’t fall. What he does instead surprises me more than him even offering to help. He takes my crutches away from me, and the minute I start to sway on one foot, he scoops me up into his arms. I giggle, but I don’t protest. I lace my arms around his neck, and he holds me firm against his body.
&nb
sp; “Nickayla Quinn!” Mr. Bruno says.
Colin carries me up the steps, and he walks until we’re directly in front of Mr. Bruno. The counselor places my diploma on my legs, and I grab it with one hand, holding it up for Michie, who’s taking my picture, and then I turn to the left side. My parents are seated on the left side of the football field, and they stand up to cheer for me the minute I hold my diploma up. Colin thrusts a fist into the air, and he cat-calls before carrying me down the stairs.
When we’re back at my seat, he doesn’t set me down. Instead, he sits down, and I remain in his lap, feeling safer and more comfortable than ever.
We listen and cheer as the remainder of our classmates are called to get their diplomas: Brody Durham. Taylor Bradford. Sarah Clay. Ben Kingston. Belinda Moreno. Dixon Morrow. Nikkolas Quinn. Michele Taggaro. Kyle York.
Once the diplomas are given, we all get to our feet—including me, because I didn’t want to be left out of the most important graduation tradition. We all turn the tassels on our caps to the opposite side, and once our principal congratulates us, all of our caps disappear into the air.
Colin worries over picking our caps up, and he kisses me as soon as we’re dismissed to greet our families and celebrate.
My family, Colin’s family, and Michele’s and Brody’s siblings join us directly off the field, and we begin taking pictures. My mom’s a blubbering mess, which I knew she would be. But I decide to indulge her, because I know I’m the only one who understands how sentimental she is right now.
Nathan has his own family and lives two hours away. Nikkolas has his own family and will be moving to Riverside. I’m engaged, and I’ll be moving with Colin to Big Springs once the summer is up to start our lives together. Come next year, Naomi will be in this exact same position—although hopefully not a parent or engaged—and my mom will no longer have any baby birds in her nest. I can understand why she’s upset.
I gather my group of friends, along with Sarah, Nikky, Taylor, Ben, and Dixon, and take a group picture with them. When I turn to get a picture with my brother, however, I notice that Michele’s completely distracted. She’s not interested in taking pictures. She’s scanning the crowd, and she hasn’t stopped doing that since we were dismissed. Without having to ask, I know exactly who she’s looking for.
I hop forward and nudge her with one of my crutches. “C’mon, Mich. Take a selfie with me,” I plead.
She gives me a half-assed smile, but she takes the selfie anyway. My parents come forward and hand Colin their camera so they can take a family picture with Nikky and me. Everything’s picture perfect, minus Michie’s sour attitude.
She’s about to storm off and hop into her sister’s car when all of a sudden, we hear, “MICHELE!” being screeched continuously. Suddenly, there’s a blur of blonde taking off toward her at full-speed. Her eyes widen, and she crouches down, bracing for impact. The little girl who’s launched herself at Michele leaps into her arms and hugs her tightly before burying her face in Michele’s shoulder.
My best friend wraps her arms around Skylar, and tears fill her eyes. She kisses the little girl’s hair, and she squeezes her like she didn’t just see her recently.
“Hi, honey!” she says through her sobs. “I missed you so much, Sky.” She pauses, letting the Sky’s feet drop to the floor. She wipes her tears and then smooths down Skylar’s curls. She kisses her on the top of her head and then hugs her again. “Where’s your daddy?”
I smile, and when Skylar extends her hand and points, I follow her pointer finger. The rest of our group of loved ones seems to do the same, including Michele’s dad and her stepmother Gemma. My heart stops and Michie stands up, grabbing my hand and clutching it like a grenade. I watch in fascination as the tall, lean man who stole Michele’s heart last summer comes strolling over to us, a bouquet of roses in his hand.
“Hello, love,” Hayden says slyly.
“HAYDEN!” my best friend screams.
Michele lets my hand go, and she races over to her boyfriend. Leaping off the ground, she’s running at full-speed. I’m pretty sure that if Hayden wasn’t so strong, he would have fallen to the floor thanks to Michie’s enthusiasm. He catches her, though, not surprisingly, and they kiss like they’ve never kissed before.
Colin comes up behind me, and he places a hand on my shoulder. I look away from their intimate moment and make my way over to my parents.
“Congratulations, Nickayla. You did it,” my mom says. She turns to Colin and smiles at him. “Congratulations, Colin. Your parents would be proud of you.”
My mom extends her arms and pulls Colin into a hug, and he tenses a bit. After a few moments, he relaxes and seems to melt into my mother’s embrace. I know he wasn’t expecting this, especially from her. Shit, if I’m being honest, neither was I.
I glance at my mother over Colin’s shoulder, and I silently mouth, “Thank you.”
Mom doesn’t know the whole story about Colin and his parents. And if I’m being honest, she probably never will. But I have every intention of letting her know later how much what she said and did to Colin just now meant to me. And how much I know it meant to him.
My dad hugs me, and he gives Colin a sort of clap on the back. They exchange something in their glance, and although I’m curious as to what, I know whatever that exchange was had something to do with a conversation they had before.
A sense of pride bursts through me as the reality of today hits me. I’m officially a high school graduate. I can barely contain my excitement.
As much as I hate that I was in a car accident really, I kind of like that I’m unable to go out and party like I normally would. If I wasn’t injured, I’d drag Colin and all our friends to Ben’s graduation party, and we’d dance and kiss the entire night away—probably more. But since I am, it gives me a reason to stay home, to indulge my over-emotional mother, and celebrate with my loved ones instead of people whose names I’ll forget within a year.
Colin’s car isn’t out of the auto shop yet, so once everyone is done taking their pictures, we take my car instead. It’s not a shiny, new Malibu, but it gets us from Point A to Point B. In fact, it’s my car that introduced us. If I didn’t have it, I never would have made it all the way to the lake house that night.
Once we’re inside the car, I put on my seat belt, and Colin does the same. He grasps my hand over the center console, and he drives off.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“I told your mom I’d pick up some pizza from Little Sicily and then bring it over to the lake house. After we celebrate with everyone, anything else is fair game,” he says, his tone teasing.
I laugh, unable to contain my excitement, even though I know we won’t be having sex. Colin’s determined to make sure we wait at least eight weeks before we make love again. Funnily enough, that coincides with our move to Big Springs, so his unreasonable restraint will be lifted just in time for us to christen our Big Springs home.
Driving away from our high school, Colin doesn’t say much. In fact, he has my iPod plugged in and has been playing our class song on repeat. He bobs his head to the beat, but he doesn’t sing along. I lean over the middle console and press a kiss to his cheek.
The winding road before us is symbolic to me. It’s just like Colin said up there earlier. It’s our time now. There’s a world of possibilities awaiting us, and I can’t wait to see what the world has in store for me and my loved ones. Colin and I are going to have a brand new life once we drive away from Harlow. We’ll be getting married within the next two years. He’ll be the CEO of an enormous corporation and a full-time college student. I’ll be a junior editor at a world famous magazine and a full-time college student. The possibilities are endless. So endless, in fact, that it makes me almost as emotional as my mother was just now.
“What are you thinking about, pretty girl?” Colin asks, looking over at me when he stops at a red light.
I shake my head. “Just that today is it for us. It’s the start of the rest
of our lives.”
He grins, and when the light turns green, he pulls into the parking lot of a park. He puts the car in park and leans over the center console to kiss me. His hands grip my waist, and I use all my strength to lift up out of my seat and climb over the console. I’m in his lap now, and his hands grip my ass gently.
“We’re going to be late to your parents’ get-together, baby,” Colin says, amid a groan.
Laughingly, I kiss his neck and grind my hips against him as desire pools within me. “We could always say that Little Sicily was crowded. It’s graduation day. Everyone loves pizza. It’s a plausible excuse, don’t ya think?”
He nods, and his head tips back. When he’s upright once more, his fiery gaze sears me into place. He places his hands on either side of my waist as he stares up at me.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs.
“Back at ya, babe.”
Shaking his head, laughter erupts from his mouth. I catch his laugh with yet another kiss, and lust fills his icy green stare.
“I love you. So. Fucking. Much.”
“So fucking much,” I agree. Opening my mouth and allowing his tongue entrance when he begs for it, I moan against his lips. He holds me close, and when I think I’m close enough, he pulls me even closer. It’s like no matter how close I get to him, it’s not enough. Never enough. He’s an extension of me, and I’m an extension of him. And without each other, we’d fall. “Everything is so fucking perfect with you.”
Colin reaches between my legs and pulls the lever beneath his seat so that it goes flying backward. He attempts to lean back so that I can straddle him, but my clunky cast doesn’t allow me to sit astride him how he likes it, just so…
He laughs, tapping my cast with a finger and roaming his hands along my calf and up toward my thigh. His touch sets my soul alight, and I giggle. “Well, almost everything,” he says.
Thirty Seven.
Colin
Two Months Later
Almost Everything (Nickayla Quinn Trilogy Book 2) Page 31