Chapter Twenty-Six
WHEN LEVIWOKEUP, he was in bed naked. And Quinn was gone.
Quinn.
His heart throbbed.
It hurt so bad. It hurt to breathe.
She was gone. And the sun was beginning to push its way up behind the mountains, casting gray light on the land.
Quinn was gone. He had sent her away. She loved him, and he couldn’t... He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to love her back.
Because people died, and you couldn’t hold on to love forever. Because, in the end, loving someone too much could kill you.
He clutched his chest. He was close to it now. He was sure of it.
You didn’t get a chance to grieve.
Without thinking, he put his jeans on, didn’t bother with the shirt or anything else, and stumbled down the stairs, out the front door to his truck. He got behind the wheel and drove out toward his parents’ graves.
There they were. Silent and steady as ever. His touchstone, in so many ways, because he didn’t have their physical presence. He’d always felt like they could hear him, and maybe that was a lot of bullshit, but there was only so much harsh reality he could take. Only so much.
There they were. Next to each other. There they were, their names carved in stone. It was a testament. To their love.
He dropped to his knees there, right in front of their graves. A rock bit through the denim of his jeans, into his skin. He didn’t care.
And a rush of certainty so intense that it couldn’t be denied flooded him.
This was love.
And it was worth the pain.
He would love her like he’d never lose her, and if he did, it would’ve been worth all the years he had.
And if that loss sent him to his grave...it was worth it.
He’d avoided this all of his life because he never understood it. His father had been at peace because it was all right. Because he had love. Real love. The best love, and he was going toward it that day in the field.
And Levi had been afraid of it. But not now. Not now. And he knew that his parents still loved. Even now. Because he felt it. In everything he did. It had made him who he was. How had he ever questioned it? It was love that had made him into the man that could stay. That wanted to. That took care of those kids. And it was love that brought him here now. He wouldn’t let go of loving his parents, no matter what. So why would he let go of Quinn? There was no point in preserving himself, not if he didn’t have her.
Then it was like the floodgates opened. And for the first time, sorrow, joy, understanding, acceptance. Here on his land, a place where his blood soaked the dirt, the tears began to soak it, too, because he finally understood. He finally grieved.
And in that grief was love.
It was like all those lost years came to him then. Came through Quinn. Who didn’t need him to be perfect or invulnerable. Who saw the dyslexia and everything else. Who saw the man, the boy and all the things in between and loved him anyway.
He knew that very few people would understand this, but he was facing down his fear. And the knowledge that the best kind of life would be one where he knew that at the end of all things, when he lay down and went back to this land, her headstone would be beside his.
That would be the sign of a good life. A real life. That was what was real.
The sun was starting to come up in earnest now, the sky going from pink to a lighter blue, and he knew that he had to go.
He had to find Quinn.
He wiped his face and walked back to his truck. And then he drove to Sullivan’s Point.
Toward his heart. Toward his soul.
Toward his future.
The fulfillment of all the life he ever needed to live.
QUINNWASSITTING listlessly at the kitchen table, next to a giant stack of pancakes that Rory had made for her desperately.
“It’s okay, Rory.”
“It’s not okay. It’s not okay.”
“I’m going to gut him,” said Fia.
“Please don’t,” said Quinn. “I’m sad. But he has been through hell. I’m not angry at him for this.” She was just brokenhearted. There was a difference. And she still had hope. She despised that part of herself. Why wasn’t she hopeless? Destitute. It made no sense. Because he had made himself clear.
And she had never once seen an instance where true love conquered anything.
Well, not in her life, anyway.
“He’s being an idiot,” said Fia.
“Right. Because you’re so emotionally healthy, Fia. You literally hate a man that you’ve barely spoken to for years. You never date. If you got laid in the past decade I would be shocked. So maybe take your umbrage down a peg.”
Great. She hadn’t gotten angry at him, but now she was being petulant at her sister. But she felt defensive of Levi.
“I’m sorry,” said Quinn. “I’ll leave...”
“Your pancakes,” said Rory, slapping the top of the stack with her spatula.
“You’re bossy,” said Quinn.
“You need it,” said Fia.
She sighed heavily and started to put some pancakes on her plate, when she heard the sound of tires on the gravel.
Her heart stopped.
“Don’t you dare,” said Fia, going to the window.
“Is it him?” Rory asked.
“Yes,” said Fia. “Let me at him.” She picked the butter knife up off the counter.
“No,” said Quinn. “Let me. Please. Just let me.”
She got up and walked out to the front porch. And as soon as he got out of the truck, she knew.
His eyes were red, and he hadn’t bothered to hide that.
He looked different. She could finally see the change on his face that she had felt inside.
Softening.
“Quinn,” he said. “I love you.”
She jumped down off the porch, skipping all three steps, and flew into his arms. He kissed her, deep and hard and long, and she clung to him.
“I love you,” she said against his mouth.
“I realized... Quinn, I realized that I need you. And that if it breaks my heart, it is worth it. Because you are worth everything. Every potential cost. All the risk. I would gladly break myself into pieces for you. I get it now. My parents. Everything. I don’t care that I’ve been hurt. I don’t care that there are bad people out there. There’s also you. I don’t need just anybody. I need one person. And that’s you. Nothing scares me. Not anymore. Because when I put everything through my Quinn-colored glasses, I can see that all I want, what I really want, is to have you. No matter what.”
“Levi, that’s...really and honestly the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I bet they didn’t teach you this in college.” He kissed her.
“No,” she said, breathless, when they parted. “They didn’t. Neither of us were as smart as we thought we were when this all started.”
He laughed. Long and genuine. “No, carrot. We weren’t. And I love you. You and your little cotton socks.”
“You have a real thing with my socks.”
“I have a real thing with you.”
She sighed, joy filling her chest, her lungs. “They end up together.”
“What?”
“You told me that now you wouldn’t know how Pride and Prejudice ended. But I just wanted you to know, they end up together.”
He smiled, and she remembered that moment, staring into his blue eyes at his house that first day she had come. When she had wanted to move nearer to him, but she hadn’t. This time, she did.
“Of course they end up together. It’s the only way.”
“That’s right. It is.”
They kissed again, lingering out there in the early morning light. They would have so many days like this. They would work together, and eat dinner together, and go to bed together.
And it was just the most beautiful, hopeful thing she’d ever dared dream.
She’d felt like she’d lost her dreams when she was a kid. A kid who dreamed of Levi and life in a city, of something bright and glittering.
This was all the glittering she needed.
Right here.
With him.
He sighed heavily. “I expect I need to go inside and apologize to your sisters.”
“Yeah. Probably. But on the bright side, there are pancakes.”
“That sounds just about perfect.”
So they walked up the steps together, hand in hand, and sat down around the breakfast table, around Rory’s heartbreak pancakes, together.
Quinn Sullivan had always been book-smart. But she had never been in love before. And if she’d learned one thing from Levi, it was that smart could mean so many things. The way you saw the land, the way you saw people. The way that you loved.
And just like that, she realized she didn’t need to define herself that way anymore. Because she was everything. But most of all, she was in love.