Book of Love Read Online Free Page A

brown
hair as it did when she was in her dreams. There, she was
confident, but here, I saw she was dwarfed and sad—a small spark of
the person I knew. I could show her how to live again—she could
show me.
    My gaze skimmed across her form. She was
tall, her brown eyes just as wide and curious as they were when she
was a child, when they stared into mine. She had a constellation of
freckles on either cheek, mixing with the natural rose of her glow.
She always saw herself as a black swan, but to me, she was anything
but.
    I licked my lips and ran a
hand through my hair. I knew it was dangerous to let her see me,
but something told me it was the right thing to do—it was finally
the right time to do it. She needed someone to comfort her. She
needed to know that I was here to comfort her. Someday, she would come to remember
me and what I’d done.
    I focused on her chest, hearing her heart
beat—her breathing like a gentle wind in my ear. I was attuned to
her every movement, her every lungful of air, as though they were
my own to protect. We were bound by the sacrifice I’d made to save
her life. I relished the feeling of her existence inside me—a
feeling I’d long forgotten.
    Jane stood then, and left the table. Her
friend left as well. He walked in my direction, his steps heavy and
his face creased with pain. I looked from him and back to her.
    I clenched my fists and took a step forward,
wanting to follow her. I took one step before I froze. The sound of
her heart was suddenly silenced by a deep ringing in my ears. I
winced, hiding the pain as it made my head pound. The familiar
metallic smell of blood wafted into my nostrils, making me want to
cough.
    I turned my attention back to her friend as
he drew close. I hid the pain from him, watching him as our eyes
locked. Both our paces slowed as we passed shoulder to shoulder,
staring each other down, knowing what each other had felt. My arm
began to ache as his soreness pulsed through me. I felt shame then,
and suffering.
    He finally passed, and as
he got further away, the metallic smell faded along with the pain.
I leaned against a wall to regroup. I hadn’t expected that. It had
been years since I’d come across it. I’d thought that they were
gone from the area. It was then that I remembered what they had
left behind. I should have known better than to forget
them—forget him .
    I turned and looked back as I rounded the
corner, our eyes meeting one last time before he slid away. I took
a deep breath, the bones in my back crackling as I stood straight.
He was young, I could tell from the pain, possibly still unaware of
the power inside him. I blinked a few times, already concerned.
    I walked on, following Jane instead. As I
drew closer, her heart began to beat in my chest once more. I kept
my distance, though. Not yet.
    Another friend was waiting for her.

    Jane:

    I walked across the lawn with the milk
carton in hand when someone grabbed me from around the corner,
yanking me into the hall. I knew who it was as soon as their hand
touched my skin, their foreseen death flashing across my mind. I
yelped, trying to hold my balance as the milk fell from my hand. It
hit the ground, splashing what was left onto the soles of my
Converse.
    I looked up, a sour expression on my
face.
    “ Hey, Jane!” Liz was
staring at me, her perfectly coiffed blond hair cascading down her
back. “Did you get that reading done?” She blinked. I watched her
long dark lashes flutter. They were so long I feared she’d blow me
away.
    I tried to press the images of her laying
dead at the bottom of a lake out of my head. The story changed
every day, depending on what was happening in her life at the time.
The lake was a new one. I took note of it.
    I swallowed hard, regrouping and rolling my
eyes. Liz was another friend I couldn’t seem to brush off. “Yeah. I
got it done.” I pulled my backpack from my back, rummaging through
its contents.
    Liz was quite literally the only other
person I