“We did it! We did it! We—” Dan’s footing faltered beneath her. “Ah! Put me down! There’s no river to catch us this time!”
I watched them tumble to the ground with the biggest smile on my face. Asher was right. We were so, so lucky.
“Hey, Skye?” Ian put his hand on my back and smiled. “I knew you could do it,” he said. “Even when you didn’t. I always believed.”
I watched him make his way across the gym to where James was waiting for him. And when I turned around, I realized someone was waiting for me. He stood on the edge of the dance floor, in the shadows.
And then he stepped into the light. His eyes were dark and dizzying. His hair was as black as the Colorado sky at night. He grinned and raised an eyebrow as he held out his hand.
“Skye,” Asher said. “Will you dance with me?”
But the screech of an amp feeding back made us turn suddenly to the stage. Cassie stood up there with an acoustic guitar, the rest of the Mysterious Ellipses behind her.
“Girls and boys, for the last dance of the night, I have a surprise for my best friend. This is a song about being brave.”
She began to sing, her voice high and clear as a bell. The band strummed softly, filling the gym with slow, beautiful music.
Asher and I grinned at each other. I took his hand without a word, and everything I’d ever felt for him came rushing up inside me. He pulled me close, and I rested my forehead against his chest as he guided us across the floor.
“This is what I would wish for,” I whispered, “if I could go back to that night we met. I may not have known it then, but I do now.”
We’d already had our last dance before the battle, but now, this felt like our first. We had a whole life ahead of us, one that was messy and beautiful and entirely up to us.
As we turned, I saw Aunt Jo, Aaron, and Earth smiling at me. My family. Maybe now that the store was gone, Aaron and Aunt Jo could build a new life—something from scratch, together. Dan stood by the stage, nodding his head to the music and beaming at Cassie. Ian and James stood in the corner by the punch bowl, talking. Everything seemed right with the world. I knew it might not last, I knew it couldn’t be perfect forever. But right now, this? This was a perfect moment. And I never could have seen it coming, not with all my visions of the future.
Asher twirled me, and the world glowed. I would always have a trace of my powers—I would never really lose them. But I had a chance at a real life, and I was going to take it.
We would make mistakes, we would argue, we would make up. We would lose the people we love and find new ones, and hold our memories close. We would fight for each other, again and again. We would keep living. We were in love.
And we were only human, after all.
About the Author
Photo by Ray Shappell
JOCELYN DAVIES is the author of A BEAUTIFUL DARK and A FRACTURED LIGHT. She edits young adult fiction at a publishing house in New York, a job that has allowed her to cultivate a keen interest in all things angsty, hilarious, and/or unrequited. She is a graduate of Bates College, and lives in an apartment overflowing with books. Visit her online at www.jocelyndavies.com.
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