Capricorns and Devil Horns

Epilogue

   Wild parties with wild guys, drinking wildly-named cocktails. That's where you'd find me... sometimes. Though my introverted-ness and mild agoraphobia hadn't been cured- simply because they didn't need to be- being dead had somehow made me feel more alive. And at every party I went to, I drank for Hannah and I drank for Morgan.

   Nora Stern was a known name in the London art scene and, though I tried not to let people associate that name with my face, I decided to attend the opening of my art exhibition.

   'Capricorns and Devil Horns- My Time with the Morning Star' presented pieces old and new. Some were a couple of months old, and some 25years old. The winged-goat painting that had once hung over Morgan's bed was the first one seen when entering the doorway. My breath had caught in my throat, remembering what it was like to walk into Morgan's room- even after all this time. Even after all this time, I could still see him kicked back on the bed, fingers intertwined behind his silver locks and that famous grin upon his lips.

   "Nora, Dear."

   The voice seemed to echo in my brain, bouncing off of my skull as if it were my own inner monologue. Morgan? No, of course not. The owner of the voice, however, also owned a pair of pretty blue eyes.

   "Jamie!"

   I pulled him infor a hug, where he pressed a kiss to my cheek.

   "Floating in Nora-Land again, are we?" He chuckled.

   "Always..." I breathed.

   "You should be more in the moment, Nora. Enjoy what's happening now- everyone else is."

   I smiled weakly before Jamie pressed a soft kiss to my nose then pulled me in for a hug.

   "I know, I know... But it just feels wrong to enjoy it without the one who inspired it." I sighed.

   "He is here, Nora. He's here in every painting and- as cliché as it sounds- in your heart too."

   "I bet that son of a bitch is just watching through a crack in the floorboards." I laughed.

   "What son of a bitch?"

   That voice...That voice sounded just like...Morgan.

   No no. I must've been hearing things. Like Jamie had said, he was here in every painting. It only made sense that I'd "hear" him. I was over-whelmed. The people. And the lights. And the alcohol. Yes, that was it.

   Jamie gasped, pulling me out of my deep thought.

   "Morgan Fucking Sterner..."

   And it was him. It was truly him. His silver hair gleaming under the gallery light as if it were infused with diamond and his salt and pepper stubble sprinkled like ash over his chiseled jaw, it was Morgan Sterner. Oh, how cliché...

   But he was the Devil and I was dead, so cliché just didn't apply anymore. My heart flipped and pounded and everything else that you read about in crappy YA novels happened to me in that moment because Morgan Sterner was standing right in front of me, grinning like he'd never even left.

   "Miss me?"

   And I crumbled.

   I dove into his arms like I was competing for gold. Tears that I hadn't even realised were pent up gushed down my face as I blabbered incoherent nonsense into his shoulder.

   People who had previously been looking at my paintings on the wall now stopped andstared at us in the middle of the gallery, but I didn't care.