"Two souls are sometimes created together and in love before they're even born." -F. Scott Fitzgerald
When eight year old Beau Ruby met twelve year old Colton Caine, she had no idea she was meeting the love of her life. She had no idea she'd grow...
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When I woke up, I could barely see Beau out of the corner of my eye. The room was relatively dark except for the navy light of the sun just starting to light up the sky. I couldn't see her face, but I could see her tiny foot sticking out from under the blanket draped over the chair.
"Beautiful?" I whispered, my voice a raspy croak. If she was awake, I wanted to see her, but I didn't want to purposely wake her.
"I'm here," she replied softly, her voice laced with sleepiness. I heard her shifting around, and within seconds, her bare feet were padding across the tile floor to my bedside.
"Did you sleep?" I asked her, smiling as she came into view. I couldn't quite raise my arm high yet, but I opened my hand and stretched my fingers toward her.
It was amazing how she could still stop time for me. She could still take my breath away. I'd been engaged to Jamie for over a year, and she could never make my heart feel like it was going to beat out of my chest the way it did for Beau. I'd never understood the magnetic pull Beau had on me, a force like no other.
She gave a small shrug as she sat on the edge of my bed. "A little," she whispered. "How do you feel?"
I wished that I could figure out how to move myself over or slide to the edge of the bed so she could lay down beside me. I needed to feel her against me so badly.
"I'm okay, Beautiful," I whispered back, my voice still raspy. I was desperate for the doctor to make his rounds. The nurse from the night before had forbidden any kind of food or drink until my feeding tube was removed, and it was irritating now that I was awake and alert. "I'm stiff. Sore, I think. Can't quite remember how to move everything yet."
She wrapped her small hand around mine, and my heart skipped.
For two and half years, I had lived without her. I had existed in a world where she lived and breathed without me. I'd gone without her slightly crooked smile, her always-cold hands, and her tiny body wrapped around mine. I'd gone without telling her I loved her. That I'd always love her.
She was talking, but my thoughts had drifted off too far for me to focus on what she was saying.
"How bad was it? The fall?" I asked, and her eyes widened and then moved down to the floor.
"I thought you were dead," she whispered, her voice strange and distant. "I could see you... you were covered in blood... and you weren't moving. And Jack wouldn't let me get near you."
She placed a hand over her mouth and made the same small choking, gasping sound she always made when she was upset.
"And then when we got here... Jamie was here... and then—..." she continued, but I cut in. It was a horrible habit I had.
"Jamie was here?" I asked.
She frowned a bit. "Yeah... she said she was still listed on all of your paperwork as the emergency contact, so Neil called her."
