*2021 Watty Award Shortlister*
**
I scanned his face, taking in all of his features. His eyes were large, shockingly so, and his eyelashes were long, accentuating that honey gaze. His lips were blush pink, his cheeks taking on the same tint in the nipping air. I glanced at his neck as he swallowed before my gaze returned to his eyes.
"You can't do that," he spoke, turning back onto his back.
"Do what?"
"Look at me."
"I can't look at you?" I echoed.
"Not like that."
**
They say you meet the person you fall in love with when you least expect it. For Sage and Angel, this is especially true.
After a run in at a party, Sage and Angel find themselves on a winding road of discovery, heartbreak, acceptance, trauma, and healing. Throughout their journey, they learn about one another, about themselves, and about life itself, and in ways they'd never imagined.
"It is such a happiness when good people get together - and they always do."
- Jane Austen
TW/CW: This story contains implications and descriptions of sexual harassment (Parachute, Happy Birthday, All The Fun, Buzzkill), attempted sexual assault (Parachute, Bad Professor), sexual assault (Parachute, Bad Professor), abuse (Leaving), and homophobia (Leaving, A Visit). Please read with caution.
Book One of Five in the New Beginnings Series.
**You do NOT have to read Inhale, Exhale, & Breathe to enjoy these stories**
#1 in bxb tag: 09/21/2024
#4 in friendstolovers tag: 9/21/2024
CYRUS PIERCE:
I'm content in my almost soundless world. I prefer to live through the romance stories I weave and post online. Hardly anyone reads my books, even if they're free, but I do have one fan, and he's supported me since I started writing two years ago.
Except, my writing started to take a depressing dive when I realized that you simply couldn't prevent nor protect your heart from falling for someone. For him. For the one who had no interest in me.
When I fell in love with him, I thought we had a chance. It was an accident.
Turned out, I couldn't be more wrong. He doesn't want me, and I wasn't supposed to have him.
It didn't matter if he showed up in the bookstore every day, talking to everyone else except me. Nor did it matter at all because he didn't know sign language. He couldn't learn.
We couldn't communicate.
But after I go on a date and it ends in putrid disaster, he makes his appearance known, and he's angry.
Then he's doing things for me that confuse me.
My stories are filling up with pages of content, dreams that I want to come true, and my mystery commenter encourages me to continue-to reach my happiness.
To take what I want.
But the activities planned start sparking familiarity-like I lived it before, or maybe dreamed it. Or maybe, just maybe, I'd written it before?
My mind is spiraling, but I can't stop myself from getting closer and closer to him.
I'm not supposed to have him, but my heart craves him.
Sage Monroe, I'm in love with you, and I'm scared now because I have a feeling that you've been communicating with me in more ways than one.