I was loved.

And I had fire in me.

Both were important and amazing, but the latter . . . God, it meant everything.

Because from the moment I decided to take the job at the Lima Academy, I’d been changing. Even before that. The process had been slow and painful at times, but the realization that I wanted to live differently, wanted to take more risks and experience life, had started before Brock reappeared. His presence had aided in the process, but it hadn’t been him.

It had been me.

Some people were born with fire in them. They burned intensely bright, full of fiery drive and ambition for everything and everyone, but never fully committing one hundred percent to any one thing. They have that fire, but they burn out halfway through life, forever dwelling on what should have been and never what could have been.

Others have the same kind of fire in them from the start, their hunger and determination to succeed the cornerstone of every decision and choice they make. Their flame may flicker, but it never goes out. They never focus on what they should have in life, but focus on what they could have.

Then there were people who didn’t realize they had that fire, that it lay kindled inside them, needing to be stoked into flame. I never would’ve believed that I had that fire, but I did, and sometimes it would flicker and fade and other times it would rage and burn.

But it would never be extinguished.

Never.

I looked down at Brock, soaking in his beautiful face and stunning body. He was more than all of that, so much more. Brock was intelligent and he too was a survivor. He was a good-hearted man and loyal, and when he cared, he did care deeply. That was why he felt remorse and regret. Those things weren’t obligations. That was where Kristen had been wrong about us—about them.

And I’d been wrong to ever doubt him.

There was a part of me that wanted to search Kristen down and either smack her upside the head or explain in great detail about how wrong she was. Or do both of those things. But . . . why? Why waste one more second of my life on something or someone who was living in the past? I’d done that for far too many years, and I wasn’t going to do it for one more second.

Lowering my head, I kissed the medallion I’d bought him so long ago, the necklace I’d planned to give him that night. The one he wore every day. Then I lifted my lips to Brock’s and kissed him once more. I was rewarded with a sleepy little half-smile.

There were no more yesterdays.

There was only today.

There was only tomorrow.

Epigraph

‘The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.’

—Edith Södergran