Evenings full of kisses and licks, days full of engine fuel and carburetors.

I told my dad I’d stopped booking rooms for me because I was staying with Racer … and Dad said that was all right.

Whenever we go out with my family and hold hands, I notice Racer trying to be respectful with my dad and not doing it in front of him.

But I also know that my dad watches us with a pleased look on his face, a look of peace almost as if … he’s happy for me.

As if he wanted this for me and never knew it.

Maybe, I didn’t know either.

Losing someone you love marks you in ways you’ve never known until you’re left in the aftermath, struggling to heal that gaping hole.

I still remember that day David died, too young and too suddenly. I remember not even being able to cry for the first couple of minutes after my parents told me the news because I was screaming. I was sobbing, rocking my body on the floor, my own arms wrapped around me and I could not stop shaking but no tears were coming out. The sounds I was making were much more gut-wrenching, expressing much more than sadness. I felt my soul break; I felt my spirit break. I was in complete shock, my brain frantically searching for a way to prove nature wrong. Searching for a way to make this all go away, to make it all not be true. That day I lost that sense of hope and faith that we carry deep within us, that sense that everything will work out okay.

Some call this hope and faith childish—and the loss of it maturity. But I believe we all, even adults, carry this sense of hope and faith in life and in our safety with us. Death is one of those events that makes us question this hope. Makes us abandon this faith.

It took me a lot of time to regain this faith. It took passing through a few months of depression before realizing that acceptance of what is, what has been, and what will be is all that can bring us peace.

Although I regained faith in my life, I did not regain my faith in love. In ever being able to love like that again. A love unlike that given to friends and family—passionate, deep, consuming, erotic love, the deepest vulnerability anyone can have.

The reasons why love can bring us all incredible peace, satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy (these reasons being that love requires acceptance of oneself and another, creating harmony and balance through allowing oneself to be vulnerable) are the same reasons that make love so dangerous, and ultimately, so hurtful.

When we lose those we love, or those we love hurt us, or we hurt those we love—it is a pain deeper than any other. Because it hurts the expression of the purest, most innocent, powerful, human emotion: love.

I closed my heart up after that day. Because I needed to heal, and so did it. My trust in the universe, in life, in everything turning out okay was completely shattered. I was sure I’d never allow myself to be vulnerable again, to let myself love and be loved.

Almost.

Until I stared into the most striking blue eyes I have ever seen in my life. Until I met a man who touched me like I was made of glass. Who ran his fingers over my skin as if it were the finest silk. Who looked into my eyes without a shred of judgment, of doubt, of ANYTHING other than acceptance, joy, and love.

I didn’t think I would ever find something like this ever again, much less that it could surpass it. I feel my heart almost burst open as I lie in bed cuddled up to this man who holds me to his chest now protecting me with his body against anything and everything. He lays over me as my shield.

I feel tenderness behind every look he gives me, every smile, every touch, and every kiss.

Even as he sleeps I can feel how fiercely he adores me. How he fights for me. How he cherishes me. And I want to cry.

And so I do.

I start to sob quietly under him because I didn’t ever, ever think I would be looked at the way he looks at me.

I feel my body shake and my vision blur as I shut my eyes and continue to feel my body shake. I cry because I am so thankful. And so happy. He makes me so, so happy.

He wakes up then, his hair a mess, a beautiful rumpled mess, and his eyes a smooth warm shade of just-woke-up blue.

He looks at me and immediately cups my face in his hands and nuzzles my wet cheek with his nose.

His huge hands almost swallow my whole face, but they hold me with such tenderness it makes my heart ache even more.

“Hey, hey, I’m here baby …” he coos in my ear, wrapping his strong arms around me and bringing my face to his neck.

He rolls onto his back and holds me there, silently crying into his neck.

I don’t know what is going on with me but I can’t seem to stop crying.

I cry for my mom. For her leaving me, and my family behind.

I cry for my brothers, who have since the day I was born carried me, fed me, practically raised me alongside my father.

I cry for my father. I sob for my father. The only parent I have left. Who has loved me with everything he has, fiercely and completely. I cry for him, I cry because soon I’ll be without him. I won’t see his face, hear his voice, or let him hold me. I cry because I know I’m losing my dad. And that breaks me.

And lastly I cry for me. I cry for Lana. Because after everything that has happened to me, every experience I have gotten the pleasure to live through, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because it led me to this moment. And it led me to him.

Racer.

I hear myself say the words. “Racer, I love you.”

I raise my eyes from where I placed a kiss on his firm lips, and I find his bright, vivid blue eyes staring back at me. And for the first time I realize exactly what this man means when he says that my eyes are expressive. Because right now, his are just like that. It’s like looking through a clear, crystal blue glass shimmering with stars—and I can tell that he’s happy.