What did I do to deserve this angel in my bed?

I did nothing to deserve her, because I’m not a good man. She called me a hero, but I am anything but that.

It doesn’t matter now, though. It doesn’t matter how many lives I’ve saved, or how much fucking money I’ve made in the process. It doesn’t matter how there was one life I could not save.

It doesn’t matter how Val came to me, and it doesn’t matter that I let her slip through my fingers a year ago.

It doesn’t matter. All that matters now is that we have each other.

It’s all that matters.

I feel myself falling asleep peacefully for the first time in years. When I close my eyes, I am still and calm with Val beside me. She’s carefully taking down the barbed wire I’ve wrapped around my heart.

It’s not going to happen overnight. I’m not going to heal in a fucking instant. This isn’t some fairy tale, where I save the princess and I’m cured and healed and fucking perfect when I feel the fair maiden’s kiss.

But now I can start.

When I awake with her the next morning, it’s like I never went to sleep. My sleep over the past two years has been fitful and filled with bad dreams and sudden awakenings. But not this time. With her, I can suddenly breathe, and I can feel the good and sweet things again. It’s not perfect yet. It’s not going to be. It shouldn’t be perfect yet.

But she is perfect.

And now I can start.

I disentangle from her, but it’s hard. My heart clenches when she sweetly rolls over, her fingers grasping for my body, though I’ve already gotten up. I quietly let myself out of my bedroom, and as I cross my home, I realize yesterday was the first day in a long time that I appreciated the sheer wild beauty of this place, of the wilderness, of the land and the sky that I see just outside my window.

Outside.

I will take Val into town today. Yesterday was the most romantic day of the year. Let’s make today top it.

I’ll do it for her. I will throw a rope down the sides of the walls I’ve put up around my mind, my home, my heart, and instead of asking her to climb up and get inside here with me, I will knock them down so I can be outside with her.

Because I can’t hide her inside her forever. I will give her everything and anything she wants, but I need to get out, too. For both of us.

I decide to go into my home office after putting on a pot of coffee. I have to make some calls. I have to tell my staff that they are to take the day off. They’ve been telling me for two years that I should have an assistant, that I shouldn’t have to call every single one of the members of my personal staff every time I have an announcement to make, but even though I’m a developer and I’m a fucking ace with tech, I don’t like sending emails and I want to keep my relationship with my staff personal.

So I ease into my desk in my dark little office, illuminated only by the white light on my security monitors, and I call each of my staff members to tell them to take the day off.

They’re all thankful, of course. It’s cold up here, and truthfully I would have given them the day off even if I didn’t have Val wrapped up in my sheets right now. The weather is too bad to make them come to work today, even though most of my staff lives right in town on the main strip, in the apartments above the bakeries and cafes and bookstores on Main Street.

I’ll bring Val there today. She will love it. We will pop in to one of my favorite wine shops and the shop that creates unique craft chocolates. I’ll have her try some new things. I’ll show her the sweeter things in life. And I’ll show her me. All of me. Even the parts that I don’t like.

Because she’s already shown herself to me, and she is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.

I fold my hands up and put them under my chin, surveying my security monitors. Everything will be quiet today, I know. The people trespassing on my property won’t be back for another year. My business will keep running, and the app with continue to save people, god willing.

My eyes drift over to the framed photo I keep on my desk. Her hair is dark, and her eyes are like mine, big and curious. Or at least, that’s how mine used to be. She was never any different from me. We were the same. We were like the same person.

That’s what my parents, long gone, used to say. Take care of each other, they would always say to us. They’d say it like it was a fucking joke, though. They’d say it like they were telling us to make sure to brush our teeth twice a day, like it was some common wisdom that we would never be able to forget, that they were reminding us of just for the sake of doling out parental wisdom.

Take care of each other, they’d say. You’re all that each other’s got.

We were the same. The same dark hair, the same big, curious eyes.

And it made sense, of course, because we were twins.

I pick up the frame carefully, and my fingertips brush against the glass. She is under the glass, and she will be there forever. She will never breathe in the fresh mountain air again, she will never feel the dirt under her boots like when we used to go hiking in these mountains when we were kids. She’ll never throw another snowball at me or scream at me with gleeful delight when I throw a snowball right back at her. She’ll never laugh and my stupid jokes or make a hot, soul warming, stick-to-your-ribs veggie dinner for us again.

And no matter how many times people have told me that I can’t think the way I’ve been thinking, that I can’t put myself through what I’ve put myself through, I can’t help but blame myself for it.

So I hold the photo in my hands, and I keep her under the glass. I want to keep her safe, keep her here, keep her frozen in time. Keep myself locked up, because if I can just get through another day, the sting will lessen.

But it’s lessening now, because of Val. Like an arrow shot directly into my fucking heart with the antidote to all my pain, she’s begun to save me.

I shake my head, placing the picture frame down carefully on my desk, thinking about how fucking wild this is.

And I cannot imagine my life without Valoria in it again.

It’s wild and crazy and fucking insane, but the more insane part would be not having her in my life.

Not now. Not that I have her. Not now that she is mine.

I sigh, and I am so fucking content right now. I quickly make the final phone call to the last staff member on my list, and as I hang up, I hear my door clicking behind me.

But I don’t want Val in here. I don’t want her to see how fucked up I am. I don’t want her to see the photo of Cassie - not yet - and I don’t want her to see the security monitors. I don’t want to remind her of the prick who wanted to hurt her, and I want to introduce my memories of Cassie to her slowly, in due time.

But not today. Today is the time for celebrating what we do have. To enjoy the day, the warmth between us, the cold outside, and fresh air and the breeze in her hair and the wind whispering around us when I hold her close and wait for the next fresh snow.

“Valoria,” I say, crossing my dark office and going over to the door, slipping out and closing it behind me. “How did you sleep?”

“Cole,” she says, throwing her arms around my waist. She nearly knocks the wind out of me with her embrace, she is so fucking eager to press herself against me. “It was wonderful. It was like a dream.”

“Then you have to tell me all about your dreams, sweetheart. And leave no detail unsaid.”

“I will,” she says, looking up at me. “What were you doing in there?”

Val’s eyes drift past me curiously.

“That’s my office,” I say, pushing her hair away from her face. “It’s nothing interesting. I was just calling my staff to tell them not to come in today.”

“The last time you told me something wasn’t interesting, it ended up that you are this life-saving, computer genius guy.”

“Not quite, sweetheart. And it’s just computers and stuff in there. I promise it’s nothing interesting.”

She looks up at me again sweetly, shrugging her shoulders.

“Okay,” she agrees.

“Now let me get a hot bath ready for you. You grab a cup of coffee, it’s already brewed, and take your time. Come to the bedroom whenever you’re ready. I’ll have the bath ready for you in the ensuite.”

I take her face in my hands, and I kiss her, and I feel so sure.