Or maybe it's not a miracle. Maybe this is just life. When you open yourself up to it. When you put yourself in the path of it. When you say yes.

I'm also starting to wonder something else. If maybe the point of this crazy quest I'm on wasn't to help me find Willem. Maybe it was to help me find someone else entirely.

Fake it till you make it actually worked.

Willem holds my wrist for a long moment, looking at that birthmark. Then he lifts it to his mouth. And though his lips are soft and his kiss is gentle, it feels like a knife jamming into the electrical socket. It feels like the moment when I go live

My first impulse is not to grab her or kiss her or yell at her. I simple want to touch her cheek, still flushed from the night's performance. I want to cut through the space that separates us, measured in feet-not miles, not continents, not years-and to take a callused finger to her face.

All night long if you want. We'll tell our secrets to the dark.

But I also know that sometimes Adam needs to do things the dramatic way. He is fond of the Grand Gesture