Professor Feelgood (Page 79)

I pull him into a hug and stroke the back of his head. Between the two of us, Jake was always the strong one. It’s easy to forget that even the toughest among us carry scars.

“How long can you stay?” I ask, pulling back. “I love having you here more than anything, but if you need to go and write, I’ll understand.”

He pushes my hair away from my neck and smiles. “I’ve finished the manuscript. I emailed it to Serena this afternoon.” He can’t disguise his joy. “She loved it. In fact, she thinks it’s better than the original book. Naturally, it needs editing, but she’s confident she can get it done in time. Whiplash is moving forward with the publication as planned.”

I beam at him, more proud than I can say. “You brilliant, brilliant man. I never had any doubt.”

“Yeah, you did, but that’s okay. So did I. It’s amazing what one can achieve with the right muse. Which reminds me.” He walks over to Nan’s serenity bench and comes back with a gift-wrapped box. He holds it out to me. “Happy birthday, Ash.”

With a rush of excitement, I lift the lid. Inside is a thick wad of paper secured with a huge bulldog clip, and the sight of it makes me want to hug him all over again.

“Oh, Jake.” I take the manuscript out of the box and weigh it in my hands. “This is incredible. Do you have a title yet?”

He nods. “Take a look. Whiplash wanted an epic biographical love story and, well … this is it.”

I open the front page and read the dedication.

To Asha, for always being the sunshine to my storm.

I look up at him, already on the verge of tears.

He smiles. “Keep going.”

I turn the page and hold my breath as I read the preface:

The day I met my soul mate, I was pissed at the world. I may have only been three, but I already knew my place in the universe, because everyone kept pointing it out to me. I was the one who ruined mom’s modeling career by being born; I was the one Dad saw as a walking, talking inconvenience. I was the inconsiderate boy-shaped wedge who drove my parents apart, causing my dad to drink every night and punish me for the sin of existing, until he passed out on the couch.

So, when dad bundled me into our crappy car and spent the entire five-hour trip to our new house in Brooklyn complaining about how everything that was wrong in his life was my fault, I was tired, angry, and had an intense need to pee.

As soon as I climbed out of the car, I walked over to the chain-link fence on the side of our yard, took aim at the neighbor’s rosebush that had sprouted a slew of pure white flowers, and relieved myself.

When I was done, I looked up to see a little girl staring at me from her porch. She had bright blue eyes and even brighter red hair, and in that moment, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Looking at her made everything else fade into the background. I forgot about mom and dad. I forgot about how I ruined everything I touched. I even forgot about my anger.

The only thoughts in my head were of her. I wanted to run over and touch her face, just to make sure she was real. And if she was, I wanted to ask her name, and how old she was, and how many comic books she had, and if she liked LEGO, and so much more. And as I stared, bombarded by all the ways I needed her in my life, there was a small, lonely hole in my heart that saw her standing there and whispered, “Oh, there you are.”

This is the story of us.

I look up at Jake, tears streaming from my eyes. “You wrote our story?”

“This is what it should have been from the start. It’s the only story I want to tell.” I flick through the pages, skimming sections as I go.

“It’s all in there,” Jake says. “Our whole childhood, Jeremy, high school. I even talk about the true story of Ingrid. There’s just one section left to write, but I need your help to finish it. Can I get your opinion on the ending?”

I flip to the back of the manuscript and read the final page.

Anyone who says true love is easy has never felt it, because there’s nothing easy about loving a person who’s as necessary to your life as breathing. There’s nothing easy about being so terrified of losing them, you’ll make a thousand wrong decisions before you figure out that risking everything is the only right one.

Asha and I never had an easy love. Our journey has been littered with pain and loss, deflection and half-truths, self-preservation and flat-out denial. But no matter how severely those things frayed our connection, they never broke it. And that’s what true love is. It’s not being so perfect you never have problems. It’s understanding that no problem will ever be so vast that you can’t overcome it together.

Asha once told me that there was no satisfaction without struggle. She said that in the art of storytelling, we need see the hero broken and bleeding before he earns his happy ending. Well, if that’s the rule, I figure we’ve both struggled enough for one lifetime. With my heart full, I climb the stairs of an apartment block in Brooklyn, praying to any deity who will listen to grant us our reward.

I’ve loved this woman for my entire life, and I know that I’ll love her until my dying day. So, as I stand on a rooftop on a cool October evening, surrounded by a thousand stars, I ignore the frantic pounding of my heart as I kneel before her and beg her to make me the happiest man in the world .

I suck in a sharp inhale, and when I look up, my heart stops, because Jake is down on one knee in front of me, holding out my mother’s engagement ring.

“Asha,” he says, and takes in a rough breath. “I do a lot of things badly and a few things well. But I do one thing better than anyone else on the planet, and that’s love you. I want to spend my life with you. Have babies with you. Grow old with you. And if you agree to be my wife, I promise that I will adore you with every fiber of my being each and every day, until I draw my final breath. Will you marry me?”

I can’t be strong in this moment. My mind is reeling, and every emotion I’ve ever felt for him is pouring out of me with such force, all I can do is nod and sob before he stands and pulls me into his arms.

“I take it that’s a yes?”

I cry harder. “Of course it is.”

Even though my face is a mess, Jake patiently wipes away my tears. Then he slides Mom’s ring onto my finger and kisses me. That’s when I hear applause behind us, and I turn to see a huge group of people near the door to the stairs. I recognize a bunch of my friends from Whiplash including Sid and Serena, as well as people I know from Romance Central and Pulse. There are even some of Nan’s friends who live in the building.

At the front of the group is Max, Eden, Toby, Joanna, and of course Nan. Even from this distance I can see tears on her face.

“You’re not allowed to be mad at me,” Nan calls out. “You vetoed a birthday party. You didn’t say anything about a surprise engagement.”

I laugh and gesture for them all to come on over, and after a lot of hugging and tearful congratulations, Nan programs a bunch of love songs into the jukebox, while the rest of us make the area next to Moby’s pond a makeshift dance floor.

One of the last to offer congratulations is Serena, and when she hugs me, I squeeze her tightly.

“You’re a very lucky lady,” she whispers. “Have you read the full manuscript yet?”

“No.”

She throws a glance at Jake. “You’re in for a treat. Your fiancé is a talented man, and his love for you leaps off the pages. This book is going to blow people’s minds. Reading it even made me want to rethink my single status and try to find the kind of love you two have.”