Dana Schwartz

It was as if the other’s lips were the only place they’d ever belonged, and fate itself had brought them to this very moment, terrified and aching in a half-dug grave, just so the two of them could come together.

THE AFFECTION JACK ONCE FELT FOR Isabella had seemed so real, so immediate and important. And yet the next evening, as he walked down toward the stream where he had seen Hazel sitting by the shore, he realized something: his love for Isabella had been like seeing a candle in a painting, a painting by a master who captures its light and the glow it casts on everything around it, but still a flame made of oil on canvas. When Jack looked at Hazel, the flame was alive and licking at the air around it.

That’s the funny thing: I used to think that I knew everything, that I could do anything. And then you see it firsthand, and you realize how thin the line is between everything being all right and everything being ruined forever and you just become suddenly aware that you know nothing.

“Hazel,” he said softly. “You are the most brilliant person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re incredible.”

“I’m scared,” Hazel said.

“Good,” Jack said. “That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with being scared.”

“Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.”

Beecham was going on about, but you’re the one treating me, not him, and for what it’s worth, I trust you, Dr. Sinnett.

Jack shrugged on his jacket and settled his hat on his head. “I can survive a hanging and a stabbing and shipwreck and starvation,” he said. “And I still wouldn’t ever dare to do anything as foolish as standing up Hazel Sinnett.”

There are always women behind the scenes, pulling the strings, Hazel. We are invisible to history, but we also survive.”

Jack pressed his hand against her chest and pulled Hazel’s hand to his. “My heart is yours,” he said. “Beating or still.”

“I might still find a cure, you know,” Hazel said. “We might grow old together.”

“And when we tire of this world, I will gladly drink it,” Jack said. “But looking at you now, I can’t imagine ever tiring of living with you by my side.”