EPILOGUE
OLIVIA'S FAVOURITE PIECE of historical fiction is Les Miserables. There's this quote in it that she thinks about sometimes: To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. Love is fulfillment.
It's total crap.
Love is miraculous, love is consuming, love is the biggest, warmest, craziest, stupidest feeling in the universe.
But it's not the only shiny, round, perfect thing out there. The steaming rush of golden sun on your bare skin, the cool splash of a summer lake, that hysterical deep-belly laughter that hits you til you ache.
She keeps a journal on her phone with a list of all those other pearls. She adds to it every day as gratitude, as a practice in joy. Heavy sleep; dog cuddles; soft touches; tongue-kisses; fresh coffee.
Intimacy. Orgasms. Home.
She wonders if Victor Hugo actually believed those words, or if he just wrote them because they sounded wise.
Someday, maybe she'll have enough pearls to string into a story the size of Les Mis. Volume after volume, pages thick and drooping and drenched with triumph.
Maybe she already does.
THE END
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YOU ARE READING
All the Other Pearls
Romance2022 Watty Award Winner ✨ In which a blind girl and a disfigured army vet attempt to find love and belonging in a big bad world. *** Olivia Harris is blind, and that's just the way it is. Naviga...
