Free Randomly Ever After by Julia Kent Page A

fast it crushed the piece of paper—the Golden Ticket—that righted so many wrongs.
    That I was in Sam’s arms at this very moment was karmic. Pure. A perfect ending to a subject that, it turned out, needed more closure than I realized.
    But I had a problem.
    “ Why are you crying?” he murmured in my ear, his voice an amalgam of four and a half years of pain, a year and a half of joy, and my answer, I knew, would be infused with redemption. It had to be. Six years ago I thought my winning the debate against him had been my downfall, and I’d internalized my loss of Sam into some kind of fear of exerting my own power.  
    T he past year and a half with him had proven how wrong that was, but I couldn’t shake it. Trauma plants seeds deep in the soul, and when those seeds grow and the leaves find sunlight, digging out the roots to kill off the plants forever seems like a never-ending job.
    I hadn’t told him I was applying to law school. It had been my little secret, one I nurtured and enjoyed in a strange sort of way, something that was mine. All mine. No one else, not even Sam, knew what I’d done.  
    And now it was time to share.
    Pulling out of his embrace, I did what seemed most forthright. “Here,” I said simply, handing him the letter.
    Frowning, he took it from me, those green eyes filled with worry and confusion. His hands grasped the thick paper, eyes scanning fast, the knot of his brow shifting as his eyes widened with surprise, then the skin underneath lifting as he smiled.
    The moment he looked at me I knew.
    I knew, deep to my core, that Sam loved me. Me. The real me, power and all.
    “You—wow, Amy—congratulations! You’re doing it! You’re really doing it!” Sam didn’t just hug me—he grabbed me full force, as if pressing his love into my skin, cell by cell. He smelled so delicious, the mingling of his warm, loving grasp with his breath and his excitement making me smile.  
    I laughed through tears. “I didn’t want to say anything because what if they didn’t accept me? I took the LSAT tests and then—”
    My words were cut off b y the most tender kiss, Sam’s arms winding around me like a cocoon, his cheek against mine, the world blocked out by each sigh, the sweep of his tongue so achingly sweet. I had to look up to reach him, and he bent down to connect with me. The taste of victory in me wasn’t from the paper he still held in his hand, but from the loving lips that explored me. Congratulated me.
    Honored me.
    “You don’t have to explain,” he said in a low voice, need rising up between us in more ways than one. “All that matters is that you made a decision, you worked your ass off, and all that hard work paid off.” He handed me the letter, his face split into a wide grin, eyes caring and admiring.
    I let out a puff of air. Once again, I’d been holding my breath without realizing it. “Yes, I did. I mean, it’s not Penn or Harvard, but— ”
    He made a face. “Don’t do that. Who cares if it isn’t those schools? It’s your school. And you’ll graduate with two degrees to their one!” He laughed without restraint, the sound vibrating through me, giving me heat and light and love.
    “It’s more than that, I know,” he added, his hands holding my elbows now, one thumb tracing a lazy path along the soft skin inside the crook of my arm.
    “ Yes.”  
    “You needed to right the wrong.”
    My mouth went dry just as every pore on my body began to tingle. Yes. Yes —how did he understand me so well?
    We’d been through four and a half years of misunderstandings. Through Sam’s horrific beating at the hands of his father. Through his mother’s ambivalence and complicity. Through my brother’s arrest, my mother’s denial, and through my smartphone getting lodged in my—
    Well, we hadn’t been through that, but you get the point.
    We’d been to the island of Eden, where I watched human beings play water sports (not that kind) naked on a beach wearing