Oliver's eyes snapped open and he just stared at me.
"I heard a gunshot and I looked up just as the man started to run toward the opposite wing. Val was right behind him with his shot gun. He and Claudette were two bedrooms down from me at that time and my scream roused them along with Marg who was in a room next to theirs. Val chased after the man. Claudette and Marg ran down to help me."
With Oliver warily following behind me, I started to continue along the hallway past the stairs, toward the other wing of the house where another set of six bedrooms lined up. I stopped by the last window just before the bedroom at the end of the hall. It was quite tall and encompassed nearly the full height of the wall from floor to ceiling, looking out into the serene countryside. I gingerly touched the window sill, shivering slightly at the coolness of the stone.
"This window and part of the floor were being replaced during the huge restoration I'd ordered to be done to this place right after I purchased it," I said. "This area was closed off to anyone but the construction workers. The man plowed through the temporary boards and hurtled down the open wall supported mostly by scaffolding. He cracked his head on the pile of discarded stone and brick pieces being collected on the ground below."
Oliver's gaze glinted with sheer menace. "I don't know what kind of man it makes me but I resent the fact that he died too easily. There should've been no bone in his body left unbroken. He should've been conscious for far too long to forget, even in hell, the pain he more than deserved for touching you, for hurting you, for breathing the same fucking air you did."
If there was anyone who would feel the pain of this even as the fires of hell burned his bones clean, it would be Oliver.
I could see it in his face—the guilt, the punishment, the suffering he would convince himself he deserved.
And he hasn't even heard yet the truth that nearly destroyed you.
I came up to him, cupping each side of his face with my hands to try to ground him back. "It's okay, Oliver. He can't hurt me anymore. That's all I care about."
Oliver yanked me hard against him, his face pressing against my hair, his breathing growing ragged. "Who was he, Vivienne? Who's the son of a bitch I can't kill anymore?"
I pulled away just enough to look at his face. "I didn't know him at all. Val and the local authorities identified him as Jonas Morin. He was in his late thirties, single, moved from one odd job in town to another. He was known to drink heavily and keep to himself. He'd gotten work as part of the construction team doing the restoration. We mostly employed locals during the project and usually had about twenty people working rotations. Everyone went home at the end of each day though. No one saw him steal back into the grounds. I don't even remember ever running into him."
Oliver's jaw clenched. "He fucking creeped on you. Watched you from a distance, in the shadows, just biding his time."
I exhaled a harsh breath, remembering this same path of analysis the local police had gone through with me to try to find a motive. "Nothing went missing, there was no demand for money so they dismissed that angle. One theory the police kept beating on was that he must've wanted to sexually harass me. But he did none of that either. I hadn't been sleeping well at that time. In fact, it hadn't been too long since I drifted off when that pillow was shoved against my face. His hands weren't anywhere else on my body. I would know because I was trying to knock away both of them from their hold on the pillow. If he'd wanted to rape me, why was he trying to kill me first?"
The fact that there was neither horror nor shock in Oliver's face as he said his next words chilled me to my bones. "Some people prefer a cold body to a warm one."
I gasped, bile shooting up my throat that I had to press my hand against my clamped lips because I recalled Oliver's words all too well.
Some things you'd pay a fortune for them to never see the light of day. I made it my specialty for a very steep price.
Oliver just sighed and shook his head. "Just because I know some people's most perverse sins didn't mean I committed them as well, Viv. Leverage is no good if you give them some of their own to use against you."
I shuddered at the implication of the kind of secrets Oliver knew. "I didn't mean... I just..."
"Being in the shadows makes it easy for people to admit to their darkest secrets," he said. "To imagine that there are worse monsters out there with them because in doing so, they absolve themselves of being the worst."
My eyes stung with tears as I tried to look at Oliver. "I don't know how you managed not to let all that darkness swallow you whole."
Oliver's smiled softly and brushed the back of his fingers along my cheek. "Because I knew what it was like to live in the light, Viv, where you smile and laugh and make me so damn happy. You were the rope that kept me from getting far too deep and let me climb back out into the light. You kept saving me, time and time again."
Choking on a sob, I went into Oliver's arms which instantly wrapped around me. I grieved the innocence he could never reclaim but at the same time, I was relieved that despite everything he'd lived through, despite parts of himself he'd lost and bargained back, the Oliver I'd always known and loved was still there. And maybe he would never be the same whole again. Too much of the past had happened to him and it would forever show in the sum of the man he had to become from that.
As Stellan once reflected out loud years ago, life always added up in the end no matter how short or long and complicated and ugly the entire equation was. So did people. We were the totality of our actions and choices, victories and defeats, hopes and fears.
And I just hope that Oliver can accept what I've become from all of this, including the secrets I should've told him.
Guilt racked through me as Oliver soothingly ran a hand up and down through my hair, murmuring sweetly. "I'm just glad that you're alive and well, Viv. That you survived. That you're here with me now. I can't wrap my head around how close I came to losing you for good."
I lifted my head and took a deep, fortifying breath. "There was a time when I didn't want to be alive and well. When I wished I hadn't survived. When I felt like I didn't deserve to."
Oliver frowned. "Of course you deserved to live."
I glanced away. "Even when someone else doesn't get to?"
"That man's life was worth less than nothing, Vivienne," was Oliver's rigid cold answer. "You don't owe him anything."
"No, I don't." I took another breath and moved away, taking Oliver's hand as I headed back toward the stairs. "Let's go."
The walk down the stairs and out to the shrub-lined path on the side of the house was quiet. It led to the small stone building set amidst a clearing, the steeple its only prominent feature.
We stopped right outside of the softly arched door.
"Most of the chapel had remained intact over the centuries that there was little we had to fix," I said. "We mostly just had to clean it and air it out. Right behind it is a small graveyard."
Oliver abruptly halted behind me. "Don't tell me you buried that man here."
I glanced over my shoulder and shook my head. "The only ones buried here were members of the few families that had owned this estate."
Looking like he didn't know what to make of that, he resumed his walk and followed me around the chapel where a gently rolling meadow was dotted with a small handful of weathered tombstones.
I stopped at the edge of the graveyard with Oliver standing behind me.
"There was so much blood that night," I said, my voice hollow and distant. "All over my night gown, on the floor. I was in excruciating pain. I was having trouble breathing. I'd cracked some of my ribs. My lip was split and my cheek was swelling. The local doctor didn't want to risk moving me so Claudette had to bring down blankets for me to lie on the landing. He'd called for the ambulance but we're in the middle of nowhere here. He had to do something while we waited."
"I can't believe neither Jack nor Stellan ever mentioned this to me," Oliver hissed in frustration.
I turned around to face him. "They couldn't have because they don't know. As much as I'd like to spare them this, I'll have to tell them—after I tell you."
Oliver's expression softened. "There's nothing to be scared of in telling them, Vivienne. They will understand. They'll be angry but it'll be mostly at themselves because it's too late for them to do anything about it now. They'll just be glad to know that you made it okay. That you weren't hurt that badly."
The laugh that escaped me was brittle with irony. "But I was. It was the lowest point of my life. I'd wanted to die. The same way you did after your family was killed."
Oliver shook his head. "It was different, Viv. I felt awful for being alive when they were all gone because there was so much they could've lived for that they never could anymore."
My head hung low. "Yes, I know. And it wasn't different, Oliver. Because someone died that night who shouldn't have."
"What do you mean?"
I forced myself to meet his eye. "I bought this place three months after I moved to Paris to get away. I found a lawyer to help me with the paperwork and it wasn't until the ink was dry on the paper that I told Dad and Stellan. I told them I always wanted to be queen of my castle. As usual, they saw no problem in indulging me. Dad helped connect me to a contractor who would see to the restoration in the short timeline I wanted it done. He and Stellan even came in those first few weeks just to make sure everything was going well. But they were the only visitors who came to see me here. Well, them and Marg because the woman couldn't be kept away after I asked the fashion house for a temporary leave for a few months. When she came and discovered my reasons, she returned for visits because she insisted I needed a friend. And I never said it to her face but she was right. It gets lonely keeping secrets especially when those secrets becomes ones that are too painful to hold in."
Oliver frowned. "What aren't you telling me, Vivienne?"
Tears filled my eyes as an ache so old and familiar cut through me again. "That when I left for Paris, I didn't know I was two months pregnant, Oliver. That night I laid in a bloody mess on the stairs landing, I gave birth to our son. He was just twenty-eight weeks old and barely breathing when they let me hold him for a few seconds. He was so light and small and he had your dark hair. He was still alive when they got us to the hospital but there was too much internal bleeding. They couldn't save him."
As if all my strength had drained out of me along with the truth, I dropped to my knees on the ground, my face in my hands as I gasped through the sobs, the memories still too raw and too vivid for me to be numb to them.
And before I knew it, a pair of strong arms surrounded me and held me against Oliver's trembling form. He, too, had crumpled to the ground, his own breathing harsh like he was chasing each pull of oxygen.
I raised my head to look at him and through the veil of tears, I could see pain so acute etched on his face. My chest tightened as if a hand had clamped around my heart. "I'm so s-sorry, Oliver. I'm sorry I let h-him die."
"You didn't let him die!" he growled, his voice rough with anger. "That was not your fault, Vivienne. Do you hear me? If there's anyone to blame, it's me! Because I put you in that mess. And because I was a fucking coward with the gall to be arrogant, I let you go when I should've been there. I should've been there to protect you!"
Oliver was pale, tears glistening on his cheeks as he sank fully down on the ground, his hand running roughly down his face. "I should've been there... to protect you and our child. But you went through all of that all by yourself. I wish I'd known..."
I put a shaky hand on his knee which he grabbed and held on to as if I was that rope once again, keeping a hold of him from being lost in the dark. Only this time, I put him there.
Pull him back, Vivienne. Pull both of you back to the shore. You've done it before.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," I whispered, my gaze lowering with guilt. "At first I was still so angry. And after I looked past my anger, I realized that to tell you meant facing the mess I'd run from. I came close to calling you so many times. I kept telling myself I had to time decide. And when it was too late, I blamed myself—for running away in the first place and putting myself in that position. I blamed myself for the fact that you'd never known or met your son because I didn't have the guts to tell you the truth. Then I started blaming you for destroying us. For driving me away."
Oliver shook his head. "And you weren't wrong about that. I gave you a very good reason to run and never look back, Viv. I can't blame you any more than I can blame myself."
"But don't you see? Nothing is achieved by blaming each other or ourselves," I said gently. "It changes nothing. It doesn't do anyone any good. If anything, it just hurts us more and I don't want any more pain. I've lived with too much of it already, Oliver, and you have, too."
Kneeling on the patchy grass and dirt, I pulled Oliver close, wrapping my arms around him while his own circled my waist. He was breathing heavily, his shoulders shaking and his face pressed against my chest. For a man who was so physically strong and had endured so much beating, he was utterly defeated. I cupped the back of his head and pressed my lips against his hair, offering whatever comfort I could give.
I'd been here before, choking underneath the crush of regrets and self-recrimination, of impotent anger because no matter how much you wanted to lash out and scream until you were emptied of all the bitterness in your soul, you knew all too well it wouldn't change anything. It couldn't bring back the life of a child you would've cherished and loved had things been different.
"It's going to take time, Oliver, for the pain to dull," I murmured. "It will never go away and fade into nothing but it will get easier. It won't hurt so much anymore."
Slowly, Oliver raised his head, those pale blue eyes so glassy under the late afternoon sun. "Is that why you stayed away for so long?"
"I was not in a good place after what happened," I said. "I came back here but I wouldn't leave my room. The few times I did, I would wander out here where I'd stay for hours. I wasn't eating or talking. I was alive, yes, but dead inside. Val and Claudette tried their best to take care of me. Marg stayed with me for a little bit too. I only snapped out of my trance when she insisted on calling Dad and Stellan. I screamed at her and fought her for it. She was crying and telling me that I needed help. That I couldn't die with my son. That this was no way to live a life he didn't even get a shot at."
It was hard to go back to that dark place inside me but I'd left it in peace that it didn't threaten to suck me back in anymore.
"And she was right." I bit my trembling lip and tried to smile at Oliver. "I lived and he didn't. I would trade my life for his in a heartbeat but no one gets to really make that choice. So I did the next best thing I could and that was to make the most of this life. To live it in full. I couldn't waste an opportunity he didn't get to have."
"I got help," I continued, amazed that I could talk about this now when years ago, getting here seemed impossible. "I went back to Paris. I went through therapy. I went back to work. I started self-defense training. I tried to stay in touch with Dad and Stellan as much as possible. And there were times when it seemed so hard to even get through the night. I had steady nightmares for a good year. I couldn't go back here for more than a day or all by myself but I couldn't stay away either. So little by little, I forced myself to be here and be alright with it until it eventually got better."
Oliver grasped my hand and pressed his lips on the back of it. "You're braver than I could've ever been."
I shook my head. "I wouldn't call me brave. Yes, I was strong because I had to be. But I couldn't muster the courage to tell anyone else. I couldn't find the guts to go home. I couldn't even really speak about him and that's probably the biggest shame of all."
Oliver cupped the side of my face. "Angel, you've told me now. And I want to hear all about him. Tell me everything you couldn't tell anyone."
I shattered at his kind tone. "Don't you hate me?"
"For what? Keeping it from me all this time?" he scoffed. "I wish I'd known but just like I did, you made decisions based now what you were capable of at that time. I could get angry but what would be the point of that? We've suffered so much for so long already. I'd rather not waste our second chance drowning each other in blame and resentment."
I smiled even as tears spilled down my cheeks with Oliver's fingers chasing after them to brush them dry. "I came to the same conclusion. After everything that happened, the past seemed petty almost. No pain could compare to that. No image could be worse than holding your frail, dying child in your arms. I felt like I'd already been through the worst. And that somehow allowed me to stop being afraid of anything else. Which is why I came home to you."
"It took us a year to get here but it would've never happened if I'd stayed afraid," I said. "Even if you'd come to get me. I had to do it myself. I had to open that door and put myself out there again."
"And now that you're here, with me, I'm never letting you go, Vivienne," Oliver promised solemnly. "We're going to pick up the pieces and work hard to do it right this time. We'll be a family."
I brushed a soft kiss on his lips. "Speaking of family, there's someone you need to officially meet."
I rose to my feet and held a hand out to Oliver. He grasped it and pulled himself up, suddenly looking a bit nervous.
"Did you name him?" he asked.
I smiled and slowly led him down toward a grave where a small, stone cherub had his hands folded in prayer. Below him was a small stone slab etched with our son's name and the one date of his birth and death.
Theodore Edward Yates
September 9, 2005
You are the brightest star in the darkest night.
Shine on us forever.
Oliver sucked in a breath after reading the dedication. "You named him Theodore."
I slipped an arm behind his waist. "After Harry. Like you planned if we had a boy."
Oliver glanced at me, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "And we did have a boy. And he would've been seven today."
"Yes." The word came out on a shaky breath as I smiled through the prickling of tears. "I imagine he would be tall like you with the same black hair. Maybe sky blue eyes. I wish... I wish I'd been able to see him open his eyes. I would at least know their color even if it's meant to change. It helps me think of him growing up over the years."
Oliver held me close as my tears fell and we stood like that in front of our son's grave for an eternity.
This was never the dream but it was the fate we were given.
We had a marriage that had been through hell and back.
We had a child we would never see grow old but we'd never forget or regret.
We had each other and we would never give each other up.
Not the dream, true, but this is life—it's ours and it's real and beautiful even at the parts where it's broken and scarred.
Oliver gently released me as he took a step forward to hunch down in front of the tombstone. "Happy birthday, Theodore. I may have never met you but I love you because you're ours. And because I know that have you had the chance, you'd probably be very much like your Mom and I'm crazy about her. I hope you can smile down on us sometime. I hope you know that you're loved. That you'll never be forgotten."
I put a trembling hand on Oliver's shoulder and he reached up to cover it with his.
I felt a strange peace settle over me like nothing has all these years.
Maybe it was the closure.
Maybe it was freedom from such a heartbreaking secret.
Or maybe, it was just Theodore smiling down on us.
***
"Do you still get nightmares when you stay here?" Oliver asked softly as his fingertips absently twirled around a lock of my hair.
We'd just climbed in bed later that evening, exhausted body and soul, after spending hours out by the graveyard just talking. We only came in when Claudette called us in for dinner. She was apologetic for the intrusion and one look in her keen eyes told me she'd put the puzzle of Oliver and Theodore together considering the two shared last names. Oliver startled the woman when he hugged her and thanked her for everything she and her husband had done for me and our son. Val just smiled wistfully when he saw us come in with his sniffling wife right behind us.
They left us to dine alone and while it was a very quiet dinner, it was comfortable. The silence wasn't lonely or fraught with tension. It came from some measure of peace we'd found this afternoon. After that, I showed Oliver the room I'd once prepared as Theodore's nursery. Much of it had been packed away but the robin-egg blue and creamy yellow tones in the paint and wallpaper were all still there. Oliver touched everything he could as if it would somehow take him back in time to those days when I'd wander in there for hours, lovingly preparing everything for Theodore's birth. The bittersweet smile on his face didn't conceal his sadness but I didn't try to stifle it or comfort it away from him. He needed to grieve just as I had.
He kissed me tenderly by the window where I used to sit while looking outside and absently stroking my belly. He told me that one day, even when the halls of our house were made loud and chaotic by our other children, Theodore's memory would never be drowned out.
I loved him more for that and for the first time, I couldn't recall the slightest twinge of anxiety at the thought of the future with Oliver. It finally felt like I was standing on solid ground and he was right there beside me.
"Occasionally," I answered, my eyes tracing along the same path my fingers made on his gray shirt. "But once you've lost pretty much everything that mattered to you, it's hard to be afraid of anything anymore."
"If Theodore had lived, would you have come back to me?" he asked and for once, there was no catch in his voice. No apprehension. No fear of the answer even if it wasn't one he hoped for. "Would you have told me about him?"
I smiled. "I would've told you. It crossed my mind that you won't believe me since I told you I was on birth control and we only had a couple days together."
"I would never doubt it as men would never deny proof of their virility," he declared with a cocky grin. "Although I'm curious how that happened when we thought we were safe."
My smile turned a little sheepish. "I'd forgotten to take it in the morning after the wedding. We were a little, uh, caught up, at that time. I didn't remember until I had to take it the next day but I didn't think it would be an issue. It never had been before but then I'd also never slept with a guy before you."
"A fact I'll always be grateful for."
"But you would've had no way to be sure that I hadn't slept with someone after I ran off. I could've lied to you just to be vindictive. I'm slightly known to have manifested that trait once in a while."
"A valid point but to be fair, I would have had to take you at your word if I'd hoped for you to do the same when I told you that the jobs were just jobs."
I pursed my lips slightly in irony. "It would seem as if we're not very good at coming out with the truth right away."
Regret flickered across Oliver's eyes. "No matter how afraid I was that it would change everything, I should've told you before I asked you to marry me."
I bumped him slightly and smiled at him. "And I should've told you about Theodore as soon as I knew. No matter how mad or confused I was at the beginning, I knew I couldn't keep it a secret forever."
"But telling me the truth wouldn't have been the same as coming back to me, would it?" Oliver asked and I remember his earlier question.
I gently shook my head. "I'll be honest, I don't know if I could've given us another chance at that time. I don't know if I could've risked it again. I don't know how I would've changed as a person if what had happened with Theodore hadn't happened. I wouldn't have known the darkest corners of a person's heart and the kind of despair that can live there and make a monster out of you."
Oliver gently cupped the side of my face. "I doubt that you were ever or could ever be a monster, Viv."
My smile faded. "Our monsters all look a little different. You don't know how many nights I'd stood by the ragged hole where that man fell from. How I wondered if it could really be as easy as that to stop feeling so much pain. How the memory of holding Theodore in my arms for such a short time pulled me back to safety. It's the most terrifying place to me—that point between life and death with all the power to make the choice. I don't ever want to find myself there again."
Oliver rolled up to his side to cover me, his arm and leg pulling me closer against him. There was steely determination in his piercing eyes. "And I'll never let you go there again, Viv. I'll do everything in my power to make life with me, and all the people you love and who love you, the more compelling choice."
He leaned down to kiss me and I lifted my hand to cup the back of his head to urge him to deepen the kiss, suddenly craving a touch I needed to feel so deep inside me.
Oliver had no problem with that, taking my mouth with an urgency that left me quivering with need.
For all that I confessed today, I wasn't fragile—not anymore.
And I was done being broken.
Boldly, I curled my tongue around his and he groaned, his granite-hard body grinding above mine that I could hardly recall we still had clothes on. I felt his heat, his solid strength, his stirring desire and my body glowed hot in response.
His lips trailed down the curve of my neck just as his hand pushed down the dainty straps of my night gown off my shoulder, baring my breasts to him. His large, rough hand clenched around one, his thumb abrading my sensitive nipple with slow, deliberate strokes that dragged at the nerve endings just below my skin. His lips wrapped around the distended tip less than a second after his fingers released it in favor of coasting down the valley between my breasts to slide the silk further down and clear the path for him between my legs.
His fingers dipped inside me, eased by my slick heat, and I arched my back at his demanding strokes. He wanted surrender and salvation as if the two meant the same and as my climax climbed up my spine and pulsed behind my eyes like it was coming out of my skin, I had a faint understanding of how giving it all could feel like taking everything into you all at once.
But Oliver was nowhere near done with his sweet torture.
His took his fingers away and in a brief flurry of cotton and skin, Oliver was gloriously naked and kneeling on the bed between my legs, his hands supporting my thighs as he raised me closer to his mouth. From my angle, I could see his eyes fluttering close like a man about to sink his teeth into his first meal after having starved for far too long. His tongue knew all the places to touch and taste me with teasing flickers and deep thrusts that had me gasping for breath. Slowly, his eyes opened, and in the low, cozy lighting of the room, I could see them blaze blue, the lazy, hooded gaze they wore completely contradicting the relentless intent of his mouth and tongue as they worked me through another orgasm.
I was still quaking all over when Oliver pulled me up against him, my thighs straddling his hips as he wrapped his arms on an X around my back to support me. My eyes were barely open when he penetrated me with one upward thrust of his hips, stretching me so much more in this position that the only thing I could feel down my waist was his hot, hard cock throbbing inside me. He gave me no time to recover or adjust as he started flexing his hips up and down in rapid strokes while he held me in place with his arms and his eyes that offered no apologies or reverence—just want and need and their unexpected hold on our soul.
Oliver wanted me to take whatever I needed and give him everything he wanted.
"It's yours, Vivienne," he panted against my ear. "Take it... Take all of it."
His eyes squeezed shut as his release welled up from him, driving his movements with a frenzy that just ignited my blood even more until it soared into a fire and I cried out.
"This body is yours, used and abused as it is," he drawled on, his head tipping forward and resting against the top of mine, his breath hot against my cheeks. Blindly, he groped for my hand and pressed it against his thundering heart. "This heart is yours, whatever tenderness and love it's capable of."
My eyes stung with tears but I couldn't blink them back as Oliver raised his head to gaze at me, his need as intense as the raw vulnerability on his face.
"This soul is yours, black and bleak as it is," he murmured as he brought my fingertips against his lips. "You saved it for what little worth it had."
My smile was tremulous as I leaned in to kiss his mouth. "I love you, Oliver. I love you so much."
"Vivienne..." Pain and pleasure etched their marks on his face as Oliver shuddered in a burst of liquid heat, his groan low and deep and fierce. "I love you... It's all I know."
He held me against him as our bodies slowed into a tremble, our ragged breaths and the rush of blood in our ears the only sounds filling the large room.
Yes, there had been nightmares here once upon a time, both in dreams and reality that it hardly mattered if you were asleep or awake.
But they could no longer haunt me here from now on.
In the light, the monsters we imagine are revealed to be exactly what they are—imagined.
***
So, what do you guys think?
I know a lot of you had pretty much gone to the same conclusion of what happened all those years ago and while I know that annoys some writers who might go on to change the plot just to prove you wrong (LOL), it confirms for me that you are following the plot closely enough and putting yourself in the characters' shoes to figure out what they could've have possibly gone through.
For those wondering if Cassandra is going to make an appearance in this story at all, yes, she is in the last couple of chapters. It's not going to be a very prominent one because I don't want her and Sebastian to overshadow this story. It was bad enough that I had to shape this plot on the basis of their story but that's what happens when you plan to write one story and then decide to make it into a series later.
Anyways, hope you enjoy this closure. More to come next week!
XOXO,
Ninya
♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: You by Keaton Henson ♪♪♪
If you must wait,
Wait for them here in my arms as I shake
If you must weep,
Do it right here in my bed as I sleep
If you must mourn, my love
Mourn with the moon and the stars up above
If you must mourn,
Don't do it alone
If you must leave,
Leave as though fire burns under your feet
If you must speak,
Speak every word as though it were unique
If you must die, sweetheart
Die knowing your life was my life's best part
And if you must die,
Remember your life
You are
You are
Oh, you are
You are
Oh
If you must fight,
Fight with yourself and your thoughts in the night
If you must work,
Work to leave some part of you on this earth
If you must live, darling one,
Just live
Just live
Just live