By: Amy Harmon
Available: June 15, 2015
Cover by: Hang Le
She said I was like a song. Her favorite song. A song isn’t something you can see. It’s something you feel, something you move to, something that disappears after the last note is played.
I won my first fight when I was eleven years old, and I’ve been throwing punches ever since. Fighting is the purest, truest, most elemental thing there is. Some people describe heaven as a sea of unending white. Where choirs sing and loved ones await. But for me, heaven was something else. It sounded like the bell at the beginning of a round, it tasted like adrenaline, it burned like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It looked like the blur of screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood.
For me, heaven was the octagon.
Until I met Millie, and heaven became something different. I became something different. I knew I loved her when I watched her stand perfectly still in the middle of a crowded room, people swarming, buzzing, slipping around her, her straight dancer’s posture unyielding, her chin high, her hands loose at her sides. No one seemed to see her at all, except for the few who squeezed past her, tossing exasperated looks at her unsmiling face. When they realized she wasn’t normal, they hurried away. Why was it that no one saw her, yet she was the first thing I saw?
If heaven was the octagon, then she was my angel at the center of it all, the girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim. The girl who taught me that sometimes the biggest heroes go unsung and the most important battles are the ones we don’t think we can win.
I won my first fight when I was eleven years old, and I’ve been throwing punches ever since. Fighting is the purest, truest, most elemental thing there is. Some people describe heaven as a sea of unending white. Where choirs sing and loved ones await. But for me, heaven was something else. It sounded like the bell at the beginning of a round, it tasted like adrenaline, it burned like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It looked like the blur of screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood.
For me, heaven was the octagon.
Until I met Millie, and heaven became something different. I became something different. I knew I loved her when I watched her stand perfectly still in the middle of a crowded room, people swarming, buzzing, slipping around her, her straight dancer’s posture unyielding, her chin high, her hands loose at her sides. No one seemed to see her at all, except for the few who squeezed past her, tossing exasperated looks at her unsmiling face. When they realized she wasn’t normal, they hurried away. Why was it that no one saw her, yet she was the first thing I saw?
If heaven was the octagon, then she was my angel at the center of it all, the girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim. The girl who taught me that sometimes the biggest heroes go unsung and the most important battles are the ones we don’t think we can win.
**This is David ‘Tag’ Taggert's book, a supporting character introduced in The Law of Moses. This is a stand-alone story.
Every book I've read of Amy Harmon's has touched me in one way or another. The message I've taken from them are always different, but powerful just the same. This book, it hit so close to home for me though. The reason??
I'm losing my sight.
This quote from the book, well it made me cry. Because it's so true and yet, my husband has never once made me feel as though I'm a burden.
"But there’s an extra responsibility that comes with loving someone who will need you in a different way, who will rely on you in a different way."
But enough about me...on to the real reason you're reading this, the book review!
Millie was a character who immediately touched my heart. Not because of her blindness but in spite of it. She was such a strong and resilient character. And I loved her with Tag. They were the perfect couple, even when they weren't. She was exactly who he needed in his life after all that he had been and continued to go through.
Tag has fought so many demons, as you are aware of if you've read The Law of Moses. He has been struggling with demons from his past until he forms an unlikely friendship with Moses. They are from completely different worlds, but the bound they share is a strong one. I loved seeing the support system Tag had because of that relationship with Moses. And I especially liked all the crap Henry gave him!
I also loved getting more of Moses and Georgia. Their book was a favorite of mine, so it was nice getting more of them and to see where they were at in life now. Definitely the the icing on the cake of an already amazing read.
I stopped a foot from her and reached
out, taking one of her hands in mine. “Do you like this song?” I asked.
Obviously she did and obviously I was stupid.
“I
love this song.”
“Me
too,” I whispered. I reached for her other hand.
“Accidental Babies.”
“What?”
I tugged her hands gently, and she took a step. I was so close now that the top
of her head provided a shelf for my chin, and Damien’s song was being drowned
out by the sound of my heart.
“It’s
another one of his songs. . . and I think I love it even more,” she whispered
back.
“But
that song is so sad,” I breathed, and laid my cheek against her hair.
“That’s
what makes it beautiful. It’s devastating. I love it when a song devastates
me.” Her voice was thready, as if she was struggling to breathe.
“Ah,
the sweet kind of suffering.” I dropped her hands and wrapped my arms around
her.
“The
best kind.” Her voice hitched as our bodies aligned.
“I’ve
been suffering for a while now, Millie.”
“You
have?” she asked, clearly amazed.
“Since
the moment I saw you. It devastated me. And I love when a girl devastates me.”
I was using her definition of the word, but the truth was, my sister was the
only girl who had ever devastated me, and it hadn’t been sweet agony.
“I’ve
never devastated anyone before,” Millie said faintly, shock and pleasure
coloring her words. She still stood with her arms at her sides, almost like she
couldn’t believe what was happening. But her lips hovered close to my jaw, as
if she was enjoying the tension between almost and not quite.
“I’m
guessing you’ve left a wake of destruction,” I whispered. “You just don’t
know.”
Finally,
as if she couldn’t resist any longer, she raised her hands to my waist.
Trembling fingers and flat palms slid across my abdomen, up my chest, past my
shoulders, progressing slowly as if she memorized as she moved. Then she
touched my face and her thumbs found the cleft in my chin, the way they’d done
the first time she’d traced my smile. Hesitantly, she urged my face down toward
hers. A heartbeat before our mouths touched she spoke, and the soft words
fluttered against my lips.
“Are
you going to devastate me, David?” she asked.
“God,
I hope not,” I prayed aloud.
Anticipation
dissolved the lingering space between us, and I pressed needy lips to her
seeking mouth. And then we melded together, hands clinging, bodies surging,
music moaning, dancing in the wreckage. Sweet, sweet, devastation.
“Too
late . . .” I thought I heard her whisper.
Buy the song on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/song-of-david-single/id998774568
Music & Lyrics by Amy Harmon and Paul Travis – Song of David: iTunes
Music Video:
Created by Focus 4 Productions
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Amy Harmon is a USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in several countries, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.
Amy Harmon has written seven novels - the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, Infinity + One and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Law of Moses, is now available. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com
Amy Harmon has written seven novels - the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, Infinity + One and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Law of Moses, is now available. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com
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