Excerpt: The Last Page (Working Title until I come up with something better)

Ryan Cooper never cried.

It wasn't that he couldn't cry, or found himself too manly to ever shed a tear in privacy, it was just that he had never really had a reason to do so. What need did a man have to cry when he could have anything and everything he ever wanted? He had total control over his life, of his destiny. All he had to do was open his book, cross out what fate had alloted for him, and write his own life.

Yes, Ryan Cooper wrote his own life. Because of this, he had always been special, lucky. Anything and everything he ever wanted was attainable. He was incapable of making mistakes, at least lasting ones. For him, destiny was relative and malleable. If he didn't like the way the fates had written his future for him, he rewrote it. If the day transpired in such a way that he disliked, he could move back in time and start over. He had never had a reason to cry.

Until now.

Ryan stared down at the book in his hands, knowning that this was the one thing he could never change. He would have glady given everything he had ever had, he would have gladly renounced even his ability to write his own future, just to be able to make this one tiny change. He would give up everything, anything, for just one more chance to have her in his life...everything except her happiness, of course. And that is what the change would cost.

He slammed the book closed and held it between his hands, his knuckles whitening as he resisted the urge to tear the book to shreds or throw it out the window. Nothing could be changed now, nothing could help. He had already made his decision. He really only had one choice.

A single tear rolled down his cheek towards his lip and he was surprised by the warm, salty flavor of crying. A second tear soon followed, and a third, and for the first time in his life, Ryan Cooper broke down into tears.

It was the right thing to do. The only thing he could do.