Sign Her Letters With X's And O's Novels & Stories

Post-operative sedation. The total is astronomical. The kind of bill that would bankrupt a rising star whose career had just hit a wall. Then, my eyes drop to the bottom of the page, to the section marked Guarantor Signature. I feel the blood drain from my face. There, in the sharp, aggressive script I’ve used since I passed the bar, is my signature. It’s unmistakable. The bold 'O', the sharp 'K', the way I underline the end of my surname with a flourish that suggests a sense of finality.

She lifts her arm with effort, the movement stiff and sluggish and a little bit hurtful. Charles sets the pen in front of her. Brie flips the contract open to the last page, the signing page. "Sign. Your full name. No initials and no rough play." Bethany picks up the pen. Slowly. Her fingers shake. She brings it to the paper. And signs. Every letter. B-E-T-H-A-N-Y W-O-R-T-H with a beautiful flair at the end. Brie’s smile spreads so wide it nearly cracks her face. "Thank you," she says, voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "You just made history."

His power machine is too large for that. Unless the person isn’t insignificant. Unless there is something about Zana that required his personal involvement. Unless this entire setup — bringing her here, staging her as a display of dominance, letting the academy watch her be “handled” — was just the surface of something deeper. I sealed the letter with a mark I used back when I lived in the councilman’s household. A small, specific imprint in the wax. It looked meaningless to anyone else. To the man receiving it, it meant exactly who it came from.

His signature was so shaky it barely looked like his own. Xena was sure he hadn’t even known what he was signing. So after making her threat, she read the entire authorization again—this time aloud. By the end of it, her vision was blurry with tears.

The music was so loud I had to lean in to hear him properly and the movement brought me closer to Lorenzo and I could smell his cologne. I focused on the documents. "See this?" Alfonso pointed to a signature at the bottom of the first page. "Perfect pressure. Perfect stroke pattern. Perfect spacing. Look at the way the J curves here. The way the R connects to the o. The specific angle of the final h." It was my signature, exactly my signature down to the small flourish I always added to the tail of the h because my third grade teacher had told me it looked distinguished and I had been trying to look distinguished ever since.

He was waiting for her to open the door. Scarlett picked up Miller’s silver fountain pen, her hand completely steady as she pressed the nib into the paper, signing her real name—Scarlett Voss—for the first time in a decade.

The ache that hadn’t left since. I didn’t try to make it beautiful. I just made it true. By the time I reached the final line, my hand was shaking so badly I had to pause. My throat felt tight. The ink blotched slightly where my fingers trembled over the period. I signed it simply. Lila. Folding the letter closed felt like I had sealed a part of myself inside. I set it aside. And pulled out another sheet. This one, for Emma. It was shorter, less formal. But harder in some ways.

"Your last chance to refuse." "No." I took the quill. After scanning the glowing, arcane script, I signed my name. The ink flowed from the nib like a living thing. Cassius signed after me, his script as elegant and precise as he was. Finally, Veldrane added his own signature, a sharp, angular mark of power.

A clear sign that her body was longing for his touch. “I signed it with my initials,” she says to herself. She heaves deeply then asks, “What about it?”

The crack was still there. Finally, Henry picked up the yellowed letter. He knew this piece of paper best. A high spirited boy, holding the purest feelings of his life, had written a love letter and reverently handed it to the girl he loved. The handwriting had faded, but the last line was still faintly legible. “Xenia, will you be my girlfriend?” Below it was another neat, delicate word, written in Xenia’s hand. “Yes.” Now, that “Yes” had been crossed out.