I keep trying. “You said once that you like talking around me. So… talk to me. It can be about anything. Just talk to me.”
She carefully moves the next snail out of harm’s way, but as she does, I see the pink sapphire necklace around her neck, the jewel glimmering in the dim light. I almost forget where I am as understanding hits me.
Laura.
Is that why she isn’t talking to me, too? Maybe… maybe this Marley is still hurting.
I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t want to push too far. That Marley had to be ready on her own. This Marley does too.
So, not knowing what else to do, I bend over and pick up a snail, moving it out of harm’s way while I just stay with her in the silence. Waiting. Hoping she’ll talk to me when she’s ready.
40
Marley’s mom has off on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I try to fill my time until Friday with as many distractions as possible.
I go to breakfast in the mornings with my mom before she goes to work, and physical therapy in the afternoons to work on my leg strength, then right into spending my evenings with Kim and Sam until it’s time to close my eyes again.
On the bright side, her mom having off gives me two whole days to plan my final attempt at breaking down the wall between me and Marley.
Thursday night, Kim and Sam come over with pizza, and the three of us half watch a rerun of Parks and Recreation. I’m staring at my laptop, Sam is staring at Kim, and Kim is… I look up when she nudges my knee, quickly slamming my laptop shut in surprise.
Jumpy much?
I laugh at my overreaction and send her a quick grin before turning my attention back to the TV and acting like I haven’t already seen the “Li’l Sebastian” episode eight times. From my periphery, I see her narrow her eyes at me.
She definitely knows I’m up to something, but she won’t ask me about it with Sam here.
It feels weird not to have told him yet, but after the incident two weeks ago, I didn’t want to jump the gun and tell him anything too soon in case it all turns out to be another disappointment.
I smile to myself, watching the two of them try not to look at each other.
I remember one of my first couple of times at the park with Marley. The way we kept glancing at each other, some unstoppable force moving between us. I can still see her shy smile when we caught eyes, even for just a second.
I reach out, my fingers drumming impatiently on my laptop.
“Well,” Kim says when the episode ends, dusting the pizza crumbs off her leggings. “We better get going.”
She gives Sam a sweet smile. “Want to walk me to my car?”
I’ve never seen that dude move faster. Not even in a championship game. He’s on his feet and ready to go in under a quarter of a second flat.
“See you guys later,” I say, quickly throwing open my laptop the second the door clicks shut.
Luckily, my cart hasn’t timed out yet. I click through the prompts and place my order, a green checkmark appearing on my screen.
This is it. My last hope.
* * *
Three days later, I sit down on a bench in the garden a little before lunchtime, watching the petals of the cherry tree tumble slowly down to the ground. A slight puff of mist wafts over my face from the fountain, and when I look over, my eyes land on a familiar silhouette, sitting on the ledge, long brown hair falling around her face as she looks at her reflection in the water.
Marley. Here to eat her lunch by the fountain, right on time.
I stand and walk carefully over, looking down to see my face reflected next to hers, just like it was that day at the pond.
She closes her eyes and ducks her head, and I wonder if it’s seeing us side by side that is freaking her out. It feels a little surreal to me, too.
“I just have one more thing to say, and then if you want me to, I’ll walk away,” I say, watching as tiny droplets ripple across the water. “I’m trying… not to be such a control freak anymore. So if it’s what you want, I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”
I take a deep breath, collecting myself, and start in on the words I’ve finally found. I don’t know if they’re the right ones, but they’re mine. “Of all the sleeping people you could have talked to in that hospital, you chose me,” I say. “I have to believe it was for a reason. The same reason that I couldn’t help but hear you, Marley.”
I turn to look at her, taking in her profile. The freckles on her nose. The circles around her eyes, the bright hazel I remember, still tired, dulled. I want to take this weight from her, but she has to give it to me. I know that now. “We were meant to find each other. And now here we are. Together, but… not.”
I think of the two of us tumbling onto the grass at the park, the kite drifting away. Of our kiss under the mistletoe at the Winter Festival, Marley’s cheeks a deep, rosy red from the cold. How it felt to just hold her hand, her fingers enclosed safely in mine.
“There was a place where I loved you, a place you built with your words, and the happiness we shared was as real as anything here in the real world,” I say, my heart beating unsteadily in my chest. “We knew each other there. Because we talked to each other. We told each other everything. And I fell in love with you—the heart of you. The you in your stories. That Marley—you couldn’t have just made her up. I’m ready to start our story over, at the very beginning, if you’ll just give me a chance to make you happy.”
I notice tears welling up in her eyes, see her breathing through it, fighting them off.
I want to know what’s going on in her head, why she’s fighting so hard. Why she’s hiding.
She takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling.
Finally she whispers a single word.
“No.”
I’m so ecstatic just to hear her voice again that I almost don’t register the meaning. Then my lungs collapse in on themselves, that one word pushing all the air out of me.
“I can’t,” she adds, her voice scratchy, barely audible. “I can’t be happy.”
Her words from that last night come back to me all at once.