“Yes. It will be soon.”
“Are you scared?” she asks. She’s asked this before, and the answer is still the same. I’m not scared. I’m sad. I’m sad to leave her and everyone I love, but this is part of the cycle; something that must be done. I know I need to put on a brave face for her; after all, she’s the one being left behind now. I’ll be gone and if George doesn’t get his shit together, she won’t have him either. I do know if she stays here in Warm Springs, the Mercers will watch out for her. And if she’s ready to forgive her family, she could go home, but I know that’s not what she wants. She loves it here . . . or she did. She loved the feeling of home, the people, the magic of a small town filled with tranquility and beauty.
“No. I’m not scared. But . . . I will miss you. I’m in love with you, ya know.”
A sob breaks free from her that tears at my insides. “I feel like I shouldn’t tell you these things, but I don’t know how I can’t. You, you gave me peace, Charlotte . . . in so many ways. I can never thank you enough for that.” Tears form in my eyes as she sobs, pulling her knees up and hugging them, hiding her face from me.
I’m desperate for a way to ease her pain, so I tell her, “Lie down.”
She looks up at me, eyes red and swollen, and her lip trembling. “What?”
“I want to try something. Will you lie down?” She does as I ask, tears streaming down her cheeks onto her neck. “Close your eyes, please.” After a long glance that tells me she doesn’t want to but says she will do as I’ve asked because she trusts me, and she closes her eyes. I have no idea if what I’m about to do will work, or help in any way, but I have to try. “Remember when we talked about our first date?”
Her mouth curves slightly. “And our first kiss,” she adds.
“And the first time we made love.”
“It would’ve been right here.”
“And I would carve I & C in a heart on that big tree back there.” Her smile falters as the what could have been thought hits her. “Live those thoughts with me now.” Her brows furrow and she’s about to open her eyes, but I tell her not to. “From the beginning, imagine it with me. It’s as close as we’ll ever get to the real thing, but I swear I’ll take it all with me. It’ll be real to me.”
Tears break free from her closed eyes and she nods twice to let me know she’s ready to begin. “You start.”
I stand and move beside her. She’s beautiful. Her dark hair is fanned out around her head, the tips reaching over the blanket and resting on the brittle, fallen leaves surrounding her perfect form. “You’d be at work and I’d show up with flowers,” I begin as I lie down beside her, joining my hand with hers. It’s the closest I’ll ever be to touching her. But as I continue speaking, something miraculous happens. I see myself through her eyes. And I feel as though our souls are connected. Staring across at her, I smile, my heart full with tranquility. A part of me will always be present, through her.
I have no idea how he’s doing it, but somehow as I imagine what he says, the visual feels so real and has so much more depth to it than I could create on my own. His soft voice smoothly guides me through every event. We’re in the restaurant and he approaches me with lilies; my favorite. His smile is polite. Warm and genuine.
The way he asks me out plays out exactly the way we discussed. “Date by ambush,” I chuckle as we imagine having dinner and laughing in a back corner booth at Ike and George’s. “You could have at least let me go back to the room to change.”
“Nah,” he disagrees. “You look beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.”
I smile sadly. As lovely as this is—imagining this with him—it hurts.
“Don’t,” he warns softly. “I need you right here with me, baby girl. We don’t have long. There’s plenty of time to be sad later.”
Before I can argue, he continues narrating. We’re standing before each other in front of my motel room. The night is chilly and I’m wearing his jacket. I tug it around me and pull the shoulder to my face. It smells exactly how I imagine he’d smell. “Your scent is amazing,” I say.
“It’s the cologne I used to wear,” he tells me. And I bask in the delicious fragrance of his manly, warm scent.
My gaze meets his, his soft brown eyes looking at me like I’m a jewel. And in that moment, I don’t feel strange at all. I feel treasured. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers. Then he gently places his hands on my face, his long fingers splayed across each of my cheeks, before our lips meet in a tender kiss. The night breeze causes goose bumps on my arms and back, and I cherish his warm mouth. He has given me a rare gift, something I never thought I’d have. The kiss is soft and sweet and it goes on and on until our surroundings seem to swirl and we’re sitting hand in hand in the dining room of his parents’ house. We’re seated side by side as we laugh with his family. Cameron is telling a joke that has us all in stitches.