“Oh,” he let out, staring at their connected hands. “I’m sorry we never got there.” The remorse was thick in his voice.
“It was just one of those things, Callum. Things we said because we were young and dumb. We thought we were invincible. But the truth of it all was that we were na?ve and high on love and the belief of forever. We were teenagers who thought we could outplay the universe.”
Callum looked down at their hands before he said, “The universe outplayed us in the end.”
The sad look in his eyes could break her heart all over again. She didn’t want this to be sad. She wanted a few good memories. Ones that would keep her company at night. Ones that would guide her through the shadows and into the light. Peyton pulled her hand from his and placed it on his shoulder. Then Callum’s eyes met hers before her hand mirrored her previous actions.
“Hold me, please,” she said.
Callum nodded. “All night I will.”
That made her smile. She wrapped her arms around the back of his head and sat in his lap. That’s when she felt him touch her there, but she didn’t want them to make love in the tub. She wanted him in her sheets for the last time. Then she pulled his ear to her chest, allowing him to hear her heart beat for him.
She didn’t care that this embrace was eating away the seconds, the minutes they had left. This was a sometimes moments. Hers. His. Theirs. No one would ever take this exact moment away. She knew what sometimes moments were. They were a beautiful way of hiding the fact that sometimes doesn’t mean forever. That sometimes leads to ‘The End.’ Their end.
Sometimes moments would keep her living in denial for the rest of her life, and she was okay with it. Because sometimes was what she would have and hold on to. This time, she was sure she couldn’t have a life after Callum. He had marked her further. There would be no man after him. It was Callum or no man at all for her heart. It was a choice her brain had agreed upon.
“Callum,” she said as she closed her eyes.
“Yes, Peyton.”
She held him closer to her chest. “I don’t think I could love anyone as hard, as strong, as pure, as intense, or as heartbreakingly as I love you. You should know that I’ve only ever wanted to love you.”
Callum’s arms wrapped around her back and held her tight. “I’ve only ever wanted to love just you. I only loved just you. I will only love just you—all of you, Peyton. When I leave, you’ll be the one my heart loves more than anything that has breathed or existed.”
Peyton didn’t even try to hold back her tears as her heart began to crumble. “You’ll find her,” she whispered, letting go of the hope that it could have been her.
Callum shook his head against her breasts. “I found her when I was a teenager. I found her again almost a month ago. I’m holding her…but I have to let her go.”
He has to let me go… I have to let him go. I have to let him be free.
Peyton untangled her arms and placed both her hands on the side of his head, pulling him up to face her.
She took a deep breath.
And then exhaled.
She let her heart beat twice before she said, “If you ever need me, I will be right here. Maybe, one day, you’ll find your way to me again. I will be here, right where you left me. We don’t have to talk. We could just exchange glances and then you leave, knowing that it’s enough for us. I’ll hope for those stolen glances.”
I’ll hope for forever someday. I’ll hope for forever in our next lives. I’ll ask God for his love in our next lives, too. I’ll ask him for Callum to love me until the very end of existence.
The sun lit her bedroom brightly and beautifully, like it were mocking them. Like the sun knew of the end the exact same way it gave the moon the space to glow above the skies. But unlike the sun, they would never have another rise. It was their sunset for good. Her world would soon be consumed by black, no light from the moon to guide the waves to shore and no sun to warm her body. Just black. They had moments left of their time together.
They had both been awake long before the sun had risen but both had stayed quiet, their hands touching and their fingers circling—whatever they could do to make the other know that they weren’t alone just yet.
Each breath Callum made she considered her favourite until he made another. Each heartbeat that thumped against her ear was memorised. With each circle he made, the pattern was engrained into her skin. Each squeeze of her arm was cherished. It was all about memorising, waiting to feel, hear, touch, and breathe the last of them.
Last night was the last time they’d make love. If they were to do so now, it’d make goodbye much harder. Every inch of pleasure, every moan, groan, pant, and whisper of love was sent directly to her heart. They had loved harder than they had before. They had cried more. They had reached euphoria for the last time in each other’s arms. It had been a perfect ending. It had been the perfect last time.