Page 116 of Yours, For Good

I loved him.

He was worth the grief, because I loved him.

"Fuck," I muttered, and cried harder. "Yes."

My love for him crashed into me like water on the shore. It rippled and changed the territory of my chest. The sea had always been there but, until I mourned him, I had confused it for a lake in the distance.

I had looked at the horizon far away, and thought it was all calm and unmoving.

I closed my eyes, and saw the tiny smile he would give me if I told him he had been right. This is what I needed to go through to know.

"You said love is loaned and— it is." Sally's voice interrupted my reverie. She tilted her head in a challenge. "But why on earth would you pay the interest before you had to?"

I laugh-snorted. "I don't ever want to pay back the loan, but…"

I fished a tissue out of my pocket, blinked away the last few tears, and cleaned up.

"I don't have a choice in what people do," I said, "or if accidents happen… but I still have agency today in what I do about it all. If I grieve now when I don't have to, then I'm accountable for that pain— I'm the one causing it."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to start with a text."

Sally stayed in the call while I crafted the simple message.

Nora: I miss you

Javier: I miss you, too.

Nora: Can we talk?

I didn't hear from Javier again, so I chatted a bit more with Sally before she had to go. His lack of a reply didn't bother me; he might have been working and waited for a break to text me back. Maybe we'd get to talk that night after office hours. Not that he had a strict schedule, but people depended on him, and he wouldn't drop them if they needed him.

A smile stretched on my face, because the thought came with zero doubts.

It was fine. I could wait. My anger was gone. The ocean of love inside had settled, but cresting waves or not, the sea couldn't be shaken away. She would stay there, infinitely deep.

All I cared about was that when I finally got to tell him I was ready to go back and be one hundred percent in, I could see every detail of his reaction. I wanted to record it in my heart forever. Make it into one of the nerves pulsing little shocks to the organ, to remind it to keep a constant rhythm.

Sigh. I was so in love with him. Knowing for sure felt amazing.

I walked back to Lock Willow and gave Mrs. Semple a genuine smile for no reason.

"Oh, I'm so happy to see you smiling," she said. "You looked full of malaise this morning for breakfast."

"I'm happy to announce the malaise is gone, which reminds me… we may need to talk business soon. I may leave ahead of schedule, Mistress Semple."

"Let me guess." She gave me a knowing smile. "New York?"

"How much more would you like me if I told you Javier and I are in love?"

She laughed. "My dear, you already have my esteem. I'm happy for you both."

I excused myself and decided I could use the helium filling my lungs to be productive. The library made for a great setting; I tried to start on a draft for a job description, but quickly got distracted. I spent the next couple of hours looking for commercial rentals in Manhattan and, when that was way more expensive than I had originally budgeted for, expanded my search to nearby areas. It didn't discourage me; I could make it work with a simple train ride. Quite the cosmopolitan life I would lead…

"Nora."

The screen before me disappeared. I straightened in my chair like a meerkat hearing a distant sound, and regretted I faced the wall and not the door behind me.