Page 98 of The Time It Takes
Through a breath, he whispered, “I love you.”
My nose bumped his. “I love you,” I breathed. “I love you,” I said again, that time to make sure the world heard me.
WE WENT TO PROM, and we danced and laughed with our friends. I realized I was beginning to feel a lot of firsts.
I was happy. I was truly happy.
Everything was undeniably wonderful. I was in love with someone who reciprocated all of it. I had the best friends in the whole world.
The only thing missing was my mother, but I couldn’t seem to miss her as much when I was surrounded by so much love. I’d done so many things without her in my life. If any of it would have turned out differently if she were around, I wouldn't want it. Not anymore.
Ben was both my brother and my parent. He taught me most things in life and for him, I would dedicate my future.
I was nearly blinded by all the lights being turned on when I’d been crouched in a dark room for so long. These were my people. This was my family. This was my home, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Instead of attending the after-prom party, we all decided to head to the beach. We continued to talk and share the memories we had with each other. Senior year was coming to an end and who knew where life planned to take us next. The thought of being apart from any of them made my soul ache.
But at that moment, in the arms of Oliver, watching the smiles on my friends’ faces and the sounds of their voices, I had never been as grateful as I was right then.
I tilted my head back against Oliver’s chest where we sat in the sand. My eyes went to the stars, where I knew my father was watching over me.
Thank you, I mouthed toward the sky.
Only then did it start to rain, and it was anything but a slow drizzle. It poured out of nowhere. A smile broke across my face as my friends ran toward my house for shelter.
Oliver knew me better than that. He simply stood and took my hand. We danced to the sound of the universe’s magic until our feet ached.
Then he lifted me off the ground and kissed me until our lips did too.
Chapter Nineteen
Present
It’sbeenwindyallday and the waves are choppy, so I should have known better. I only got to surf once before the force of the tide wiped me out. I was too distracted to do it correctly or safely. I hardly felt it when my thigh scraped across the coral reef. I didn’t really notice it until I was walking back to shore, and I could feel the stinging burn on my skin. Honestly, It could have been much worse.
A hiss leaves my lips as I sit on the sand. It’s the hour when the sun has already set, yet the world is still bright enough to see. The golden hue dwindled into a pale orange. In the sky, I can already see the stars appearing as if waiting for me to make a wish on one of them.
All I do is think about how my day has completely flipped. How could such a good morning lead to this?
Time. Changes. Everything. Yet, in my heart, absolutely nothing.
I know what I want now—who I want, but I’m not a kid anymore. I can’t jump into something without thinking it through. It’s not only my heart on the line. It never is.
I’m still made up of all the things I’ve done to escape my fears. Deep down I’ll always be the girl that ran away from the storm when I used to be the one who ran into it. I would continue to be that girl until I showed everyone otherwise. I truly am my mother’s daughter. It fills me with distaste because she was always someone I never wanted to become.
Absent.
I skate my fingers through my hair as I breathe in the smell of salt and listen to the sound of seagulls being fed by a family down the beach.
Oliver was going to marry her.
It’s hard to believe his mind has changed so swiftly. It’s insane how forgiving he is to me as if there was a switch he could flip. Phoebe was right when she said they could be happy together. I know they could, but that doesn’t stop me from being selfish. I want him all to myself and not because I don’t want him to belong to anyone else, but because for some reason I know we’ve never stopped being each other’s. Thathasto mean something.
I was nothing more than the chaos of a woman who once was soft.
There's movement in my peripheral, letting me know someone is sitting down next to me in the sand. His scent envelopes me immediately, soothing my chilled skin.
He found me.
