“As cliché as it sounds, I wouldn’t change a single thing that’s happened. I did everything I did with love and I have to have faith in the fact that my decisions shaped my life.”
Alice laughs a little, tossing an elbow into my side, mocking my cheesiness with a roll of her eyes. I get how stupid I sound, but every word is true.
“Without any of this shit do you think we’d have the relationship we have?” I now ask her, knowing my relationship with Elliot wasn’t the only thing I found.
“Fuck no. You were impossible to deal with,” she quips back, and even though I know she’s joking, it’s hard not to let her words affect me.
“Probably true, but you weren’t all that easy either.”
“We’d lost our mother and our dad had no idea how to deal with it, how to raise two teenage girls, how to cope with grief and death. I’d say we came out pretty good.”
“It just took us a while to get here,” I add, resting my head against her shoulder.
She nods, and we sit together listening to the waves lap at the shore. The sound is far more soothing than I expected it to be.
“Look,” Alice says, pointing where the wedding is being set up. The arbor where the ceremony will take place, lights up in the darkness.
“It’s going to be beautiful,” I respond, taking in a long slow breath.
“It will be.”
We stay for a little while longer, not talking, neither of us needing to fill the silence. Both of us are finding comfort in the quiet stillness of the night and the recognition of our closeness now. Without Alice I’m not sure where I’d be. She’s been the guiding force in every decision I’ve made over the last year and for that I’m forever grateful.
“You ready?” she asks now, linking her arm through mine.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Elliot
My bare feet sink into the sand, the coolness of it soothing and at once, both familiar and foreign. Almost instantly, my mind goes back to that night fourteen years ago, on this very beach. The night that changed my life forever.
My memories are so fucking vivid, almost as though it happened yesterday. Seeing her at the party, a party I never intended on going to but am forever grateful I did, regardless of how everything played out afterward. The stupid fucking pick-up line I used on her, and the way she laughed at me and just went with it anyway. Taking her down to the beach, this beach, and realizing just how much I wanted her as we talked and laughed.
The easy silence that surrounded us both, as though we were both so comfortable with each other already. And then the sounds we made when we really connected and couldn’t hold back any longer.
I close my eyes, my mind going back to that dark night beside my tower, all the things she made me feel, all the things she made me want. And then how it felt to find her gone the next morning. The crushing pain that came with losing someone I instinctively knew was the other half of me. The pain that didn’t disappear with each passing year that I looked for her.
And then the joy of finding her again, of being with her again. Only to have it all come crashing down once more. Harder this time, I think, because we knew how to find each other, we just didn’t know how to make it work.
It was supposed to be easy, being together, especially after we’d looked for each other for so long. We’d already done the hard part, for thirteen years, we’d both suffered through losing what we knew was something powerful and beautiful. The rest should’ve been easy. We deserved that.
But life is never easy, and our story is a perfect example of that. Not just the thirteen years apart, but the expectations and judgement from all the people who knew us. And all the people who didn’t.
The world thinks they know our story just because they read Nora’s book. But I’ve lived our story and while there are elements of the truth in everything she wrote, it’s not the whole truth, it never will be.
Only we know that truth.
She never did write the second part in the end and I will be forever grateful, despite the heartache it caused us. Because as much as I know it’s her first story that brought us back together again, I didn’t want to share what that reconnection then looked like with the rest of the world. What we had was private, no matter how much she tried to fictionalize it.
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes, my hands sliding into my pockets as my eyes focus on the dusky skyline. I glance down the beach and smile before turning back to the horizon in front of me.
Waiting.
My heart pounds in my chest at everything that’s come before this moment. All of the good times and all of the bad times. All of them have brought us to this. This time and this place. This beach and this moment.
“You ready?”
My smile widens at the question, even though it’s not directed at me, as I wait for them to turn and see me.
As soon as they do, Nora gasps while Alice lets out a squeal before covering Nora’s eyes. “You aren’t supposed to see her.”
I burst out laughing as I step closer. “Then why are you covering her eyes, Alice? Because I can still see her, you know?”
Nora laughs as she pulls Alice’s hand away from her eyes. Turning, she pulls her sister into her arms and gives her a warm hug. “Give us a minute?” I hear her ask.
Alice nods in response as she pulls back, smiling affectionately at her sister. She walks toward me, that smile now directed at me as she squeezes my arm once. “Don’t take too long,” she says with a smirk.
“We won’t. Can you let Matt know I’ll be there in a sec?”
Alice tips her head once before she walks off, leaving the two of us alone.
Here. On this beach.
Smiling, I walk toward Nora, my arms slipping around her waist as I pull her to me. “Couldn’t resist, huh?”
She smiles, almost shyly as her arms wrap around my neck and she looks up at me. “You either?”
Grinning, I lean down to brush my lips against hers. “I missed you,” I whisper against her mouth.
Nora half laughs, half sighs. “You saw me this morning,” she murmurs, brushing her mouth against mine again.
“I know, but that was ages ago,” I say, knowing that every minute apart feels like a lifetime to me.
Nora’s smile widens, even as she presses up on her toes to kiss me again, deeper this time. I surrender myself to her, getting lost in this kiss, this moment, this woman. This woman I’ve spent nearly half of my life searching for.
“You wanna recreate that night again,” I whisper against her lips, remembering the other thing that happened that night.
Nora giggles. “I wish,” she breathes out. “But people are waiting for us.”
I sigh, knowing she’s right. “After then?”
Her fingers slide into my hair, holding me close. “I could be talked into that.”
Now it’s me grinning against her mouth, my tongue tracing her bottom lip, teasing her. She lets out a soft groan, her fingers tightening. “Elliot…”
I force myself to pull back, my breathing a little ragged. “Did you leave it?” I ask, tilting my head in the direction of my old tower.
Nora smiles. “Why don’t you go find out.”