“He’s in love with me, too.”
“I know. I see the way he looks at you.”
“Do you think I’m too young to be in love?”
“That’s not for me to say. Do you think you’re too young?”
I suppose I should have expected her to turn the question around on me. “Part of me knows I love him, but there’s this other voice in my head whispering that I can’t possibly know, since I’ve never been in love before.”
“First love is different for everyone. But I think people know it when they feel it.”
“Have you ever been in love?” When she nodded, I was pretty certain she was referring to Gwen, but she didn’t elaborate so I went on. “How do you know for sure it’s love?”
For the first time, she laughed, not at me, but almost for herself. “Poets and musicians and writers and even scientists have been trying to answer that question since Adam and Eve. And keep in mind that for a long time, I was a nun. But if you’re asking me my opinion—and I lean toward the practical, less romantic side—I think it comes down to the past, the present, and the future.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, tilting my head.
“What attracted you to the other person in the past, how did that person treat you in the past, how compatible were you in the past? It’s the same questions in the present, except that a physical longing for the other person is added. The desire to touch and hold and kiss. And if all of the answers make you feel like you never want to be with anyone else, then it’s probably love.”
“My parents are going to be furious when they find out.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
I almost answered on instinct, but when I noticed my aunt had raised her eyebrow, my words caught in my throat. Was I actually going to tell them? Until that moment, I’d just assumed that I would, but even if I did, what did that mean for Bryce and me? In reality? Would we even be able to see each other? In the flurry of those thoughts, I remembered my aunt saying that love came down to the past, present, and…
“What does the future have to do with love?” I asked.
As soon as I asked, I realized that I already knew the answer. My aunt, however, kept her tone almost light.
“Can you see yourself being with the person in the future, for all the reasons you love them now, through all the inevitable challenges that will come to pass?”
“Oh” was all I could muster.
Aunt Linda absently tugged at her ear. “Have you ever heard of Sister Thérèse of Lisieux?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“She was a French nun who lived in the 1800s. She was very holy, one of my heroes, really, and she probably wouldn’t have appreciated my reference about love also coming down to the future. She said, ‘When one loves, one does not calculate.’ She was a lot wiser than I can ever hope to be.”
My aunt Linda really was the best. But despite her comforting words that night, I was troubled and gripped Maggie-bear hard. It was a long time before I fell asleep.
* * *
As a highly skilled procrastinator—which I learned in school, as a result of being required to do boring school stuff—I managed not to think about the conversation with my aunt just yet. Instead, when thoughts of leaving Ocracoke and Bryce surfaced, I tried to remind myself of the when one loves, one does not calculate thing, and usually it worked. In all fairness, my ability to avoid thinking about the subject might have had to do with the fact that Bryce was so irresistibly good-looking and it was pretty easy for me to get lost in the moment.
Whenever Bryce and I were together, my brain kept me in gaga mode, probably because we continued to sneak kisses whenever possible. But in the evenings when I was alone in my room, I could practically hear the clock ticking toward my departure, especially whenever the baby moved. The reckoning was definitely coming, whether I wanted it or not.
The beginning of April found us taking photographs of the lighthouse, where I watched as Bryce changed lenses on the camera under a rainbow sky. Daisy trotted here and there, sniffing the ground and occasionally wandering over to check on him. The weather had warmed and Bryce was wearing a T-shirt. I caught myself staring at the starkly defined muscles in his arms as though they were a hypnotist’s pendulum. I was almost thirty-five weeks pregnant, and I’d had to put the brakes on bicycle riding with Bryce in the mornings, figuratively speaking anyway. I was also becoming more self-conscious about being seen in public. I didn’t want people on the island to assume that Bryce had knocked me up; Ocracoke was, after all, his home.
“Hey, Bryce?” I finally asked.
“Yes?”
“You know I have to go back to Seattle, right? Once I deliver the baby?”
Lifting his eyes from the camera, he gawked at me as though I were wearing a snow cone as a hat. “Really? You’re pregnant and leaving?”
“I’m being serious,” I said.
He lowered the camera. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
“Have you ever thought about what that might mean for us?”
“I’ve thought about it. But can I ask you a question?” When I indicated he could, he went on. “Do you love me?”
“Of course I do,” I said.
“Then we’ll find a way to make it work.”
“I’ll be three thousand miles away. I won’t be able to see you.”
“We can talk on the phone…”
“Long-distance calls are expensive. And even if I can figure out a way to pay for them myself, I’m not sure how often my parents will even let me call. And you’re going to be busy.”
“Then we’ll write to each other, okay?” For the first time, I heard anxiety creeping into his voice. “We’re not the first couple in history that had to figure out the long-distance thing, my parents included. My dad was deployed overseas for months at a time, twice for almost a year. And he travels all the time now.”
But they were married and had children together. “You’re going off to college while I still have two years of high school left.”
“So?”
You might meet someone better. She’ll be smarter and prettier and the two of you will have more in common than we do. I heard the voices in my head but said nothing, and Bryce approached. He touched my cheek, tracing it gently, then leaned in to kiss me, the feeling as light as the air itself. He held me then, neither of us saying anything until I finally heard him sigh.
“I’m not going to lose you,” he whispered, and while I closed my eyes and wanted to believe him, I still wasn’t sure how it would be possible.
* * *
In the days that followed, it seemed like both of us were trying to pretend that the conversation had never happened. And for the first time, there were moments when we were awkward in each other’s presence. I would catch him staring off into the distance and when I asked what he was thinking about, he’d shake his head and force a quick smile, or I’d cross my arms and suddenly sigh and realize that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Though we didn’t talk, our need to touch became even more pronounced. He reached for my hand more frequently and I moved in for a hug whenever fears of the future intruded. When we kissed, his arms held me even tighter, as though clinging to an impossible hope.