I shook my head quickly. “I wasn’t! I was most certainly not going to say ‘aw’. That was amazing, thank you.”
“You should read the night of your sixteenth birthday. Or the day you graduated from high school. Or the night you went out with Philip Jacobs.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think I want to relive my sixteenth birthday. And I know I don’t want to relive the three hours with Philip Jacobs. Yech.”
Jared smiled. “I could read it to you. And I’ll leave out the parts you don’t want to hear.”
I leaned back against him, settling in to hear my life through Jared’s eyes.
I was amazed at how much he loved me for so long, and how he fought the sometimes insufferable longing to speak to me. There were parts that were difficult to listen to, and parts that — if I had wanted to interrupt him, which I didn’t — I wanted him to go back and read again.
He skipped to the entry he wrote the day of my high school graduation. He wrote how proud of me he was, and how beautiful I looked in my cap in gown. He spoke of how happy I felt and wondered where my college years would take us. Jared wrote a lot about being worried that once we gained distance between us and Gabe and Jack, that he would introduce himself.
His eyes clouded over as he read to me his fears that I would fall in love with someone at college, and the unknown reaction he would have watching me be with someone in that way. I learned how devastated he was at the prospect that I would never know how much he loved me, and how he dreaded the day I got married and had children with someone else. Jared’s voice broke as he read the words.
When he turned to the entry on the day that my father died, tears welled up in my eyes as he described watching Gabe fade away. Jared’s hand tangled in mine as he spoke of the moment he stood a few feet away from me, watching me sob on the bench. When the bus left the curb, the fight in him to stay away from me was gone. The tone of the pages changed significantly after that.
Jared smiled as he cited the joy he felt every time he ran into me, the expressions and feelings I would have, and how it felt the first time I’d said his name.
“Read what you wrote today,” I smiled.
“I will later. The rain stopped,” he said, shutting the book.
I looked up as I listened for the rain, but the only sounds were the intermittent dripping from the roof and the fronds of the palm trees, and the birds singing brightly just outside the cabin.
“What’s the plan?” I asked, sitting up and stretching.
“Why don’t you show Cynthia around the village?”
I smiled at his selfless suggestion, kissing him before I made my way to my mother’s cabin. She was drying her chair with a towel, a book in her other hand.
“Hello, Dear,” she said. Her sunglasses moved up with her smile.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go to the village with me. It’s really eclectic. I think you’d like it,” I said, resting my arms on the wooden railing.
Cynthia sat in her chair and opened her book. I knew the answer before she’d given it.
She smiled politely as she always did before she diplomatically turned down an offer. “I think I’ll just relax here, Nina. Why don’t you and Jared go exploring?”
“We’ve been almost everywhere,” I shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”
Cynthia didn’t look up from her book. “I’m sure. Go have fun.”
I clambered up the railing and leaned far over it to land a kiss on her cheek. She simply grinned and continued reading.
Jared waited for me outside his cabin. “No dice, huh?” he said, opening his arms to hold me.
“She’s never been this way. I don’t understand it,” I said, pressing my cheek against his chest.
“She just misses Jack,” he reassured me. “What do you say we rent one of those cycles from the village and take a ride up the coast…try to find a village we haven’t seen, yet?”
I smiled enthusiastically and nodded.
Jared took turn after turn, indiscriminate of dirt or paved roads. A few huts came into view, and moments later we were in more of a town than a village. It looked like it might have been one of the more populated places on the island. Jared parked the bike and we walked along a cobble stone road. The buildings were less primitive than in the village we frequented.
The sunlight began to wane when Jared squeezed my hand. “We should head back. It’s going to be dark soon.”
I sighed, sad that another perfect day was over. Just as we turned around, a bell began to ring. I turned my attention in the direction of the beautiful tolling and noticed a group of people standing together on a street corner a block away, staring in the same direction.
“Let’s go,” I said, tugging on Jared’s hand. “I want to see what all the commotion is about.”
Half way down the road, a bright white chapel came into view. I gasped as I watched a newly married couple walk slowly down the steep rock steps to the small crowd that cheered, chanted and sang. Soon, they all began singing the same, happy song.
The group followed the couple down the street, clapping and singing in unison. The bell tolled a few more times and, as if on purpose, rang one last time before the last of the joyful procession disappeared.
I looked back to the chapel, hypnotized by its beauty. It stood taller than the other buildings with its meager two stories.
“Do you want to look inside?” Jared asked, gently tugging on my hand.
“I don’t think so. I just want to stay here.”
“Okay,” Jared murmured, obviously curious at my emotions.
I couldn’t explain it, but I felt a bit weepy. It was as if the building had spoken to me, asking me to stay a bit longer. Jared wrapped his arms around my middle, touching his lips to my hair. I felt the sweat bead on the skin of my back that pressed against his chest.
“What is it?” Jared asked after several moments.
“It’s just so beautiful,” I said, my voice breaking.
“No…there’s something….” he said, clearly confused by my mixed emotions.
I leaned my head back against his chest. “We’re going to get married in this chapel.”
“Right now?” Jared asked. I turned to scold him for mocking me, but he had a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
My grimace instantly turned into an appreciative grin. “I’d like to come back here…when the time comes.”
Jared’s irises glowed with the same azure blue as the sea. “I would travel to the ends of the earth to marry you.”
He grazed the line of my jaw with his thumb and pressed his lips against mine. I melted against him. Jared’s grip tightened as he sensed my elation, and my imagination transformed my clothes into a white dress and Jared’s khaki shorts and t-shirt into a suit.
“We’d better get back,” he said, looking up at the dark clouds rolling in from the horizon.
I nodded, and he led me away from our chapel. I watched it as we walked down the block until it disappeared behind the palm trees.
Friday morning came too soon, and Jared became the authoritative personality he transformed into when organizing the progression of our things from one point to another. Once in the air, Jared put his hand on mine.
“You’ve been quiet all morning. You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“I wasn’t ready. It went by too fast,” I murmured, looking out the window of the plane.
“We’ll take another vacation soon. The moment you finish your last final, I’ll have Robert take us to the airport and we’ll get on a plane…just you and me. Somewhere with air conditioning,” Jared promised, kissing my hand.
I sighed and nodded. Even though the prospect was infinitely appealing, I couldn’t rise above the morose I felt.
Jared lifted my chin to look into my eyes, appraising my mood for a moment. He seemed to deliberate something, finally pressing his lips together. “I was going to wait, but I think I should give this to you now,” he said,
