“But right now I’m here for you.” Luke reached his hand out and placed it on top of mine. I was still as confused as ever.
“Anyways, as I was saying, I read the note and it was a lot, but I could feel the emotion in it. It- it felt like love.” I smiled as Luke laid the note out on the table between us. I looked down and tried to scan it. In the heat of the moment, I couldn’t recall what I had written so I tried to read it as quickly as possible.
I’m in love. I’m in love with the way you rub the back of your neck when you’re stressed. I’m in love with your signature smile. I’m in love with the way you shove French fries in your mouth and then carefully lick the salt of your fingers. I’m in love with the way you run your hands through your hair; the way you look at your grandma, with so much love in your eyes. It’s like a special twinkle in your eyes, which by the way are the most captivating eyes I’ve ever seen. I’m in love with the way you care about every single person you come across. The feeling of your lips against mine. The way you always hold my hand, while you’re driving. I’m in love and it’s supposed to feel good but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel good because somehow, everything I know about you isn’t true. Somehow, we’ve never touched. Somehow, you’ve never actually whispered I love you in my ear. Somehow, the memories we’ve shared aren’t real but I would do anything to spend another moment in your arms. In my world, you’re mine, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
I looked up from the paper and saw tears in Luke’s eyes. He quickly lifted up his shirt to wipe them. “I just am in utter shock. It feels like you really know me, Sutton.” He said. I nodded getting teary-eyed as well.
The tears started to fall from Luke’s eyes. He leaned close to me over the table.
“Do you love me?” He cried. I gulped.
The last thing I wanted to do in this crazy situation was scaring Luke away but I felt the need to be completely honest with him. “I love you, Luke. I know everyone is telling me that I don’t know you but I really believe that I do and I am completely in love with the person I spent my summer with whether it was all one big dream or not.” I said, completely overwhelmed by my own emotions.
Luke gently grabbed my cheeks and pulled me towards him and kissed me. He kissed me gently and softly, but it made my whole body tremble. It was our first kiss, but it brought me back to all the kisses I remembered sharing in the past. I melted.
When Luke stopped kissing me, minutes must have passed. I sunk back in my chair and took a deep breath. I felt weak. “That felt so right.” Luke said tears still slowly streaming down his cheeks. I took a deep breath once again. “Are you feeling okay?” Luke asked quickly, concerned and pulling himself together.
“I just feel a little weak,” I replied, placing my cold palms against my flushed cheeks.
“I’ll be right back,” Luke shouted over his shoulder, already making his way into the Pizza Shack. I spent the short period he was gone taking deep breaths and trying to give myself an internal pep talk. The kiss had really thrown me off and now I was horrified I would get my hopes up. There was a chance there could be absolutely no future for Luke and I and I had to keep that in mind.
Seconds later he came back with two large cups of lemonade. He kept his eyes steady on me as he carried them carefully and set them down on the table. “Let’s get some sugar in you.” He smiled.
I sipped the lemonade and swished the ice chips around in my mouth. We sat in silence but Luke was still smiling just watching me. Finally he broke the silence once again.
“You were right about a lot of things.” He told me. “Maybe you learned a few things when I talked to you? I told you about my parents and why I was coming to visit you. Do you remember me telling you about the dreams?” He asked. I tried to think really hard, but again, my reality was different than his so I decided the best option was for me to shake my head no.
“When my dad was in a coma and my mom passed away, he had dreams about her. He had memories of their honeymoon together that hadn’t existed. Obviously, when you were in the coma I didn’t know you- you were dreaming about me.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “But I was having dreams about you too. I saw you in the paper and I freaked out. I remembered seeing you on the boardwalk. You were in my dreams every night. It was you and my parents and everything was cryptic but I felt like they wanted me to go see you. So I did. And your family was so sweet and I talked to you all the time.” He explained gripping his cup of lemonade so tightly I thought the cap would pop off.
“The more I saw you in person the better I started to feel. My life started to go better too. My grandma started a trial medication for Alzheimer’s and it seems to be working. She’s happy and she’s aware. My uncle stopped the pills. He
