“I've decided, if Falon is still willing, to go through with the transplant,” she said, and my ears suddenly felt full of cotton.
I nodded, not being able to say anything, but it didn't matter anyway. Everyone around the table had begun to cry and be joyful, and they all talked as if the mood had been lifted.
“Come on,” Julie whispered, taking my hand and pulling me from the table. I followed willingly, and we headed upstairs to her room. Eventually they'd realize we were gone, but that didn't matter.
Julie was going to live.
The moment she closed the door, I swept her up in a kiss, and suddenly every wire inside my brain had gone live. I was pulling her to me, and I was twirling her around, because I had never been so happy in my life.
When I finally stopped kissing her, she laughed, and she smiled up at me. I saw the girl I had fallen in love with return. I saw the brightness in her eyes, and I saw that spark. I saw the life I had use to envy come back.
“What made all this happen, Julie? Why did my prayers get answered?” I asked her, holding her close.
Julie smiled, and her hand touched my face. “Partly, because of you. But mostly, I found out who's decision it was, in the end,” she replied. “This entire time, I have you and mom and dad, and everyone I love pushing me to live, and then I had my guilt and the little voice in my head telling me that this was it, and I’ve been torn hopelessly. But after watching you forgive your mom, and be so strong when I knew how close you had been to going over the edge, it made me start to think,” she said.
Julie pulled away, and she w as crying. But they were happy tears, because I felt them too. I felt them crawling down my cheeks as I watched my soul mate live.
“I thought I was being strong by saying I was okay and ready to die. I thought if I was okay with it, then no one would see how scared I really was, how terrified I was to leave everyone behind. I thought I was fighting, but I wasn't. I thought if I completely shattered, and allowed myself to be scared, that I would be weak, and then I realized what I hadn’t. I was weak, and that was okay. There was strength in learning that I was weak, and that falling to my knees, and begging God to give me the strength to get back was okay, but I wouldn't have seen that if you hadn't done the same thing,” she said, and she looked at me again. She came back to me, and her hand touched my cheek, and she smiled. “In the end, it wasn't my decision, or yours, or anyone else's. The Lord lead me in the right direction, after He helped me back up, and He let me know it was okay to live.”
All I could feel was the light that had suddenly lit up inside me. Things were going to be okay. I knew that now, as to where before, I had been completely unsure, and terrified of the unknown, I knew now, everything was going to be okay.
“And you'll take my bone marrow?”
She smiled. “They said you were a match, so yeah. I'd love to have your bone marrow inside me,” she said with a grin.
I sighed in relief and kissed her again, and again, and again, until she was laughing, and we were okay. Everything was okay, because she was okay.
“I have more good news,” I told her.
Julie was smiling as she raised a brow. “What is it?”
“I have a job.”
She stared at me, and then narrowed her eyes. “Okay? I'll bite,” she replied, and then I proceeded to tell her about the phone call.
Mr. Harrison had called to check on Julie, and then to offer me a job. When he was younger, he had traveled around the country, meeting his farmers, learning their farms, and attending any type of meeting head on. He had been the face, and things had ran more smoothly that way.
He had always assumed his sons would continue that tradition, but they had pursued other careers, and Mr. Harrison had grown old and couldn't leave.
But he didn't want to keep discussing problems over the phone, and he could feel the heart of his business beginning to turn into an arrangement rather than a family.
“He wants to pay me to travel to the farms, attend the meetings, and fill in for him. He wants me to help him out, and do what I've always wanted to do, only, now we wouldn't have to worry about not having the money to eat if we spend it right,” I told her.
Julie smiled, and she leaned forward to kiss me softly.
“Need a copilot?”
“After you're healed, yes. I couldn't leave without you, Julie.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
Epilogue
“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”
J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
♥
It seems like yesterday that we said goodbye, but truthfully, it's been about three weeks. Three weeks since we packed our clothes, and a few special things, into the back of my truck, filled up with gas, and drove away from the people we love.
Even though she is frail in my arms, I can feel her fire, and it burns with a ferocity I have never known before. Much hotter than any fire I've ever felt, and I have felt the flames. I figure I'm an
