For All You Have Left (18 page)

He pauses for a moment.

“No,” he says and then lays his head back down. I feel his hand brush down my body and stop at the small of my back. “I
could stay like this forever.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Home

“A
re you singing?”

Oh, God, he heard me
. How could he have heard me?

“No...” I scrunch up my face and cringe a little—hoping maybe he’ll believe me, even though I know he won’t. I already hear him smiling over there.

“You were.” He looks over at me, flashes me a big, toothy grin and then sets his eyes back on the road.

I try to hide my smile as my own gaze gets stuck too on the solid, white line guiding our way.

The interstate is quiet. It’s dark outside the truck. It’s dark inside too, except for the little blue light coming from the dash. I watch as Jorgen glances over at me again, then switches his hands on the wheel and reaches for my hand. I let him take it and cradle it in his as another song comes on the radio and I turn my attention back to the dark highway. My heart skips a little in my chest. I press my lips together and try not to make it obvious that I’m smiling to myself. I just can’t seem to get over the way my hand feels in his.

A moment goes by, maybe, before I hear Jorgen mumble something, and it forces my eyes back to the driver’s seat. Then, all of a sudden, a string of lyrics rolls off his tongue: “You
and me goin’ fishin’ in the dark...”

He says the lyrics more than he sings them, taking every chance he gets to look over at me.

“Lyin’ on our backs and countin’ the stars,” he sings, growing louder as the song goes on.

It’s cute the way he tries to make the words sound like the original singer. He’s no rock star, but then, neither am I. I just look at him and smile. The song is by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I don’t know most country songs, but my grandpa used to listen to this one, so I know this one.

“Where the gre-en grass gro-ws,” he continues, dragging out each word.

My eyes dart to his, and I start to laugh. “Those aren’t the words.”

He just flashes me a crooked grin and keeps going, but now, I can’t help but join in. At least I know all the words.

“Stayin’
the whole night through,” we sing together. “Feels so good...to beeee...withhhh...you...”

We sing the rest of the song. He adds his own words at random, and eventually, I do too. And then we laugh until the next one comes pouring through the speakers. It’s a ballad and not nearly as easy to sing to. The cab grows quiet again—but only for a few seconds.

“This was so much fun,” I say, turning so that I can get a good look at him and his dark, wavy hair. He’s got a strong, five-o’clock shadow now, and only one hand is on the wheel. And there’s a blue tint to him because of the lights from the dash, but it only seems to add to his smoldering look.

“Pretending we know how to sing?” He chuckles.

“No, well, yeah, that too,” I say. “But I mean this whole weekend. I had my first funnel cake and went to my first tractor pull, and believe it or not, petted my first sheep.”

He glances over at me and gives me a sexy wink. “You never knew this country boy was so cultured, did ya?”

I squeeze his hand and smile.

“What was your favorite?” he asks.

I think about it for a second. Then, I close my eyes and contemplate it a little bit longer.

“Ol’ Red,” I finally say.

He laughs once, and I watch his eyes venture away from the road and onto me. “Why that old thing?”

“I don’t know.
Because I like the way you look in it.”

“What?” He sounds surprised.

“I like the way you look in it,” I repeat, with more conviction this time. “You look like you belong, you know?”

“Like I belong in an old truck?”

His scrunched-up face makes me laugh.

“Yeah...no. Well, sort of,” I stumble. “You looked comfortable, like you didn’t have a care in the world—like you were home.”

He takes his eyes off the road and just smiles at me.

“What?” I ask. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

His face shifts back to the highway, but then I notice his head slowly shaking back and forth.

“It wasn’t the truck,
Ada.”

I
furrow my eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“It wasn’t the truck that made me feel like I was home,” he says again. “It wasn’t even being home that made me feel like I was home.”

Little wrinkles form at the corners of his eyes as his slow gaze ventures away from the highway and lands on me. And just like that, his eyes are soft again.

“It was you,
Ada. Being next to you in Ol’ Red made me feel like I was finally home.”

I take a second and let the moment sink in, and before long, it almost feels as if my hear
t is shattering into a thousand tiny pieces and just falling to the floorboards at my feet. His words are so raw, so honest. They remind me of a way I used to feel. And without another thought, I unsnap my seatbelt, then slide into the little seat next to him and snap the lap belt over my legs. And suddenly, it’s as if I’m seventeen all over again.

He lifts his arm and wraps it around my shoulders. Then, he pulls me closer, and I rest my head against him and listen to the new song that’s now softly pouring through the speakers.

I don’t tell him—only because I think he already knows—but he’s beginning to feel like home to me too.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Dream

“Y
ou’re so cute when you sleep.”

I turn my head over on my pillow.

“Andrew,” I whisper.

He’s standing in the doorway. His honey-blond hair with its sprinkled russet streaks sweeps across his forehead and covers the tops of his ears.

“Let’s run away together,” he says, taking the few steps from the door to my bed.

Instantly, I feel a happy grin shoot across my face.

“Okay,” I whisper.

He lies down beside me, puts his arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him. I let him do it, but as he does, I stare into his dark brown eyes. I just keep searching them, trying to make sure they’re real, until suddenly, I feel tears start to fill my own eyes.

“Baby, don’t cry,” I hear him say, bringing the back of his finger to a place under my eye and wiping away my tears.

I try to laugh because his eyes are real, and he’s really here with me, and I have nothing to cry about.

“We were a small-town scandal, weren’t we?” I ask, through my tears.

He keeps his eyes in mine for several moments. He’s wearing a smile, but it’s faint.

“What if we never would have...,” I begin.

“Shh,” he says softly, as he breaks his stare from my eyes and moves his lips to my ear.

“Logan, we weren’t a scandal,” he whispers. “We were in love.”

I take a minute
and let his last word echo through my ear, and then through my mind and finally, through my soul. Then, I grab a hold of it and tuck it away inside my heart.

“Andrew,” I say and then stop and wait for his eyes to find mine again.

“What, babe?”

“Is there hope for us?”

He pauses and draws a long breath.

“For us...I don’t know,
baby,” he says, at last, forcing the air out of his lungs. “But for you, yes.”

I watch his lips
gradually turn up at one end.

“Hope is a funny thing when you think about it,” he goes on. “It’s always right in front of you.”

My gaze falters and falls to the pillow.

“You just have to see it,” he whispers.

I look back up into his eyes and then sigh.

“Andrew.”

“What, babe?”

“I miss you,” I say.

He squeezes me tighter, and I can smell his cologne on his tee shirt. I breathe it in until I feel as if my lungs are going to explode.

“Andrew,” I say again.

“Yes, baby?”

“Let’s go to
Paris,” I say. “I always wanted to go to Paris with you. Will you go with me?”

I watch his lips quiver, trying to turn up, but they don’t ever make it to a smile. And instantly, I feel the warm tears pressing against my eyelids again because I know what that look means.

“Okay,” he says, slowly nodding his head. “We’ll go to Paris.”

He takes my hand.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he whispers.

“No,” I say.

I start to shake my head.

“No,” I cry.

There are tears falling down my cheeks like rain now.

“We have to go today,” I cry. “Life will tear us apart, Andrew. We don’t have tomorrow.”
 

**
*
 

Suddenly, my eyes open, and I’m frozen. I look around the room. Everything is normal and still and quiet. I wonder why I’m awake, and then it hits me. I quickly turn over and look to my left. There’s no one there. I lose my next breath, and my heart sinks. I reach up and touch my cheeks. There are no tears on them, but I feel as if there should be.

I take a deep breath in and then slowly push it right back out again before I peel the covers back and sit up on the side of the bed. I really hate my dreams sometimes. And I can’t even call them nightmares because I love them too. I love them, but I hate them because I can’t stay in them. They’re my tortured dreams.

I close my eyes and try to replay every moment of the dream in my head. I try to replay his boyish, raspy words and his
warm, soft breaths against my skin. I try to remember the smell of his cologne and the perfect way his shaggy hair fell across his ears. I try to replay it all—exactly the way it used to be. And then I get to the part where I realize exactly the way it is, and my heart aches.

“No,” I cry.

I double over and cradle my face in my hands. I miss him. I miss his voice; I miss the certain, special ring it used to have to it that always made me feel loved. I try to recall the hum of his words, the ebb and flow of every syllable as it trailed off his lips. In my dream, the voice sounded perfect—like a song, my favorite song—but now, I can’t hear it anymore.

I want to go back and change everything. I can’t help but think that if we never would have gotten married that day, that things might have been different. It might all have played out differently if we had just waited. And maybe it was karma—getting back at us for eloping or for being too young.

I pull open my nightstand drawer. In a corner, under the marriage license and a birthday card from Hannah, I slide out a ring and slip it on. At least Hannah hadn’t found this. I twist the ring slowly around the base of my finger with my thumb. And I let my eyes get lost in its little diamond and its little, breakable promise inside. Then, after a moment, I fold my other hand over the ring and bring both hands to my chest.

“Forever and a day,” I whisper to myself, before I slowly slide the ring off and carefully tuck it away again, underneath the marriage license and the birthday card. And then I close the drawe
r
.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Come Over

I
glance at the clock on my nightstand. It’s 5:30 and still dark outside. The sun hasn’t even come up yet, but I’m wide awake—thanks to my dream and evidentially, the chains of my past. I rub my eyes and reach for my phone. The light from its screen blinds me—as if I were looking straight into the sun. I snap both eyes shut and wait a second. And when I finally get the courage to peek through one eye again, I notice there’s a message waiting on the screen. It was sent at 2 o’clock in the morning. I click on it and read:

Can’t sleep. Thinking about you. Had the best weeken
d! Can’t wait to see you today!

I stare at the words for another minute before I set the phone back down. I feel torn—torn between my old life and my new one, between letting go and moving on. Images of my dre
am are still playing in my head—images of Andrew and the way his lips moved when my name—my birth name—came tumbling off of them—and Paris. I force my eyes shut, swallow hard and lie back down. I lie there until the images in my mind start to fade and eventually disappear.

People say it all gets better in time. And I think it does. Each day is a little better than the last; each dream pulls me back just a little bit less. But what they don’t say is how much time it takes. They don’t tell you how many more moments your heart will race, sink, tear or ache. They don’t tell you how many more breaths you’ll lose over a memory, a dream, a scent, a spoken name. They don’t tell you how long it will take to heal. They don’t even tell you what being “healed” actually feels like because I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel like I did when I was
sixteen—years before my world crashed in on me. But what they do tell you is that it does get better and that
time
is part of that equation. So, I guess for now, I’ll just wait on
time
.