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The ambience in the little shed lent itself to magic and tenderness. It was time to share our feelings.

“I dreamt about you for three years too,” he said as we cuddled on his bed. “Every girl looked like you. Every time I turned a corner or scanned a crowd I saw you. You haunted me, and I was mad at myself for being so weak.”

“I don’t get how loving someone is weak,” I told him.

“You don’t understand, Heather. When Paige and I started dating, every time I kissed her, I was kissing you. That’s wrong.”

“Well, I can see how that might be true. Not all girls kiss like I do.”

I cracked a smile and giggled when his eyebrow arched. The look was so distinctly Nick that I wanted to kiss his entire face. As an alternative my hands tightened around his waist.

“Eventually she became her and you became my past. But even then, I still dreamt about you. Kept having this dream over and over again.”

“What was it about?”

“I’m always in the middle of a baseball game when it starts, and you’re sitting in the stands smiling and waving at me. I know you’ll leave before the game ends, and I’m frustrated because I can’t just stop playing and come to you. But I know if I don’t, you’ll leave and I won’t be able to find you again.”

“Then what happens?”

“The baseball is hit right at me, but I’m not paying attention. I don’t care that the ball passes by me because I’m watching you blow me a kiss and mouth that you love me. And then you get up to leave.

“I try to run after you, but I can’t. It’s like my body is paralyzed.

“And then you do what you do every time in my nightmare, you walk away. And I stand in the middle of the field and watch you leave.”

“That’s awful.”

“Nothing compared to the day the hospital called and told me you were a patient there.”

“What did they say? What were you thinking?”

“That someone was playing a trick on me. It was the worst sort of trick in the world. But then I realized it wasn’t a joke. At first I was confused. How could I not know you’d only been twenty minutes away from me all that time? I went numb. Then I was sick. When I came to the hospital and you held me like you used to hold me, like nothing had changed between us, like I was still your whole world, every part of me turned angry. I found out about your family, and that made it worse. Nothing seemed fair: what happened to you, what I thought happened, how I could have assumed wrongly.

“Even when I found out everything I thought was true wasn’t, I didn’t know how to let go of those feelings. Your step-dad told me you were with Creed. I had to live with that truth for years. When you left, the cut was so deep. And even knowing it wasn’t true wasn’t enough. And then to see Creed at the hospital, finding out that he took care of you all that time, when it should have been me…I didn’t know if I was mad at him, mad at you for lying to me, or mad at myself for not being there for you. Maybe if I’d made it easier for you in the beginning, if I’d known the truth sooner, none of this would have happened. Maybe if…”

“There’s no point in thinking in maybes. I was wrong not to open up to you. It was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. But about the accident, things like that happen.”

“Mmm,” he replied, shifting his arms around me in a protective hold. “It would have been a lot easier on both of you if I’d fallen out of love with you.” I was shaking my head, but he kept talking. “I hoped I had, after all that time. I wanted to. I tried to. When you came back, I told myself to stay away. I was engaged to Paige.”

“It’s my fault,” I admitted. “I made sure you didn’t stay away.”

“No, Heather. I was the selfish one. I hurt both of you. I tried to love her more, tried to pour myself into our relationship. Trying almost killed me. My heart couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live a lie. Paige is an amazing girl, but she’s not you.”

His words spread warm fuzzies over my whole body. My verbal response was more practical. “Speaking of Paige, what about her?”

He sighed. Even though I was leaning on him, I felt the weight of his chest figuratively leaning on me. “She knew how I felt about you when her and I first started dating. She knew I’d been in love once. Not the details, only that it ended badly.

“After she saw us talking in the field that day, when you first came to see me, she asked about you. Can’t remember what I said, but it couldn’t have made her feel very good because all I could think about was you. When you and I talked in the field, all my feelings for you came rushing back; I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t understand how, after two full years of grad school, a three-month internship in another state, and a solid relationship and engagement, you still affected me that way. It was like we’d never been apart.”

“Were we ever really apart?” I wondered.

Our hands tangled together.

“I couldn’t talk to her about it,” he confessed. “I didn’t know what to say. She kept asking questions about the girl in the field and I couldn’t answer. She ended up leaving angry and instead of going after her like I should have, I remember feeling relieved she was gone. I knew I was in trouble.

“But I was always in trouble when it came to you.
Trouble
is my new nickname for you.”

Not that I associated kissing with trouble, but
Trouble
arched her head up to let him know just what type of trouble she wanted from him at the moment. He obliged, leaning his head down and pressing my lips with a warm softness that made my eyes roll backward.

Then he said, “I used to think no one in the world could drive me crazier than you. There was no way I would find someone else that made me feel the way you did. When we were together all those years ago I felt complete. Even when you wore Creed’s ring and I thought there was something going on between you two, I didn’t care. I looked forward to our classes together, when I could see your smile again, or hear you say something completely silly, or watch the way your hands fidgeted when you were nervous. It used to drive me nuts trying to keep my hands away from yours. Still does.”

“Why fight it, then?”

“Does it look like I’m fighting it? I couldn’t when I wanted to. Just so you know, I’m not letting you leave me again. Ever.”

“Is that a promise?” I teased, knowing full well the answer to that question. Under the best circumstances, Nick didn’t make promises.

“Come here, Trouble,” he teased back, catching on fast. He turned my body into his. Before our lips met, he looked me dead in the eye, and said two words I thought I would never hear him say. “I promise.”

So Teacher Jerry, my conscience, my counselor, my guardian angel, whatever you want to call him, he was right, the broken ones who become whole, feel the most complete measure of joy.

*******

We were resting at the park, my head on Nick’s legs, his back leaning against a tree.

“I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone,” he said.

“Okay?”

“It’s about the night of my motorcycle accident. I was in the hospital for only a night, and then I was released the next day. But it was a night I’ll never forget.

“It was a rocky several hours for my parents. I would wake up, ask a few questions, and then fall back to sleep. Then wake up a little while later, ask the same questions, then black out again. According to my mom, this went on all night.”

He was tracing circles on my shoulder….

“But that’s not the part I remember. I also talked to my dead brother. The only thing I remember about the conversation is that he told me to stop messing around with my life.”

“Really?” I put in.

“Maybe that’s why I was okay with you having an imaginary friend.”

“Nice,” I said, and he laughed.

We were both quiet for a while, pondering on the past, wondering how all of our experiences led us to this one, complete, culminating time in our lives.

“That was the reason I chose to come out here for school,” he continued. “Because of what he said to me. I can’t tell you how many times I doubted my decision, wondered if I’d made a mistake by coming out here for college. But now,” he released my hand and cupped my chin instead, angling me toward him so I could see his face, and the playful sparkle in his eyes, “I guess my decision wasn’t half bad.”

“I know what you mean,” I managed to say with a straight face, playing his little game. “I’m still doubting my choice of schools.”

His eyelid rose in a teasing question.

I answered by laughing, and then scooted my back up his legs, brought my arms around his head, and then leaned in for an upside down kiss. Somehow when we finished, I wasn’t upside down anymore, which probably meant we’d gotten too carried away for a park. Luckily, it was mostly vacant.

My head settled back on his stomach and I stared into that attractive face of his. “I’m glad you talked to your brother,” I said.

“Sometimes,” he went on, brushing back the hair falling in my face, “I think we’d be surprised if we knew what’s going on on the other side of the sky. And how often the border is crossed.”

“Do you think my mom and your brother are friends?”

“Friends?” He shared a little smile. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

I laughed at his words. Still, I imagined them talking about us. My mom would say what a perfect couple we made, and Nick’s brother would agree, telling my mom that his little brother would not only take perfect care of her daughter, but would make me extremely happy in the process.

“Okay, I have a question for you,” I told him.

He silently waited.

“When’s the last time you picked up a guitar?”

“The last time you saw me pick up a guitar.”

“Exactly what I thought. That’s going to change.”

“Is it, now?”

My nod rubbed against his chest. For me, lying in his arms was everything I’d ever wanted. I’d wondered the course his feelings had taken over the past few years.

“When did you decide, Nick?”

His fingers never left my face as he took his time to answer. “My heart was always yours, that had never changed. A better question is when did I realize. The day in the basketball gym. I was thinking about you before you even showed up. And then, there you were. And you told me you didn’t like me. I don’t know if you’ve ever said anything more adorable.

“I knew it would be wrong to break Paige’s heart, but I also knew I couldn’t lose you again.

“And frankly, you need me more than she does.” I smacked his chest; he didn’t flinch. Only turned my guilty hand up to hold it. “And I need you more than I need her. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Close enough.” I turned my head and got a flash of his lopsided grin.

“The question is,” he went on, “do you want to be with me forever?”

I turned toward the sky and rested in his lap. “You built a fireplace for me.” I grinned. “Do I have a choice?”

“No. That home has always been yours, from the moment I laid the first red brick on the hearth.”

He plucked a dandelion from the ground and placed it in front of me. What could I wish for? I already felt as if Heaven was bending down and earth was rising. Wanting nothing more than for him to love me eternally, I blew.

He hugged me from behind and blew out the rest.

Epilogue

Nick and I were resting in front of our fireplace, our skin licked by the warm flames. I’d finally gotten him to clean and restring the old guitar I’d found at a garage sale last week, and he was playing around with it tonight while we waited for our company to arrive.

“Play something for me,” I petitioned.

“I’ll play, you sing?”

“I told your sister, Emily, that we’d sing for her next time we came to your parents’ to visit.” Just yesterday Emily and I talked about it over the phone. I looked forward to Emily’s weekly calls, which began last year when she sent me a peace offering in the form of a care package with some of my favorite candy inside. She was still the sweet, doting little sister, to Nick and I both now. “But it’s your turn to sing.”

He cleared his throat and strummed a few notes. Goosebumps already infested my arms, and he hadn’t even started yet. That voice of his…it was raspy and sexy and so rarely revealed itself. I could barely listen to it without falling sideways.

“I’ve been thinking, it’s time to go see your father again,” he said after the guitar was put away and we cuddled in the oversize loveseat in front of the fire.

“You think?”

“Why not? One of us should get along with their dad.” Nick and his father’s relationship was still strained at best. But there were moments when his father’s love for him, as well as his own love for his father, would show through. Those were the moments I liked to dwell on.

“No, I just, I was thinking the same thing the other day. Will you come?”

“Was planning on it.”

I’d invited my dad over for dinner a few times, but he’d never come. He was a good guy, and he’d opened up his life to me. I liked his wife, Meg. Nick and I had gone to lunch with them once. It had gone well. To a small extent, I was a part of his life now. I guess he just wasn’t ready to be a part of mine yet.