Waiting for You (41 page)

“Don’t give me some
bullshit about us not being meant to be together because we are,” he continued.
“You didn’t just randomly show up here. It was fate. You once asked me if I was
in the right place at the right time what I would do. This is me, in the right
place at the right time.”

And there was the part
I couldn’t deny.

“Don’t,” he whispered
as he put his palm to my cheek. “I’m here, I want you, and I won’t let you walk
away this time.” He looked weary when I cleared my throat, his eyes jerked to
mine. “Please, brown eyes.”

“I’m sorry, Dylan.” I
reached across the table to his hand, but his hand came down on top of mine
taking both mine and his together. “I tried so hard to do the right thing and
no matter what way I chose, none were for me.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he
said looking into my eyes. “I once told you that I’d give up everything for
you, I meant that. I did. Even though you walked away, I never stopped loving
you. I’m just as guilty as you for what happened. Any time that summer I could
have told you what I knew…and I didn’t.”

I didn’t know what to
say.

Were we ready? Could I
love him in all the ways he needed?

I tried to bury it,
hide the feelings but I couldn’t.

This
was
believing
in the future that holds no resemblance to the planned version
of your life.

When would my time be
mine? When would I be able to be myself?

Now.
It was my time right now.

Fuck all that shit that
happened before. Fuck my parents and their hidden lies and scandal secrets.
Fuck their looks and judgment for something they would never understand. Fuck
the numbers. Eighteen will always be just a number. Nineteen is just a number.
It doesn’t mean shit. Fuck school and fuck the pressure to go. Fuck the world
because it doesn’t matter. Love like there’s no tomorrow. Love because he’s
mine. I choose Dylan.

I needed air.

I motioned outside and
he followed.

Behind the bank of
clouds thick enough to obscure the light of the moon, holes peeked as isolated
sparks of light broke through.

A gleaming rich array
of silver, grey and dark blue, all blended together on the pier meeting the
black of darkness. Any light, luminous once, had a way of shinning its way
through a darkened soul that was now alive.

“What did you do when I
left, when you got in your car and left?” I asked as we walked along the Seattle
waterfront.

“I went to Drew’s house
and stayed in bed for probably two weeks. He finally had enough and made me
start taking showers and eating. It was like he expected me to actually
function normally.”

We talked about
nothing, anything, and everything for four miles. By the time we had made a
loop around, Eddy and Reece were looking for him. He ignored their raucous
catcalls and inappropriate gestures and looked at me.

I smiled and gestured
toward his familiar GTO parked by the curb. The dent in the door and the hood
was still there.
Our memories.
Nothing was
said,
we walked over and got in.

As we sat there Dylan
looked at me with those ice blue eyes and said, “Which way should we go, North
or South?”

A feeling of
contentment came over me, knowing this was where I belonged, said, “South?”

He smiled. “South it
is,
brown eyes.”

So there you have it, a
story my heart holds true. A story about a girl and boy who were so lost they
couldn’t see what was right in front of them. It was our deal.

I can’t say that I
regretted anything that happened that summer because I didn’t at all.

It was our story,
played out on the open highway chasing sunsets. It wasn’t an easy story to tell
you. It was a story of kisses, lust, passion, youth, mistakes, lies, hiding,
stupidity, judging, but most of all, love.

Some say a sunset can
be too beautiful for words. I’d agree with that. There are a lot of things too
beautiful for words for me.

To me, it was the
earth’s way of saving the best for last.

The End.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

Marilyn Monroe

Shey Stahl
is the author of Waiting for You and the Racing on the Edge series. When she’s
not writing she’s doing whatever she wants. Sometimes that’s watching racing
and sometimes that chasing around her little jerk of a kid that she loves, so
she says. Currently she’s working on Delayed Penalty.
A story
about a hockey player.