Micah leaned in, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Thanks, Melispa.”
She scowled and said, “Gross. Get outta here. Your car is parked on Fifth.”
On the street I said to Micah, “Sweet Melissa.”
“Not really,” he said, “but she’ll have to do.”
“So, we have a car?”
“I rented one.”
I literally didn’t have a single idea where we were going, except that Micah said it would be a six-hour drive. We goofed off in the car. I didn’t care about time. I didn’t think about work, or Cameron. We ate junk food all the way to Virginia. After my sugar high wore off, I fell asleep.
“We’re here, sleepyhead. Keep your eyes closed.”
I could tell we were parking and then the car stopped. “You know what they say about Virginia, Laya?”
“Oh, you cheeseball. Virginia is for lovers?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I was thinking . . . take a look. They say it has the best space museum in the country.”
My eyes shot open. The entrance to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum came into view. “Oh my god. I’ve always wanted to come here.”
“Well, let’s go get our nerd goggles on,” he said. I punched him in the arm. “Jesus, Laya, you are stronger than you think.”
“Were you calling me a nerd?”
“Yes. Just another thing I love about you.”
The first thing we looked at and went through was the Concorde. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
“An engineering marvel,” he replied.
“Shame they had to decommission them.”
“Yeah,” he said, but he seemed distant. “Hey, stay here for a sec. I’ll be right back.”
He left abruptly, but was back in five minutes.
“Okay, Laya, it’s time to see the shuttle.” My eyes welled up. “Oh no, you’re disappointed. Don’t worry, we might get to see it take off.”
I laughed. “I’m not disappointed. I’m happy to be here with you.”
“I’m happy, too.”
Our tour felt like forever. I relearned everything I already knew about the shuttle from my years at space camp. I was itching to go inside, but even just looking at it from the outside was fascinating. When we finally got to see the inside, Micah whispered something to the tour guide.
I marveled at the controls, the buttons and gauges. Soon the crowd cleared out. I tried to follow, but Micah took me by the arm and guided me to the front of the shuttle.
“The guide said we could sit in the front,” he told me.
“What? Are you serious?”
“Go.” He pointed to the pilot’s seat. “Mission control is waiting.”
“God, I always wanted to be the pilot.”
“I’ll be the mission specialist.” He winked.
I sat down and felt my hands burning from the desire to touch everything, but I knew it wasn’t allowed. Micah sat in the seat next to mine.
“So, mission specialist, where are we headed?” I asked him.
“Hold on, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“Laya . . . you are the most intergalactic, spacefaring terraform I know—”
“Now you’re really turning me on.”
He paused, pulled something from his pocket, reached over, and opened his hands. It was a cheap silver ring that had a tiny rocket on the top, clearly from the gift shop. “Will you go to the moon with me, Laya?”
I blinked several times, took the ring from his hands, and leaned over toward him. Just before our lips met, I said, “Yes, I will. Count me down, lieutenant.”
He said, “Three. Two. One.” And then I kissed him.
In the hotel room that night, I told Micah everything I knew about space. And he listened. I told him everything I could think of about being a doctor. I told him about my mom and my childhood and everything in between. And he listened. He tried to steal kisses every now and then, but still, he listened. I knew Micah wasn’t asking me to marry him. He was just asking me to go on a trip with him. I was all in.
“What’s on the agenda next week?” he said.
“I don’t know. I do have to work, but I need to call Izzy and apologize for being a shitty friend. I definitely need to take Pretzel to the groomers. And I should call my sister-in-law, Krista, and tell her I support her no matter what. What about you?”
“Probably design some of those buildings you want to walk through, and other than that, find ways to kiss you in the storage closets at the hospital.”
“I think we have a plan. Thank you for this weekend.” I touched my hand to his cheek. “Micah?”
“Yes?”
“I feel alive and . . . I’m not scared.”
“Me, too, Laya.”
That night into the next day was a blur, I just know I tore off my NASA shirt and everything else, and didn’t put them back on for twenty-four hours.
Back in the city, nothing changed. We spent the next night together and the next night after that, even though we were both back and forth from work. One morning I woke up from a short dream. It was a memory of Cameron talking to me on the top of Mount Whitney. He had said, “I’m happy when you’re happy, Laya.”
When I woke up, I was sweating and crying. He had said it to me. I couldn’t remember before, but he had said it. He had loved me, and I loved him, still do.
Looking over at Micah sleeping peacefully under my frilly peach comforter, I realized that I loved Micah, too, and it was okay.
I went to my computer, clicked on Facebook to Cameron’s page, and wrote what would be my last post to him.
LAYA BENNETT to CAMERON BENNETT
Cam, I went to that space museum in Virginia where I always wanted to go. I sat in the pilot’s chair. I felt brave, like I could do anything. You would have been proud, Cam. I miss you and I always will. I hope you’re having a great new adventure . . . wherever you are. Three, two, one. See ya on the other side.
I clicked off my account, logged into Cameron’s account . . . and I deleted it.
Epilogue
LAYA
The helicopter rotor thundered as it sliced through the air, parting clouds above the Mediterranean Sea. I peered down from my seat, my stomach churning at the thought of people actually skydiving from that height. No, thanks; I was good inside. Looking to my left, I saw that Jeremy was watching me with a wide grin. I hugged Cameron’s urn close to my body, my mind at ease with what I was going to do next.
The summer after I started dating Micah, I told him I was going to Spain for a week because there was something I needed to do. Micah had an idea why I needed to go, but he didn’t ask questions.
When I called Jeremy, who’d been with Cam and me that horrible day, he couldn’t have been more surprised. “You want to parachute into the Spanish Cave? Sweet!” Jeremy was like Cameron in many ways. Getting a helicopter was no big deal.
“No, crazy. I want to fly over it. I want to spread the rest of Cam’s ashes there.”
He had hesitated. “Why the Spanish Cave? I didn’t think you guys were ever there together.”
“We weren’t. I saw a wingsuit flight he had done there. I watched the video a few weeks after we had met. I always wished we had gone there together.”
“I remember when Cam did that stunt. It was fucking awesome.”
“He was happy, wasn’t he?”
“Ahh, man he loved that day. He was also superstoked that he had just met you.”
“Was he?” I whispered.
“God, he wouldn’t shut up about you. It was annoying . . . no offense.”
I laughed. “That’s how I want to remember him, Jeremy . . . happy and alive.”
“Let’s do it, then.”
Weeks later I was pointing out of the helicopter window to a familiar site I had remembered from the video.
“Right there?” I asked.
“Yep, that’s it.”
Right before Jeremy slid the door to the he
licopter open, I pictured Cameron’s face in the video. He was smiling from ear to ear, then he yelled, “Fuck yeah, see ya,” while he simultaneously shot a peace sign to the camera man.
“Go for it, Laya,” Jeremy said into the headset mic.
I took a deep breath and yelled, “Three. Two. One . . . see ya!!”
My nervousness and fear disappeared, replaced only with exhilaration. Was this how Cam always felt, being at this height? I turned the urn upside down, watching Cam’s ashes fly away while Jeremy yelled, “Bye, buddy.”
I was laughing and crying, smiling with relief, thinking Cameron would be so happy if he saw us. “I love you, Cameron Bennett!” I screamed. Somewhere, I was sure he could hear me.
Jeremy hugged me, both of us soaked with happy tears.
“He was a crazy son of a bitch, but impossible not to love. And he loved the shit out of you, Laya!”
“I know he did.”
One thing I learned to do after I finally opened the blinds and came out of the dark hole with Micah by my side was to reframe the tragedies I’d gone through. I got to have two great loves in my life. One was a little nuts, a little unpredictable, a spontaneous spirit too wild to restrain, and the other . . . a deep and introspective, thoughtful being with magnificent eyes who loved the stars and space right alongside me. I will always look back and think of Cameron as that rocket ship, shooting for the stars, and Micah . . . well . . . he’s like mission control, guiding me home.
Both easy to love, both loved me . . . and I never had to choose.
MICAH
I proposed to Laya for the third time two years after our weekend in Virginia. She finally said yes. She was right to take her time. I still don’t know if she was waiting for some superstitious date to pass, but I didn’t care. She said she just wanted to hear me ask over and over again. I would have asked for the rest of my life. Laya was life-affirming for me. Every moment we had was genuine and real. There is no one else like her; I’m sure of it. Maybe we both had to go away for a little while, to be alone, to get to know ourselves before we were able to know each other well. I don’t know. But the planets did finally align and she eclipses them all.
Melissa was my best man in our wedding, and Pretzel was Laya’s maid of honor. No one was confused. As our wedding gift, Melissa bought us a three-foot tall SpongeBob SquarePants doll dressed like an astronaut. And I’m the weird one?
A week after we got married, Laya and I got a brownstone in the city. It has an amazing roof deck. We lie on lounges up there on all the warm nights and think about the stars and planets above us, even though we can’t see shit over the city lights. It doesn’t matter.
Laya’s devoted to her job and she’s quickly becoming the best surgeon in town. No surprise. I finally landed my own account and got to design a building. It was completed the spring we got married. It was mostly made of glass so that anywhere you looked, you’d always be able to see the sun and the moon rising and setting. Everyone asked me what my inspiration was.
I would just simply say . . . Laya.
Acknowledgments
Eternal gratitude to the family and friends who share my books, and who share a love of reading with me and the rest of the world.
To the readers, the lovers, and the dreamers: thank you for keeping love stories alive when there is so much negativity and hate in this world.
Allison and Jhanteigh, thank you for helping me get this book off the ground.
Everyone at Atria who works so hard to get my books into the hands of readers . . . thank you.
Loan, I am so grateful for your intense work on The Last Post. You brought so much to this story.
To the people who inspire me with kindness, talent, humor, and grace, thank you for helping me open the blinds now and then.
Sam, my little explorer: keep scouring that atlas; keep reading and daydreaming. Your fortitude and curiosity amaze me.
Tony, you’re definitely one of those people who makes me laugh on a daily basis. Your wit and humor bring such a bright light into this house.
Anthony, thank you for believing in me . . . still. I love you. Also, the French toast . . . THE FRENCH TOAST!
More from the Author
Blind Kiss
Wish You Were Here
Swear on This Life
Before We Were Strangers
After the Rain
Nowhere but Here
About the Author
RENÉE CARLINO is a screenwriter and bestselling author of Sweet Thing, Nowhere but Here, After the Rain, Before We Were Strangers, Swear on This Life, Wish You Were Here, and Blind Kiss. She lives in the San Diego area with her husband and two sons. To learn more, visit ReneeCarlino.com.
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ALSO BY RENÉE CARLINO
Sweet Thing
Nowhere but Here
After the Rain
Before We Were Strangers
Swear on This Life
Wish You Were Here
Blind Kiss
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Renée Carlino
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-8964-7
ISBN 978-1-5011-8965-4 (ebook)
The Last Post Page 22
