“I used to be able to hold this in, and I can’t now.”
“I don’t want you to hold it in.”
“It’s…it’s everywhere, it’s flooding out of me. It’s too much. I’ve just…I’ve destroyed my family. I’m more alone now than ever. I’ve pushed everyone away.”
“You didn’t push me away. You didn’t push Sarah.”
“And I don’t want to. I couldn’t stand it if I…”
“You’re not going to.” He comes to me. He stands before me. He takes my hands in his hands. “It’s not too much, Jane. You’re not too much.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I can take it. I want to take it. I’m so…I’m so fucking proud of you, so…”
“David…” I hold his hands as tightly as I can.
“I know you’re scared, but give me a chance. Let me try to…”
“David, I…”
“Let me try to…”
“I love you.”
I feel his breath hitch. He stands and looks at me for a moment, looks into my eyes.
“You love me?”
I take a step toward him. I take him into my arms. “Yes.”
He gathers me against him. He wraps his arms around me. “Can you do this?”
“If you…if you really…”
He steps back, his hands on my shoulders, my face. “Because I don’t want to see you once a week. I don’t want a two-year engagement…”
“Okay.”
“I want all of you.” He brushes the tears off my face.
I want all of it too. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. “I can do it.”
He pulls me into him. He holds me against his body. His warm, strong body. His steady heart. “I can do it too.”
He smells like the wooded air up here, the lake, the sky.
“You’re really in for it.”
“I’m ready.”
Epilogue
We sit on the sand, looking out at the water. Beside us are two gifts.
“Will you miss it?”
“This place? Not really.”
“I guess you’ll still have the ocean.”
“Yeah, and it’ll be warm all year.”
I have filled a box for him with the best books we read together, a journal, a box of pre-addressed, stamped note cards, so he won’t have any excuse not to write to me.
“I’ll probably miss my friends.”
“Tyrell?”
“Yeah. And you. And Mr. Casey.”
“We’ll miss you too, Raymond.”
For me, he brought a necklace. A slim silver chain, and hanging from it, a bird. I take it from the box, clasp it against my chest.
“You guys gonna get married?”
“Me and Tyrell? He’s a little young, don’t you think?”
He punches my arm. And then blushes.
“It’s okay. It’s not sore anymore.”
“I’m really sorry I did that to you, Ms. Elliott.”
“Ray, it’s okay. You’d just had the worst kind of loss.”
“I know, but you know what my grandma would say. ‘There’s no excuse for hurting someone.’”
I smile. He has nailed her voice exactly. “She would probably say that, yeah.”
He looks off into the ocean, to a great ship in the distance. The beach is empty except for the two of us. Morning light is just beginning to stretch across the horizon.
“She would understand, though, Raymond, you know that. And I do too. It was a mistake. And to be honest, it kind of changed everything stupid about my life, so in a way, I should thank you.”
He laughs. “You’re welcome.”
I put my arm around his shoulder.
We sit on the beach like that, side by side, and watch the rising of the sun.
About the Author
Rebecca Rogers Maher is a writer, teacher and mother of two beautiful children. She reads classic novels, poetry, apocalypse stories, academic texts about race, class, gender and the environment, and romance novels. Rebecca lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. I’ll Become the Sea is her first novel.
www.RebeccaRogersMaher.com
www.twitter.com/RebeccaRMaher
www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaRogersMaher
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9047-5
Copyright © 2010 by Rebecca Rogers Maher
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