This sucks.
The only thing I can figure is that his rush to get home has something to do with the package his dad sent a few months into our living arrangement. He didn’t come right out and talk about what all was in it, but he’s been different since. If it had anything to do with his mom, though, his need to get home makes sense.
Christian’s mother and the loss of her, even with as often as he says I’m helping him heal and pushing him to be the man she always believed he would be, is still with him.
I think it always will be.
I just hope that wherever she is, she’s able to see the person I do. The one that she created with Nick and loved so deeply. I hope she’s proud of the man he’s becoming.
Because Christian Cayne…well, he’s not like other guys.
He’s different, and I really love different. The same way I love him.
“Hey dreamer,” he speaks softly, nudging me and pulling me back out of my head. “We’re here.”
Looking out through the windshield and taking in where here is as he pulls the car to a stop and puts it in park, I’m confused.
Where we are, I know it, but it’s not our parents’ house like he made it seem when he was smacking me on the butt and trying to get me in the car.
Why do I get the feeling this is some kind of set up?
Oh, I know why. It’s because when he comes around and opens my door and I step out and around him, I see that we’re not alone.
My mom, his dad and our two best friends, along with some new additions of the female variety, are all standing around together.
“Uh, Mikey, what is this?”
This place for years after the day I first found it as a kid, has always just been mine. The one place in the entire city that I could come and get away from my life, look out over the water and pray on every boat that passed for what I felt was missing in my life. Every hope and dream that I’ve ever had is locked up tight here. My wishes all tangled up in the trees and on the wind that moves them, just for me and then, after I brought him here that first night, Christian.
It was never supposed to be for all of them.
I don’t know how I feel about this.
“Don’t be mad.”
“No promises.”
I sound like a brat, I know, but having all of them here, I feel violated. I haven’t been back here in almost a year, but it’s like relationships you have with people that even with all of the time apart, never change. The way I feel about this place, especially these days, is a lot like that.
It’s always going to be mine.
“So how dead are we?” Johnny pipes up when I get close enough and have finished hugging both my mom and Nick, the embrace with my step-father lasting far longer and solidifying the way I’ve come to feel about him since he was thrown into my life a year and a half before.
“Pretty dead if someone doesn’t tell me what this is all about.”
“Uh, Chris man, I got a pretty hot date later that I really don’t wanna mess with,” Johnny laughs as the girl by his side, the one I know to be his girlfriend Erika, elbows him in the side.
The very same girl who with that one move, has more than earned my approval.
“You might wanna let her in on the big secret now.”
Secrets. A word I hate and an action that I loathe even more. I don’t think time will ever erase the way it felt having things kept from me, but with the way everyone is standing here and smiling, even if Johnny is nursing a pain in the side, I have to accept that not all secrets are bad ones.
Christian is using the loophole again.
Turning away from our friends, Jonah, who has remained completely silent, steps forward and plants himself at Christian’s side, handing over a small plastic bag before smacking him on the back and heading back to his spot with his own girlfriend.
“Yeah, Mikey. You might wanna let your girlfriend in on the big secret.” I repeat Johnny’s words back humorously, smacking him on the chest with my hand before attempting with my other one to snatch the bag. A move he catches and immediately brings further behind his back.
“I know you hate that I did this, but I’m hoping that when you see why, you won’t want to throw me over the cliff.”
“I’ll take it under advisement, but if you don’t wanna end up in pieces in the trunk, you might wanna start filling me in.”
Looking back to the trunk and swallowing hard, he turns back and starts explaining. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, before we even left for New York, but there was never enough time. Some things have come up recently that got me thinking about it again, and after working it out with everyone, I finally put it all together.”
“Put all of what together?”
“I’ll get to that, but there’s actually another reason I wanted everyone to be here. Do you remember our first Valentine’s day?”
He can’t be serious. Knowing what happened that night after he’d given me the most beautiful present I’ve ever received—one that even today sits on the wall completed in our bedroom—there’s no way in hell I would ever forget that day.
With the smile playing on his face and the far off look he’s got in his eye, I’m pretty sure he feels the same.
That night changed everything.
“You know I do, but what does that have to do with today?”
“The puzzle that you turned into a picture on our wall and the way you feel about it, I wanted to give you another one for our first—but really not first—anniversary.”
Since the last picture was of this spot, it makes sense why he would want the next one to be here, but I still don’t get why he had to have everybody here for it.
“It’s why everyone is here. Why I took the risk that you’d be okay with this.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to take another picture, but this time with everyone.”
“You want me to take a picture of all of you?”
“No,” he follows up with a shake of his head. “I’ve been with you long enough to know that you’ve got a timer on that camera you carry around everywhere. I want a picture of all of us.”
“So you can turn it into a puzzle?”
“We’re all pieces, Emery. Everyone standing here, the place we’re standing in, we’re all these pieces that make up the completed puzzle of you, so yes. I want to turn it into a puzzle. One so big that you’re the only person that can solve it.”
A completed puzzle is, at its very basic, just a picture. A snapshot taken in time that someone had the pleasure of breaking down into parts in order to spend time putting together. Each time it’s done, bringing with it new insight and a new love for the subject being depicted.
He’s right.
This is the portrait of my life, here, with these people.
My family, and not just any one. The best one.
Looks like it’s time for me to make new memories.
Christian
“Are you sure about this, Chris?”
My dad’s question is valid. With the picture being taken in the spot that means the most to the both of us, and what’s about to follow once I can get Emery away from catching up with her mom and Johnny, I’ve been asking myself the same thing repeatedly.
The difference between my dad asking and the way I have been, is that he doesn’t know my answer as unequivocally as I do. My answer is finite, written in stone, and it’s time for it to be the same for him, even if he doesn’t entirely understand the urgency.
“It’s all that’s left to do now, Dad, and something tells me that doing it here, where Emery spent so long wishing for her dad, means it’s going to reach Mom.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what was in that letter?”
“No, because you already know. You lived it.”
“I just want to be sure that you’re not doing this because of something you read. That you’ve actually given it the thought it deserves and aren’t letting emotions and the p
ast guide you.”
“The only thing guiding me here is Emery, Dad. I’ve thought about it, planned it out and never once in the time it took putting it all together did I doubt it. I want this and I think deep down, you want it for me too.”
“I do.” He smiles before backing away and letting his gaze fall to where his wife sits with the girl that will one day be mine in every way.
There’s not even doubt about how she’ll answer.
Thanks, Mom.
Fingering the ring in my hand, a gift that had been attached to the letter and belonged to my mom, one that may have been even more important than her wedding band because of what my dad was feeling when he gave it to her in high school, I embrace him one final time before making my way over to Emery and slipping my arms around her.
Kissing the side of her neck softly, breathing in her scent as she leans back into me, sighing contented over how good having her like this still feels, I finally release her and nodding to her mom, take her hand in mine, slowly leading her away from everyone’s eyes, stopping only when we finally reach the spot that truly does belong to us.
The rock.
Motioning to it, asking her to sit and laughing at her confused expression, I finally open up my hand when she’s comfortable and slide down to one knee.
“Oh my god, Mikey. Get up. This isn’t funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be, but hear me out?”
As soon as her head begins moving up and down, I slip the ring to the top of my fingertips and hold it out in front of her.
“Six months ago, I had a conversation with my mom. It was a little one sided, but she did something that day and it justified everything I’ve been feeling since I got you back, but have been too afraid to express.”
I can tell that she’s with me, can even see how surprised she is at what I’m admitting to, but where I expect to see some sign that she thinks I’m totally crazy for saying I had a conversation with my dead mother, all that’s there in her eyes is what’s been there all along.
Love, understanding and acceptance.
“She validated everything I feel. Understood the person standing here now even though the thirteen year old she remembers died inside the day she did. She predicted this long before it happened, and instead of embracing the fear I’ve been guided by since she passed, I want what she saw for me back then. What’s sitting in front of me now. I want you, Emery Carmichael. I want you for as long as forever allows.”
“Mikey…”
The soft way my name escapes, the same way I imagine the letter from my mom starting had she been alive to read it aloud, is another sign. As scary as the future looks and the uncertainty that surrounds it, it’s like my mom said. It can be defeated and this moment with Emery is proof.
Fear has no place here anymore.
Today, love wins.
“This ring,” I say, looping it around my own finger. “Is the ring that my dad gave to my mom for their first anniversary, dating—not married, promising her the world as he slipped it down on her finger. Today, I want to do the same thing, but different. I don’t want to promise you the world, because for me, you are the world, but I do want us to make a promise before I ask you to wear it.”
Lifting her hand and wiping a stray tear from her eye, she brings her hand out, fingers grazing against mine as she slips the ring from my hand, sliding it down over her finger before I’ve even gotten to explain what I want to promise.
“What are you doing?”
“I figured that was obvious. I’m putting on the ring.”
“But shouldn’t you know what you’re signing up for?”
“I went all in with you over a year ago, Christian. I bet on the sure thing. There’s nothing left to say, unless, I mean, you’re planning on asking me to marry you right now.” Eyes locked on mine with not even so much as a bat of her eyelids to show that she’s unsure of what she’s saying, I struggle to find the words to say before she laughs and breaks me of it. “Just to clarify. You’re not asking me to marry you, right?”
“I’m not, at least not yet, but I was hoping that we could promise each other a few things.”
“Well, since your dad promised the world to your mom, taking that off the table, I’m not sure what else is left.”
Giving in and laughing despite the seriousness of the moment, I slide across the ground, taking both of her hands in mine and attempt to salvage all of the words designed to melt her that I had planned.
“Promise me that no matter where your career as a photo journalist takes you, or how many tours I do in whatever band I end up playing with, that we’ll always make a point of coming back to this spot at least once a year.”
“Done.” She replies with a grin. “You can do better than that, Mikey. That one was a given.”
“Promise me that no matter how much I annoy you with my inability to clean up after myself, or how often I go behind your back and use the honesty loophole in order to spoil you, that you won’t hold it against me.”
“Deal, but we might need to draw up a contract about that loophole because you’re abusing it.”
“Anything you want, but I’m still going to do it.”
“You’re frustrating.”
“And you’re adorable when you’re full of bullshit.”
“Aww, Mikey. Always the romantic.”
“That’s me.” I agree. “Are you ready for the final promise now?”
“Hit me with your best shot, lover boy.”
“Promise that when the time is right, the planets are all aligned and we’re where we want to be in our life, that you’ll come back here and let me do this all over again as I ask you to be Emery Cayne.”
This one gets her. What had been a few stray tears here and there as she tried to replace them with humor, can’t be held back and tamed anymore, as the sound of her name makes her eyes begin to water and spill over. The reflection of my own glistening through hers and blanketing the moment in pure emotion.
Moving in and helping her wipe them away, I wait for her to compose herself enough in the moment before asking again.
“Can you do that, Emery? Do you promise to let me do this again in the future?”
Proving every word my mom wrote in her letter right, she leans in until her forehead is resting against mine and with a brush of her hand across my face, whispers the two most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.
“I do.”
*****
Two words that exactly four years later, I’d brought her back and made her repeat again as I made her my wife. Officially making her Emery Cayne.
Finally proving to the world what I’ve known from the day she crashed her way into my life.
Some of the most beautiful things can be found in the spaces in between.
The End
Emily’s Letter to Christian
My Dearest Mikey,
I wish I could tell you the reason I’m writing you is because they found a cure for the cancer I’ve been stricken with, but I think at this stage, given your reluctance to leave my side for any reason, we both know it would be untrue.
What I can tell you is the real reason I sit here and pen this letter to the little man that is both my greatest achievement and most precious joy.
It’s because right now there is a woman in your life that you’ve allowed past the wall that is your heart since the day we found out I was sick. Someone so incredibly special, she is able to see past the mask you show the rest of the world to what lies underneath, and the one that I have no doubt, will one day become your wife.
Recalling the way the sun seemed to rise and fall with your father when we were around the age I’m sure you are now, I can imagine how it feels for you. Equal parts frightening and exhilarating if my recollection is correct.
Run with those feelings, sweet boy, because there is no greater feeling in the world than finding the one that can affect you so deeply, move you in ways previously thought impossible, altering your life before you�
�ve even realized they’ve done it.
But nothing worth having ever comes free of complication, so that fear you have deep down inside, the one that says in opening yourself this way, you’ve left your heart vulnerable to hurt, it will be your greatest complication, but I’m living proof, as is your father, that it can be defeated.
Just trust in each other, always being honest, even when it might seem as though it’s better not to, and before you know it, the fear will evaporate completely and all you’ll be left with is the purest of loves.
That is my wish for you, beautiful little man. That you’re given the chance to experience the very best that life and love has to offer the same way I did when I met your father and we were blessed enough to have you.
Now Christian, please pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you. It will serve you well as you begin your lives together.
Tell her every day—as many times as you can, that she’s beautiful and the center of your world. How blessed and lucky you are to have found her. Never let her go to bed angry, or if you do, make sure that you kiss her before she goes, so that even in the midst of the storm that is her anger and upset, she will always know the power of your devotion. Treat her with respect always, even when she’s lost her mind and you don’t think she deserves it, and I promise it will all come back to you tenfold.
Most of all, be yourself. Always.
That’s the person she fell in love with, and if she’s how I imagine her to be, it’s the one she’s always going to love, whether you be filled with flaws and imperfections or as close to perfect as it gets.
If you don’t believe me, just ask your dad.
It’s why even now, while I’m facing the uncertainty of what comes next, I’ treasure each and every day I got to spend with him.
Loving him brought me to life, making me stronger than I ever thought I could be, but being loved by him in return, it’s given me the courage to stand tall and ready for whatever comes next in my journey from this life into the next.
He was my one and only love…until you taught me what the purity of love really is.
The Space In Between Page 36
