A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 48 Take Me Home

Summer mornings after phone calls with Issac aren’t supposed to look like this: stepping into a darkened ultrasound room that matches the thick overcast outside, being surprised by the pain when the tech pushes the probe down against my skin like she’s digging to get glimpses of the organs hiding inside of me. Telling her not to worry when she apologizes for applying pressure but squeezing my eyes together to keep from crying. How often will I have to do this? Will I always walk back out into the waiting room to find Issac isn’t in the seats ready to sing me a song, make jokes until the worry of the future falls to the background?

After the appointment, I drive to the shop, still upset with my mom for telling Issac, but when I arrive, she’s giggling while showing Lex text messages from Pete and suddenly I’m not in the mood to ruin her day. She gives me a curious look, squinting with a small smile on her face, as if to ask me if we’re okay. I roll my eyes, but begin counting the cash register drawer for her and she takes this to mean we are.

While most of us are quietly working to open the shop, Lex is laughing while scrolling his socials. When he shrieks at something he sees, I pay no attention, just stare longingly at the high- sodium Slim Jim hanging out of Destiny’s back pocket as she stocks some shelves across the room. But Lex gasps again, louder this time, and “Oh my God. Girl! Issac posted a video.”

As we gather around Lex’s phone, I realize I didn’t brace myself for Issac telling the media about our breakup and now I’m reluctant to see what he said. He could’ve had Bernie release the news in an article, but instead I get to see his face again. Last night, it was dark, but today in the sunlight it’s clear he’s exhausted, unshaven, hair unkempt. He doesn’t care what people might think and doesn’t say what I expect him to either.

“I can come on here and pretend for the world like Laniah Thompson and I aren’t having some deeply personal bumps in the road, and maybe we won’t be able to overcome them, but I just want everyone to know that when I said she was my person all those weeks ago, I meant it. She’s the best human I know. She’s been my person since we were kids, back when we’d use food stamps to go buy sandwiches at the corner store up the street. You all know I always talk about soulmates, finding the right person, but it took me too long to accept that my soulmate was already in my life.” He pauses to take a breath, and I hold mine as I wait for him to speak again. “I had my reasons, and one of them was worrying that she wasn’t ready to be that for me. So I waited, you all know how much I dated, but nothing came close to the feeling I get when I’m with her. Whether we’re in a relationship or choose to be just friends, I want to spend my life working through problems with her, healing with her, going through the good, bad, and ugly with her. So, for anyone who needs to hear it, when you find your person, do everything you can to keep them close. Because I know I will.” He pauses for a few seconds. Then: “With that being said, I’m ready to unveil what you all have been waiting years for, a lifetime’s worth of work.”

My heart races as Issac exhales, a small smile on his face before he stands and walks to the wall. He tugs on a drop cloth and says, “This is A Love Like the Sun. A dedication for her.”

The work is intricate, covered in Polaroids and prints of us as kids, my parents playing in the rain, my face painted beautifully in front of a warm orange background, an old movie flyer for the drive-in theater, cutouts of stars to symbolize our visit to the planetarium, me on the cliff face at Beavertail, arms spread, the wind moving through my hair, unaware he was taking a picture. When the camera zooms in, gliding over Issac’s careful work, I notice other things: old records we loved, rocks and seashells, notes we passed in class, a guitar pick, the pearl clips that were in my hair at the botanical garden, a senior prom ticket, dried flowers from the pots on my porch right below a single tulip, one faded green Vanessa Thompson business card, a menu from our favorite restaurant for chicken parm, song lyrics on sheets of paper, the title “Lover” above a drawing of us playing video games in a room turned upside down, shoestrings, and a preserved pink Starburst wrapper. A drawing of me in yellow overalls. A fraying eagle sticker.

I’m stunned seeing our story like this, but my eyes don’t burn until the camera pans on a pen, my father’s. Taped right above a bracelet made of worn string, the letters of my name weaved together in gold beads.

Upon seeing it, my hand rises to clutch Issac’s mother’s ring on my neck, and something breaks free below my breastbone. Issac is my soulmate, and he’s called me home.

I glance up to see the tears in my mother’s eyes as she recognizes a part of her love story laid out too.

When Lex takes his phone from my hand, he asks if I’m okay. I walk into his waiting arms, hugging him while remembering Issac’s words from last night about the strongest love we’ve ever known.

“No, but I think I will be,” I whisper.

I’m driving home on the highway in the pouring rain and have to remember to go slow, avoid the slickness of the road because my mind is somewhere else. It’s in the botanical garden under sunlight, staring up into Issac’s eyes. It’s at the planetarium while we dance and he spins me under the stars. It’s in Jamestown, lying on the rocks beside him while the sky changes colors above us. It’s in each kiss and caress, every single time he looks at me with feeling in his eyes. As soon as I walk through my front door, I’ll search for flights to Cali. I’ll show up at his condo to surprise him, and then he’ll get to see the feeling in mine.

But when I pull up at home, he’s already there. Waiting on my porch. And I can’t move, even though he’s watching me, because my heart is a thing outside of my body. I lay my head against the steering wheel and count my breaths. By the tenth one, I look up and he’s still there.

When I get out of the car, I hold eye contact with him the whole way up the stairs until I’m standing in front of him. My hair is drenched in rainwater, his clothes are damp. Droplets fall from the morning glories above his head and land on his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I’m shivering from the shock of seeing him only eight hours after he posted the video. He reaches to touch my arm, but the contact never comes.

Instead, he pulls his hand back and frowns. “Let’s go inside, get you dry.”

“Issac…what are you doing here?”

He’s quiet for a moment, then glances down at the brown grocery bags at his feet. “I bought some food,” he says, rubbing a thumb under his right eye, swallowing hard enough for me to see. “Some things to make a low-sodium meal. I’m going to cook us dinner.”

It takes a few seconds for his words to register, but then my stomach flutters. My eyes burn. I blink back tears. “Why tonight? Why already?”

He takes a step closer, then another. Soon, he’s almost pressed against me, another inch and we can share the same breath. He can probably hear how loud my heart is pounding even over the falling rain. “You said you love when I don’t listen.”

The corners of my lips twitch. “That’s not exactly what I said.”

“I know, but I chartered a flight because I don’t need any more time to realize that it is going to be me for you regardless,” he says. “Even if you don’t want to be with me, I’ll hire a private chef if you get bored of my cooking, or if you want one for tired days. I’ll move back home and work out of New York. We’ll go to the gym together. I’ll take you to appointments, hold your hand when it hurts.” Tears slip from his eyes, and I start to cry remembering the ultrasound. “I’ll give you pieces of me if I’m a match, Laniah, because I know they’ll be home inside of you. I don’t care if you meet someone else and fall in love, it will be me here, regardless. Whether you like it or not. Because you are my best friend, and I don’t know what your future looks like, but mine won’t be right without you in it. So, let’s go inside. Get you dry. I need…” He breathes out, voice breaking. “I need to cook you dinner. Make me happy by letting me cook for you.”

I reach up to dry his wet face, and he leans into my touch. “I have a confession,” I say, and he waits for it with sad eyes. “Before I saw you standing here, I was going to book a flight to tell you in person that I’m sorry. I made a huge mistake because I was scared. But, Issac, you tilt my world sideways and somehow that’s when everything makes sense. I’ve loved you since yellow overalls and pink Starbursts, and I’ll love you till my last breath. You already know that, but what you don’t know is I want to be with you, good, bad, and ugly. Because I know if the situation was reversed, it would be me for you, regardless. So please forgive me. Cook dinner, move back home if you want to, but know that if you don’t, I’ll be asking you to miss flights to Cali for me.”

He laughs, and I know we’re both remembering our talk on the rocks. For a moment we’re back there, and when I reach for his hand to kiss each of his knuckles, I can smell ocean on his skin.

Issac came here and brought me the sun.

I breathe out, then say, “I want to spend my days with you like they’re the best-case scenario. I just need you to do something else for me.”

A happy sob escapes him before he bends to lean his forehead against mine. While we’re touching, melding, and blending, I ache to be closer, to be wrapped up in him so completely it’ll be hard to tell us apart.

“Anything,” he whispers. “Anything at all.”

“Tell me that you can be brave when I’m not.”

He pulls back to wipe the tears from my face. “That’s easy,” he says. “I’ll be brave for the both of us.”

The soft, sweet kiss he presses to my lips feels like it’s already patching up parts of me, and I realize the sun is somewhere inside of me to help us too.

I ask for one more kiss. Issac smiles and gives me three, then two against my collarbone, trails several down my neck. His fingers climb my spine, and his mouth moves back to mine, teasing with some tongue. The heat sparks fast and he presses flush against me. The moment I hear him moan, I can’t wait until we’re inside, out of these clothes, alone to touch and taste each other. I crave the sounds of him coming undone while I do that thing he likes, and the feel of his beautiful brown eyes drinking me in when I climb on top of him.

But first, I drag him out into the rain because we can’t waste a chance to dance in it.