Chapter 35 We Are the Pages, the Words, the Poem #3
“He’s… He’s about to get on a plane. To Seattle.”
“And?”
“That won’t do.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Aria, what kind of weird crap are you saying?”
“He’s… We… I need a ticket, Emma.”
“To Seattle?” Now she really thinks I’ve lost it. “They’re boarding, Aria. You can’t buy a ticket.”
I swallow hard. I hate to do this, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
I take a deep breath. “In seventh grade you pooped your pants, Emma, when William had to step out to buy some more popcorn and the guys turned on an old horror movie. I gave you my pants. I gave you my pants, Emma, and I spent the rest of the night in my reindeer leggings without batting an eyelash because you needed my help. And now I need yours.”
“My pants?”
“Your help!”
She presses her lips together and looks at me, and then she looks from right to left, once, twice, three times, then heaves a sigh. “But there’s no way. You simply cannot buy a ticket anymore.”
“Emma…”
“But I can let you make an announcement.”
Relief. Pure, unfiltered relief. My shoulders slump. I nod. “That works. Just a few seconds. That’s all I need.”
“My boss is gonna kill me,” Emma mumbles. She looks anything but convinced as she waves me behind the counter and nods at the thin microphone next to her computer.
The line behind me lets out a collective sigh.
Some of them throw their arms up in frustration.
With the absolute certainty that I have never been so nervous in my life, I bend over the microphone.
My heart throws itself against my chest with strong, racing beats.
Every nerve pathway in my body transmits a thousand charged sparks of tension, making me tingle, pulsate, hope, and fear all at once.
I am a nervous wreck. My field of vision blurs.
“Aria.” It’s Emma. “You okay?”
The fog slowly clears. I am only vaguely aware of a buzzing babble of voices as I nod. I try to stand on my shaky legs. He’s here somewhere, somewhere. My gaze flits over the many heads, but I’m too nervous, completely beside myself. Oh God. Help, help, help! I don’t see any baseball caps.
Get going, a voice whispers in my head. You don’t have any more time. I take a deep breath.
“You know, Lopez, we were courageous,” I begin, my voice shaky but there.
“The way we fought for each other the whole time, knowing we didn’t want to give up despite how much we had hurt each other.
You me and me you—that was really courageous.
I mean, shit, just try fighting for something that hurts so bad that you can’t even breathe, that wants to knock you down and keep you there—how masochistic is that?
But, to be really honest, Wy, it was worth it.
All of it. The tears. The hopelessness. The empty feeling in my chest when I slowly began to feel like I just couldn’t do it anymore…
What did it think it was doing, nesting in me as if I’d allowed it in, as if I’d wanted it? ”
The whole time I keep rubbing my chest and try to ignore how everyone in the lobby is staring at me.
“But if someone were to ask me, ‘Aria, you can have all that time back, with all your love and everything, but you have to go through all the pain again—you interested?’ I would say yes right away. Because it’s so easy to love you, Wyatt, and it’s so hard to try not to.
Sure, sometimes I’m afraid. The thing we have is so big and real and powerful, and I was never good at anything, not really, not at baking, not at volleyball.
But you know what? I love you, and that’s one thing I can do really well, and I don’t want to give that up.
Wyatt, please, don’t let me give up on that.
I want us to work. I want you. I want everything.
But the one thing I don’t want is for you to go.
Because, come on, Wyatt, a Kraken? You’re a Snowdog! ”
I stand there out of breath. And I wait. No one says a thing. We’re talking that famous silence where you can hear a pin drop. The guy in the Burberry jacket is wearing a sympathetic look now.
“I think that thing we had was right,” I continue just because I don’t want it to be over.
I want to continue thinking that he can hear me, that I didn’t come here in vain.
“It’s just that time didn’t understand, and this here is our reunion; that’s the challenge.
I want this, really. I would give everything for us, every day and forever, because if you’re by my side, then I’ll never be lost and…
I know I thought I couldn’t love anymore—but I was just too afraid of losing myself, but that’s not a danger anymore because I know who I am, because I love who I am.
So, Wyatt, please, let’s give it another try, you and me, like before, with nothing between us anymore. ”
Breathing quickly, I scan the lobby and wait. I’ve said everything. But no one moves. There’s no Wyatt running down a corridor to meet me. Nothing happens.
Why isn’t anything happening?
And then it comes. Panic. He’s not here. It was all in vain. He took an earlier flight. Or he is on a later one. Here I am, my soul bare, speechless, having said everything in just two minutes, but for nothing.
In this hopeless, desperate moment, suddenly I see him. He was here the whole time, sitting on that gray stool just ten feet away, but I didn’t notice him because all I was doing was feeling.
He was here the whole time.
He stands up. Walks over to me.
“You’re here,” I say.
“Sure.” He shrugs. “Where else?”
“In Seattle.”
“Aria.” He gives me his hand. I take it. Electric shocks run through my body as he leads me around the counter.
And then I’m standing right in front of him, looking up into his face. His fingertips skim my freckles, a faint smile on his face. “How could I fly to Seattle while leaving my heart behind?”
“Your heart?”
“You, Aria. You’re my heart.” There’s his face, right in front of me, his forehead touching mine. “I want you. Forever.”
“Me, too. And I want you to call me Lopez at some point because I love that name, just like you, just like us.”
His lips brush mine. “Do you know what I’d say?”
“What?”
“We’re total chaos, Lopez.”
“And I would agree with you,” I whisper, my eyelids lowered, mouth parted. “You got that right, Lopez, one hundred percent.”
A brief, husky laugh against my lips. “We’re lucky that I love chaos.”
Dimples, honey-colored eyes, a heart-stopping moment.
So, here we are, just three of the things that connect me to Wyatt. But they are all that lies ahead of me, all that I want.
Look at how beautiful this butterfly is: it knows how to fly again.
How beautiful.