Chapter 20 #2
But I can’t. Not with my father a few feet away, probably looking at us through his window. So instead, I reach for Jacob’s glasses, plucking them off his face and cleaning them with the corner of my sweater.
“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing one lens and then the other. Once done, I lift them up to put them back on the bridge of his nose, and Jacob bends his knees, meeting my height, making it easier for me.
I slide them on just as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud, casting him in its warmth. Making his brown eyes glow.
Light shining through whiskey. I remember thinking that the night we met.
Jacob raises a hand, adjusting the frames of his glasses, but he doesn’t move away. He stays like this, only an inch from me, his expression gentle. “You don’t have to be,” he says softly.
“What?”
“You don’t have to be fine.”
And just like that, my eyes sting again. I blink quickly, and Jacob’s hand lifts, hovering in the air between us for a moment, then dropping.
“Sorry,” he says as a tear spills out, trailing down my cheek. His gaze follows it, and I watch his fingers flex. “I can’t—” He looks upset, helpless as he watches me, and the strain in my body begins to ease.
“It’s all right,” I say. I glance over Jacob’s shoulder and see that my father has stepped out of the car. Our eyes latch, and my father quickly turns away, looking out at the view. My gaze follows out of instinct, toward the edge of this lookout, and my breath catches.
I’ve seen several lochs on this drive. I’ve seen countless rolling green hills and lush glens. I’ve seen so much natural beauty it’s become expected, part of the surroundings.
But I haven’t seen anything like this.
Because here, the clouds are…dancing. Drifting in and out of the hills, blending with the mist, and I can’t quite tell where the earth ends and the sky begins. It’s all one great expanse. Green and blue and gray.
The sun peeks out again, and the colors shift, the green growing more vibrant, the purple flowers on the slopes vivid and bright.
I take a step forward, toward the short stone wall separating us from the view.
“It’s—” I stop, feeling Jacob beside me, his shoulder brushing mine.
“What?” he asks when I don’t continue.
I shake my head. “I—I don’t know. It’s just…out here, don’t you ever feel like you’re so small? Like everything is so small?” I pause, uncertain if I’m capturing exactly how I feel, unsure if I can put it into words. “I mean, something like this…it goes on forever. And we—”
“And we’re part of it,” Jacob says. “Maybe not forever, but right now, we’re part of it too.”
I let out an amused breath. “My version was going to be much more pessimistic than that.” I look over at him. “But I like yours better.”
He smiles, slow and gentle. “I didn’t used to like it, but at some point, I had to accept it.
That nothing lasts forever.” He lifts a hand, pointing at the hills in front of us.
“Not even this. All that purple? The heather? It only blooms twice a year. You just happen to be here at the right time, but in a few months all this purple will turn brown. This place…it won’t look like this forever.
But maybe that’s what makes this special, what gives it meaning.
If we all went on forever, if this went on forever, would we even be able to understand how beautiful this is? ”
I look back at the hills, at the swaths of purple flowers, and it almost…hurts to imagine this place without them. To know their time here is so short.
And then I see my father, looking out at the same view, his back toward us.
“How do you—” A lump forms in my throat. “I haven’t experienced a fraction of what you have, but if I had, I don’t know if I could—” I shake my head. “I just wonder how you—you sound so okay with that. How do you not wish for more time?”
“Therapy,” he says, and something about his matter-of-fact tone makes me laugh.
“Sorry,” I say, but when I look over at him, he’s grinning widely.
“No,” he says. “I was being flippant. Though it’s partially true.
I don’t know how I would have processed, how I would have dealt with everything without it.
But the truth is I do wish for more time.
I wish I had years and years, but I’d settle for five minutes.
Five minutes with my parents in the kitchen.
Five minutes talking with James. I’d settle for a handful of seconds, really.
I wouldn’t even have to see them. It’d be enough to just hear their voices again.
But—” He stops, his voice breaking. “There’s no amount of time that would be enough.
I’ll always want more. And so, what other choice is there?
” He lifts a shoulder. “There’s nothing else I can do but be thankful for the time I did have. And enjoy the time I have now.”
“I…” I take a deep breath, my shoulder brushing against his. “That’s beautiful. It’s—” I turn toward him, his face only a few inches away from mine. “You have a real way with words, you know that?”
He flushes. “English professor,” he says, half explanation, half apology.
“And poet,” I say.
“And poet.”
“And bagpiper.”
He laughs lightly. “All right.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and looks away, and something flutters in my chest.
“Are you embarrassed?”
“No. Yes.” He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Yes.”
“Why?”
And now when he laughs, he sounds shy. Self-conscious. “I don’t know.”
“You have no reason to feel that way, you know? I think it’s…I’m not teasing you. I like those things about you.” I like you.
“Thanks,” he says. His eyes meet mine, hesitant, but warm. Kind.
A heavy crunch of gravel sounds behind us, and I twist my head in time to see my father walking back to the car. His mouth opens when he sees me, as if he might call my name, or say something, anything, but he closes it just as quickly.
“Do you want to talk to him?” Jacob asks quietly.
Yes.
No.
Truly, I don’t think I can. I feel as if I’ve just donated blood, drained of energy, lightheaded. I’m not sure if I have anything left to give.
“Not right now,” I say.
“Okay,” Jacob responds softly.
We look out at the view for a few more minutes, both of us silent, and then we head back to the car. We’re quiet on the short walk back, the only noise the wind whistling around us, playing with my bangs, ruffling them out of shape.
I adjust them in the reflection of the car window, hesitating between the passenger seat and the back.
I don’t want to sit opposite from my father right now. I don’t even want to go back to being in the same car, but I don’t have another choice.
Jacob’s hand reaches for the door to the back seat, and my stomach sinks for a moment, until he places his other hand on my shoulder. He maneuvers me toward the door, but before he opens it for me, he bends his head, his lips close to my ear.
“Yes,” he says.
I turn, so close I can feel his breath on my forehead. “What?”
“Yes,” he says. “For tonight. Yes.”
And before I can respond, he’s pulled the door open, helping me inside.