Chapter I smile. “Thank you for lunch.”
Salmon make the long and grueling journey up their natal river to spawn once and die where their life began. No one tells them to do it. They have this instinct that drives them.
Nolan can’t explain how he senses things that no one else can.
He just does. I can’t explain why I chose to leave London and return to my place of birth to die.
I did it on instinct. Maybe this is where my circle of life ends.
All I know for sure is I want to know why.
Not why do I have cancer. Why am I here?
What is the purpose of life? Did I do what I was placed on this earth to do?
Nolan stops the car in my drive. “My father is a terrible husband, and I’m not sure he has that many redeemable qualities in general.
But … she loves him. He will never change.
I could take him away from her. I could give him exactly what he deserves, but losing him would be the final straw, and …
I think she’s barely hanging on. One day she’s going to remember what happened and that will obliterate her whole world. ”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
Nolan’s hand rests on mine over the console. “You don’t have to. I just needed to say the words aloud to remind myself why I let this go on. Have you ever had this desperate need to say what’s been going through your mind for years and it didn’t even matter if anyone else understood?”
Yes. I don’t understand a word he said about his parents, but his need to say it connects with me on a very personal level.
“Scarlet?” he calls before I close the car door. “I think you should see a doctor. It’s time.”
I smile. “Thank you for lunch.”
*
I haven’t spoken the word cancer aloud since I’ve been here. Yimin has been treating my body for something that he may or may not know exists. The word-filled pages of books written by spiritual teachers have made my reality emotionally manageable.
Shit happens.
All we have is now.
Better give thanks.
I don’t know if I drank too much or if the summer I spent with a Frenchman, who convinced me to smoke with him, had some monumental impact on where I am right now.
Maybe random sex wasn’t the best form of recreation in my late teens.
An STD sat in the back of my mind during my recklessness, but never cancer.
Maybe in this toxic world my body burden hit a tipping point and my wake-up call came a little too late.
But it all comes down to this: does it matter?
All I have is now, and I will take every single now I’m given.
As soon as I open the back door, I hear a voice—someone singing. I creep up the stairs, not wanting to make a noise, fearful the voice will disappear. That would be tragic because I could listen to this voice—his voice—forever.
I stop at the top step. Theo has nailed down some sort of underlayment for the tile.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to step on it, so I sit on the top step and listen to him.
He’s on his hands and knees with his back to me, several feet away, earbuds in his ears, and he’s singing a song I have never heard before.
My name is Scarlet Stone and my first concert was Rod Stewart. In the front row, where the sweat dripped from the sexiest man alive and the roar of the crowd shook the stadium, I vowed to one day marry a rock star.
It’s a love song and it’s dark and … heartbreaking.
I don’t recognize the voice, it’s tangled with emotion and veiled by sexy grit that is so not the Theodore Reed with whom I’ve become acquainted.
The longer I listen, the more I feel like I’m intruding on something personal.
Is he singing this for Kathryn? As I ease to my feet to leave and give him privacy, he stops singing.
I halt and wince, feeling his eyes on me before I even turn.
“Hey,” he says. I feel zero hatred toward me at the moment because his “hey” is said in a friendly, un-Theo way.
It’s the first word we’ve shared since my breakdown in the bathroom the morning after we had sex. Lots of sex. I don’t know what scares me more—our uncontrolled physical attraction or our mutual need to not talk about it, at all, like it never happened, like it was … nothing.
“Hey. Sorry. I heard a voice so I came up to see what it was and then …” I shrug as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
Theo stands and pops one earbud out and then the other.
I came to Savannah to see where it all began …
where I began. But right now, I swear to God I flew to the other side of the pond just to see Theo in a dirty white T-shirt and faded blue jeans with holes in the knees, a red bandana wrapped around his head, and the most vulnerable look in his blue eyes.
In this moment, I don’t even recognize him.
“You’re fine. Did you just get back?”
I nod. “Nolan asked me to lunch.”
He leans against the door frame, boots crossed at the ankle. “A date?”
I smile. It feels painful on my face and even more unbearable in my heart. “No. Just lunch. I’m quite possibly the most un-datable person on Tybee Island.”
“Because you’re engaged?”
I shake my head. “Your voice. I’m starting to think your lie is the truth. If I have…” I bite at my lip, wincing at my likely fate “…a little extra time, maybe I can be a groupie for your first concert.”
He pushes out a long breath. “Maybe we can play at your wedding reception.”
Ouch. This hurts. Does he have any idea how much pain I feel right now?
“The river has a species of freshwater dolphins. When they get excited they turn pink. Very human of them, don’t you think?
Anyway, they have this mating ritual. The male throws a piece of driftwood around—which he can do because unlike other species of dolphins, they can turn their heads from side to side.
If the female catches it, that means they will mate. ”
Theo smirks.
“My dad told me that. He fed my insatiable hunger for knowledge more than anyone. Books. He gave me books. Some quite rare.”
I look up just as Theo quirks an eyebrow. “And he purchased these books from some little hole-in-the-wall bookstore that happened to have some hidden treasures?”
I grin. “Something like that.” No person has ever loved me like my dad.
If he knew about the cancer, he would be here.
He’d steal a thousand lives to save mine.
“I don’t…” I shake my head “…I don’t know why certain random things pop into my head.
But I can’t not say them. I’ve been so enamored with the unique, the crazy, the unexpected …
I assume everyone around me surely finds this information as fascinating as I do.
My dad did.” I furrow my brow, staring at my feet. “At least I think he did.”
“Dolphins …”
I glance up as Theo speaks.
“Driftwood … mating … fascinating.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes on me, and a boyish grin claiming his mouth.
Who is this man? And where has he been? And why do I feel his hand reaching into my chest, trying to claim something he cannot have?
“Sharks …” He continues. “Sharks kill, on average, ten humans per year—worldwide. Humans … we are responsible for the death of over one hundred million sharks per year. So … statistically, I’m not going to die by the jaws of a shark.”
I did not know that. I’m equally saddened by the morbidity of his statement and excited that he has his own random-facts bank.
In another life, Theodore Reed would make my heart do flips.
A part of my soul would gravitate toward his.
However, in this life, I will be satisfied with moments like this, stealing as many nows as I can.
Surely, a third-generation thief can do that. Can’t I?
“I don’t have an eating disorder. Never have had one.
I like cheese and cream sauces, anything fried, pints of lager, wine so old it’s a crime to drink it, and the occasional puff of a cigar because it reminds me of my grandfather.
I obsess over large chocolate bunnies at Easter and sweets at Halloween.
I never believed in Father Christmas, but it didn’t stop me from pretending that I did so my dad would attempt to bake biscuits to put by the tree.
They were the worst thing I have ever tasted.
“But I came here—Savannah—to see…” I shake my head and blink back the tears “…to see if I can do it better. To see if doing it better will make a difference in my life. In this life.”
Theo’s brow pulls tight. I can only imagine what he thinks of my sappy and cryptic view on life. I could tell him. I could say “I’m dying,” but I don’t owe him any explanation, and he doesn’t owe me an ounce of sympathy. Everything between us is a lie. We are nothing and that’s how it has to be.
Every kiss.
Every touch.
Every moment of skin to skin in truly stolen breaths.
It’s all nothing but a fleeting moment—a now with nothing brought from the past and nothing borrowed from the future.
What if life could be that for everyone?
What if every moment was free from expectations and regret?
What if we started counting time in breaths instead of seconds?
What if I could hold my breath and stop time?
I smile. That’s my ah-ha moment. When we stop breathing … time does stop. That’s when we know our time is up. I think I’ll keep counting breaths.
“I’m holding you up.” I turn and head down the stairs.
“Maybe I can quit a little early.”
I turn.
Theo shrugs. “Maybe I can make us dinner. You know … Food. Small talk. Maybe I say something that makes you grin. Maybe you say something that makes me laugh. Maybe the food is crap so we drink too much wine. Maybe the full moon beckons us to the beach where we walk in the shadows of the night. Maybe you tell me something about yourself. Maybe it’s a lie, and maybe that’s okay because we’re both going our separate ways in a few months.
But maybe … just maybe for one night we feel human. ”
I won’t love you, Theodore Reed. I can’t.
I nod. “I’d like that very much.”