Day 147
Adam
Sunsets and sunrises become somewhat of a marker for us. A way to honor each day that begins and passes, kind of like her journaling. She’s grumpy when I wake her early, but then she’s always smiling when the first rays of light touch her face.
“We’re done with our list,” Eve points out when I help her up.
I throw her a sad little smile. “Yeah.”
We’ve been done with it for a while, but I could see her fighting herself on mentioning it. We’ve been in her approved settling-down zone for the last few days, but we haven’t been actively searching for a house. Instead, we’ve just been driving.
I knew if we spoke about it, it would make it a project. Something she has to execute. And she seemed intent on staying in our state of unproductive bliss for a little while longer.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t ever have fun again,” she says as we walk to the car, and it’s like she’s trying to convince herself, more than me. “We’ll make more memories. And we could travel. Just not very far.”
“We haven’t settled down yet,” I remind her as I put the keys in the ignition. “We haven’t even officially started searching for a house.”
“I have.” Her soft voice makes me pause, and instead of putting the car in drive, I just look at her. “I tried not to. But I’ve been looking. Every house we pass, I consider as an option,” she says it like a confession. “It’s my anxious, overthinking brain. I can’t help it.”
“I love your brain.” I feel a smile stretching my lips. “You don’t have to do it alone, though. It’s not your burden. We should do it together.”
“I know. It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She bites her lip before holding out a hand, and I take it without question. “I just…”
“Didn’t want to make it real yet,” I finish for her.
Her eyes widen with surprise. The brightening sky over us is almost identical in color, but nothing could capture the exact hue of her eyes. I know because I’ve been willfully drowning in those blue depths from the moment we met.
“I guess I should stop being surprised,” she says at last. “That you can read my mind so well.”
“There were times when I couldn’t.” I start driving, slowly, as dawn fully breaks above. “At the beginning. And I hated it. Not being able to read your mind.”
“And now you have full access to the chaos,” she says playfully. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I love the chaos.” I stare ahead at the open road. “I love—”
The words are right there at the tip of my tongue.
And there they remain. Almost out. They hang in the air between us like a known secret.
Eve silently squeezes my hand; an assurance.
It’s okay. I don’t expect anything. There’s so much you’ve given me already.
But I want to give her that, too. And then more. There’s nothing worth keeping to myself, nothing in me that I want to keep away from her.
We’re not searching, not really, but the drive around Kansas feels slower, more purposeful than before. When the afternoon rolls around, we pause wordlessly, knowing it’s nearly sunset. It’s a ceremony, at this point, one we don’t want to disturb.
I drive us up a hill to watch it. There’s a playground there, nothing but a few neglected structures, but for some reason it feels perfect.
What else can I ask her that I haven’t already? I wonder, looking over at Eve. The last rays of sun caress her face, and she closes her eyes to savor it, just like she did in that garden of pomegranates.
She doesn’t mind my silence, just like I don’t mind hers.
We sit on the rusty swings for so long, the sky starts to change its color.
“What did you think when you first saw me?” I ask, looking at the sunset.
“You mean the very first moment?” She sounds pensive, like she’s reliving it in her head. “I thought you might be dead.” I chuckle. “What were you doing lying on that road, anyway?”
“At first? Listening.” To her lifted brow, I add, “I was thinking that maybe there were people underground.”
She raises her brow even higher.
“And then I fell asleep,” I confess, and she laughs. “You know I’m a light sleeper. I saw a chance and took it.”
“So unprofessional of you to let your guard down like that, Soldier Boy,” she teases.
“And yet, even half asleep, I managed to put a gun to your throat,” I remind her. She grins as if the memory is one she’s fond of. I hope she always smiles like that when she thinks of me.
“And me?” she asks after a while. “What did you think when you saw me?”
I looked at you and I saw… light. A sliver of hope in this bleak, desolate darkness. And if there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that you can never keep a good thing. Anyone who enters your life could just as easily leave.
I guess I decided I’d rather not love at all, rather than let myself love you and then lose you.
So I was quiet and I was mean and I pushed you away, but you never let me.
You always came back around twice as strong.
You made me want to write the end of my story rather than let it happen to me.
When I think of dying now, it doesn’t even really scare me, because I know that if I die, I’ll die yours.
And there’s nothing more I could ever ask for.
“Hope,” is all I say as the night takes over around us.