24. Chapter 24
Yareli entered the small coffee shop on the corner of Fifty-second Avenue.
Far from her apartment, there was only one reason she had come.
She scanned the small room and found the familiar black-haired ponytail she had come to adore.
He sat facing away from the door—an unusual position, as she thought he enjoyed watching her arrive early, only to realize he had beaten her again.
She ordered her cup of tea and made her way to the teal-colored metal table for two.
She smiled at this thought—a table for only the two of them, two friends, maybe something more in the near future.
She tapped his shoulder, drumming her fingers lightly like the quick chirp of a bird, and slid into her seat across from him.
“Hey, you,” she said. “You’re here an hour early.”
He smiled that crooked one-sided smile that threatened to be her undoing and said, “I had a feeling I should be here extra early this time.”
She laughed. The usual irritation from being bested by him didn’t arise; instead, giddiness bubbled enthusiastically. Like, this was all that mattered to her in the moment—a bright happiness in the dreary, gray life of hers.
“August, I love you.”
The words flowed out of her, causing the memory to crackle with static. That wasn’t right. She had never confessed her feelings to him. A force yanked her, throwing her out of the memory and into another.
Yareli was bundled up; the virgin snow crunched underfoot as she walked alongside August. They were walking in the park near her apartment—Grant’s Park, she remembered.
“Tell me why you thought it was a great idea to go swimming in the middle of winter?” she asked.
He gave her a sheepish grin, his nose red from the cold. “I guess homesickness beats common sense.”
She could understand that, so she decided to stop teasing him.
“Are you sure you’re feeling better enough to be outside now?”
He considered her question, hands shoved into his bright, blue puffy jacket, and tipped his head back toward the gray sky.
“There is no better place to be.”
She tripped over his words like she tripped over her own foot, causing her to fall on her stomach.
“Are you alright?” August asked.
She rolled over onto her back. “Never better.”
It was a lie, of course. Her left wrist throbbed, and her cheeks burned.
He hovered over her face, blocking her view of anything else but his beautiful brown face. His white beanie rested above his eyes, keeping his hair from falling forward.
She cleared her throat. “What?”
“I realized I quite like the view from here,” he replied.
His implication was not lost on her, and she rushed to get off the ground, wrapping her scarf again and hiding the ardent blush on her cheeks. He sure did enjoy teasing her.
“I love you.”
The words rolled off her tongue again, and the memory lost its clarity, becoming blurry and distorted. She hadn’t said those words then either. The memory stuttered, and her vision grew dark.
Yareli blinked. Memories streamed past her, creating a tunnel of colors.
She held her arms out, rotating them in the mellow light.
A kaleidoscope of vivid hues painted her skin, her hands slipped through the tunnel walls, like a mirage.
A bright light flared in the distance, briefly distorting the tunnel, and she walked toward it.
When in a tunnel, the answer was always found at the light.
Her feet lost solid ground, and vertigo hit as they floated upwards until she was supine.
She realized she was still in the lake; her hair floated around her like kelp, but she didn’t panic like before.
The water was warmer, comforting, unlike its earlier hostility.
It floated her upward toward the surface.
When her face broke the water, the vast darkness above her peered down at her. Devoid of stars, it was a bleak, unnerving nothingness. She knew she could wake up if she willed it, but the truth held her from doing so.
She had loved August.