“What is?”
“The truth to that quote. Can I tell you something that’s going to sound a little crazy?”
My muscles vibrate with awareness of her as she leans over the railing and her warm sugar and vanilla fragrance hits my nose.
“Go for it.”
“I can’t explain it, but I feel like I know you somehow, like a sense of familiarity. Told you it would sound crazy.”
My heart rate amps up several beats. Douglass told me something after she and Jordan reconnected and fell in love that has stuck with me. She said how true soulmates are meant to part ways, only so that they can find their way back to one another.
I miss you. I love you. I’m so sorry for not telling you that.
“That doesn’t sound crazy at all.”
She pushes her hair away from her face and climbs up onto the railing, dangling her long legs over the side and swinging them back and forth.
“Seeing as we’ve concluded that we’re friends and all, can I confess something?”
I shift to face her more directly while still keeping to the shadows. “Go for it.”
She tips her head back and gazes up at the night sky as if it holds the answer to her question. “Tonight was the first time I went out on a date in almost two years. Twenty months to be exact. That sounds even more pitiful when I say it aloud.”
That invisible hand reaches back inside my chest and chokes my heart even stronger than before. Anger simmers at thoughts of her with another man. I know I have no claim to her anymore. I’m the one who walked away, regardless of my reasons. But dammit, that fractured, beating organ behind my ribcage still thinks that she’s mine.
“I thought I was ready.” Her voice is a sad whisper on the summer night’s breeze. She lowers her face and looks directly at me. “You married?” She shakes her head in disbelief for a second time, her midnight pin-straight hair swishing over her shoulders. “That was really rude of me. Forget I asked.”
Throat dry as the Sahara, I reply, “It’s okay. And no, I’m not.”
“Girlfriend?” Her hand smacks her forehead with a loudslap. “I amsosorry. I don’t know what’s come over me tonight. It’s none of my business.”
I assure her, “It’s really okay. And there’s no girlfriend either.”
A beat of silence fills the distance between us. Only mere feet that feel like thousands of miles.
“Can I ask you another probably very inappropriate question?”
My grunted hum tells her to continue.
“Have you ever been in love?”
With you. Only you. Always you.
“Yes.”
“Me too. I still am if I’m being completely honest,” she replies, barely above a murmur. “It’s why I couldn’t let Michael kiss me tonight.”
Michael.
Joy and jealousy, two dichotomous, dual emotions battle it out when I hear her say she couldn’t let another man kiss her because she’s still in love with someone else. With me. I know it’s me. Just like I know I will never love another woman because I will always love her.
The heavy quietude surrounds us once more, but with her here, the darkness doesn’t claw at me because she’s my light.
Covering a yawn, Aria carefully hops down from her perch. “I think it’s time I turn in. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“You didn’t.”
She takes a step toward the house but stops. “If you’re around tomorrow and not too busy unpacking, drop by for some coffee. I was going to stop by the bakery and pick up something to welcome you to the neighborhood, but I think I’ll whip up some of my homemade chocolate chip cookies. I’ve been told they’re the bomb. At least, that’s what Brandon says… and I’m rambling again.” She chuckles.
