Grams reaches up and touches Charlie’s cheek with the tips of her fingers, gazing at him as if she were a young girl in love for the first time. “You know what my biggest regret was, Charlie?” Gramsasks.
With a small smile on Charlie’s face, he presses his fingers gently through Grams’s hair. “What’sthat?”
Grams shakes her head from side to side with small movements. “I never got to tell you how I truly felt that day when you saved me,Charlie.”
With his hand now cupped around her chin, forcing her to focus on his face, he smiles. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. Charlie’s eyes well up, but it looks like the tears are made from contentment and joy. He lays his head on Grams’s chest and holds her tightly. “I could die knowing you never said those words because I knew how you felt, and that was enough forme.”
Grams pulls in a deep breath and holds it for a moment. “Charlie, it’s not enough, and if this is it for me, I need for you toknow—”
“No,” Charlie says as he places his finger over Grams’s lips. “You don’t owe me that. Love isn’t words, Amelia. Love is so much more than letters and sounds, and we knowthat.”
“Yes, that’s true, and I was sure if said those deadly words to you, then you would be the next person taken from me. Before I met you, I lost everyone I loved. I couldn’t bear to take a chance on that with you, as well. However, now that I might be the next to go, you should hear those lastwords.”
“Don’t say your last words, Amelia.Don’t.”
“Charlie, I have waited all these years to tell you what I couldn’t say backthen.”
“Don’t say it,” he croaks, sounding as if he may shatter. His face crumples with pain and anger as he continues to plead. “Please, don’t. Save them forlater.”
“I love you, Charlie. I have loved you since the beginning of our time together, and if this is it for me, then these words—‘I love you’are my last words, and they will always belong toyou.”
