But I couldn’t tell her that, even though she knew. Of course she knew.
“Oh. I guess I shouldn’t be staying up again until three in the morning just to watch reruns ofSupernatural, huh?”
“No, you probably shouldn’t.”
I sat down on the grass in front of her, my front facing the pond. She placed her hands on my shoulders and leaned down, hiding her face in my neck.
“I don’t want today to end,” she murmured, her breath tickling the short hairs on the back of my neck.
“Me neither.” I turned my head to the side and caught her cheek with my lips, closing my eyes as a tremor ran through me. “If we could stay frozen in one moment, just one, which one would you want it to be?” I asked as she pulled back, threading her hands through my hair.
“One moment?”
“Just one.”
Time ticked slowly while she played with the strands of my hair, goosebumps erupting all over my skin.
“The day we first met.” She smiled. The smallest, saddest smile that held so many emotions that I couldn’t even start to decipher which one was which. “I think it’s one of my favorite days.”
“You wore that purple shirt with a unicorn on it.”
“It was my favorite.” She laughed. “I drove my mom mental, because I didn’t want to take it off, even to sleep.”
“You wore that thing everywhere. Literally, everywhere.”
“I know.” Sophie chuckled. “You had thatStar Warsshirt on.”
“Oh yeah, and I never even sawStar Wars.”
“It was so funny when kids started talking to you about R2-D2 and you just stared at them blankly, just nodding at whatever they were saying.”
“I had to seem cool, okay?”
I leaned back right between her legs, and wrapped my hand around her ankle, hating… Fucking hating how cold her skin was. The wind started picking up and when I looked up, I could see the gray clouds pushing away the white ones I saw earlier.
“It’s going to rain, isn’t it?” Sophie asked, looking toward the sky as well. “I wonder if it’ll rain wherever it is that I’m going.”
If she slapped me, it would’ve hurt less.
“That is, if there is anything after, you know?”
“I do,” I answered, my voice wavering along with the wind. “Do you remember those stories about fairies you used to tell me? The elves, their kingdoms and beautiful lands?”
“Oh my God.” She started laughing. “I was so lame.”
“Nah. I wish that land really existed, you know? I wish that we could just jump into the pond and travel somewhere far away from here, where we could live forever.”
“Noah—”
“I wish life turned out differently, Soph. I wish snowflakes truly could be in the colors of the rainbow like you described them once, and that sickness and death never existed over there.”
“Baby,” she whispered and hugged me from behind as she came down onto the grass, sitting right behind me.
“Right now, I would give anything for all of that to be our reality, and not this.”
“But it can’t be, Noah.” She put her chin on my shoulder. “Unfortunately, fairy tales are just stories for little kids, and we are far too old to believe in those things.”
“I know.” I nodded. “I just… I just wish things were different, you know?”
