Page 82 of The Love of Our Lives
‘Just chill?’ I tease, moving towards him, and his jaw flinches at my words, his eyes sparkling. I lean in to kiss him softly, then firmly, and he groans into me.
‘Let me show you something great first,’ he says hoarsely, and I laugh.
‘OK,’ I say, looking up at him, ‘I will permit that. But we’re in a cabin in the Rockies – it’s all pretty good.’
He grins, before taking my hand again and leading me back towards the door we came in through. Pressing a second light switch, he opens the door.
In the now twilight evening, I can see the whole porch is actually lit up with string lights, which loop around the entire decking – just like the terrace. With my hand still in his, he leads me around to the front of the cabin, which juts out on to the water.
And even though I didn’t think it could all get any more perfect, it just did.
‘Right here, m’lady,’ he says, and indicates at one of two porch chairs.
With my wine in hand, I sit in one while he fiddles with the little radio on the decking. It crackles for a bit before he eventually hits on lazy guitars and sits down too.
We stay like that for a little while, just staring out at the darkening water, the snow-capped mountains behind, late-night birds swooping across the twilight blue sky. There’s no need to talk, no need to fill a void, because we are completely at ease with each other.
Just here, now.
Together.
I feel odd suddenly though, lightheaded. A tingling begins, then those sensations surge through me – snow-capped mountains, late-night birds.
Oh god, oh god.
I’ve seen all this before. I’ve been in this exact same situation before. And now my body is flooded with stronger-than-ever memories of the wedding and the grief of the betrayal, of lying depressed in the flat, of getting on a flight somewhere and flying into the unknown, of surfing in a turquoise sea I’ve never seen before and zip lining over the most incredible landscape – of being absolutely dazzled with it all. And there is happiness and there is sadness and there are tears running down my face now, because everything is coming together – everything is coming full circle.
Emily and I might not be doing the exact same things at the exact same time – but in some way, somehow, we’ve tracked the same story.
Which means—
Emily was here too.
She was here with Adam.
I close my eyes for a moment as the enormity of it all hits me; find that I’m gripping the side of the chair. Because I don’t even know what to do with this all, don’t know what any of it means. Then suddenly, I sense a movement, and he is there above me when I open my eyes.
He looks a little concerned at first but then he extends his hand to me.
‘Will you join me for this dance?’ he says, and the sensations start to ebb away, the memories are fading, and all I can do is let him pull me up from the chair. Walking out with him on to the decking, I try to just concentrate on the now – on the rippling lake in front of us and the radio behind us. Because that’s what Adam does – he seizes every special moment like the last and pulls me back into the present.
And as we dance away under the starlit sky, I realise that by eventually following my heart, I have in some way, somehow, followed Emily’s too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The next couple of days are a hazy blur of waking up late in each other’s arms and drinking coffees out on the deck. And as the most glorious sun comes up over the mountains, washing this new world over in pine greens and sapphire blues, I feel a strange sense of calm – as though, for a moment, the strands of my and Emily’s lives have connected again somehow and I can just settle for a moment – enjoy this part, right here. And I suspect Adam is feeling some of that peace too, as he tells me more about all the times with his grandparents, and I think he’s starting to realise that if they could have been there for him now too, they would have.
Then, on the third day, we start to go biking along local leafy trails and hiking up craggy rocks. We visit Lake Louise and stare out at the incredible blue at the basin of steep cliffs. We go camping up in the mountains, lay out beneath the stars and, eventually, we go cliff diving. My heart is thumping with each step up the pebbled path, thinking of my sister floating in that shallow water, knowing exactly how quickly life can be extinguished in a moment. But I also know that, in this scenario, we’ve checked it all out: the water levels are good, the jump isn’t particularly high, and it’s an established safe spot to do this. In fact, Adam has made the jump many times already this summer and has run me through best-practice techniques. So when he says, ‘you game?’ at the edge, I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be, and I don’t let fear hold me back. Because I might not get another chance. I simply take a deep breath, say, ‘I’m game,’ and jump high into the air. And it is joyous and exhilarating, and when Iresurface from the water below after, I realise everything is still fine – even better than fine.
And I can finally start to let the pain of my sister’s final moments go, and remember the true joy she had for life instead.
When we’re back at the cabin, we have dinner out on the deck and chat away about everything, like we always did. Then we go to bed and make love, lying wrapped in each other’s arms until the morning. He doesn’t ask me about why I decided to come here, and I don’t raise it – I think neither of us want whatever this spell is to end.
But on our last night, as we’re dancing slowly out on the deck together under the stars, Adam says, ‘Have you had a good time?’
I smile. ‘What do you think?’
He looks down at me with a soft expression, and I can sense what he’s thinking. I can feel it now, that question from him. And suddenly, I’m not sure if I can fight it anymore. Before I’ve even thought it through, I say, ‘I love you, Adam.’
