Page 1 of From Now On

Prologue

Charlie

There are many different kinds of love.

Charlie watches her as she lies beside him, the rise and fall of her chest. Outside, there’s the thrum of a passing car, but here they are, cocooned in their own world.

He wishes they could remain in this moment.

The afternoon sun pushes through the window, casting a small circle of light over her heart which he knows beats for him. He doesn’t want to break it, and the thought that he might is the source of infinite sorrow.

The clock ticks.

Time marching forward.

Time running out.

I love you.

He feels the shape of those words stuck to his tongue, heavy and cumbersome, weighted with the memories of the last time he uttered them. Charlie’s chest tightens painfully.

He takes three slow, measured breaths.

This is not the same.

She shifts her weight, her mouth lifting at the corners before relaxing again.He doesn’t need to study her features to commit them to memory; every time he closes his eyes, he sees it all: the curve of her smile, the sweep of black lashes framing light blue eyes, the smattering of freckles across her shoulders. It doesn’t seem fair that now he has found love, now that he is certain of it, it is, perhaps, too late. Still Charlie cradles the feeling carefully on the palm of his hand, knowing it is something rare and fragile and beautiful, not wanting to release it. She is blissfully unaware, her face slackened with sleep, the taste of her still on his lips. The inevitability of goodbye is torturous, but he has made a promise to his family. His family who he has let down in the worst kind of way even though, he thinks, he is not the worst kind of person.

Or is he?

It has been an age now, but he still deliberates whether it was all his fault. Sometimes he’s convinced it was but often the memory is as hazy as the muted recollection of a dream, not entirely tangible and open to interpretation. Although some of the details are a blur, he does remember with clarity the way the fabric of his universe had been ripped apart at the seams. Afterwards things were never quite the same however hard he had tried to repair the tear with clumsy stitches, looping the coping techniques he had been taught over and over his pain until it was barely visible. The inexorable truth was that he had endlessly questioned who he was, what he felt. How had his life been built on a lie? It didn’t seem possible and yet, somehow, it was. Even into adulthood he had found himself constantly scrutinising his reality, reaching out to touch it with his fingertips, trying to fathom what was real and what wasn’t.

She.

She is real and his battered heart isn’t quite ready to let her go.

She sighs and rolls over onto her back, her head lolling to one side, her blonde hair fanned across the pillow.

Charlie dips his mouth towards her ear, the smell of her coconut shampoo drifting towards him as he whispers his secrets; the hopes and dreams he had for them.

He tells her it all.

Everything.

And that is how he unequivocally knows she is the one.

He trusts her in a way he hasn’t trusted anyone in years and years; not since that inimitable day.

Gently, he brushes her hair back from her face; her skin is warm and soft.

The light changes in the window. Rain patters against the panes as the sky cries ceaseless tears.

It’s almost time to make an impossible decision that will end in heartbreak.

Charlie’s heartbreak.

He loves her but can love be enough?

She is going to leave unless he makes her a promise that will be impossible to keep.

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