Lotus

by Jennifer Hartmann

“I love you, Syd. I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you until my dying day.”

“Raymond Ford.” It takes a minute for the name to register. When it does, my eyes pop. “Oliver’s kidnapper?” She looks away. Raymond Bradley Ford. Bradford. “What?” It’s a whisper, a question, a desperate denial. I land back on my heels, my skin hot and my stomach sick. Oliver saw them. That’s why he took him. My God, that’s why…

He’s breathing on me, and his breath smells strange, like…eucalyptus. Gabe’s chewing gum.

hUh

“You,” I mutter, a tiny croak of betrayal. Gabe just gapes at me, head shaking. “What the fuck, Syd?” “Sydney, what’s wrong? What happened?” Oliver tries to steal my focus, but all I can focus on is the fact that my best friend attacked me. A sob breaks free as my knees go weak. Oliver catches me before I collapse, and I cry out, my heart smashed into tiny splinters: “It was you.”

HUHH???

“Oliver!” I shriek, crawling on my knees to grab the scattered photos between trembling fingers. He can’t hear me over the shower running, so I pull myself up, tripping as I race from the bedroom. “Oh God…” I whimper as I approach the bathroom door. My fist raised, ready to start pounding, I cry out, “It’s Tra—”

“See, that’s where things get a bit controversial,” he states as he resumes his pacing, plucking a cigar from his back pocket and offering me one. At my acceptance, he lights us both up and mumbles through the fermented tobacco. “My stepson.”

oh hell nah

And I think he’s changed his mind, decided to play it safe and make a break for it, but no…he slumps over on top of me, passed out cold. I almost lose consciousness myself when I see Lorna Gibson standing above me with her cane held high, a noble weapon. No fucking way. “Never underestimate a nosy neighbor,” she proclaims, holding out her hand to me. “The police are on their way.”

THANK GOD OMG

I clasp his face between my palms, already knowing I won’t be able to free him. There’s not enough time, I don’t have the tools, and my mind is spinning, turning to fog. Coughing and sputtering, I lean in, pressing a kiss to his tear-glazed lips. “I love you, Oliver Lynch,” I squeak out, breathing the words of adoration against his mouth and reveling in the way he finally gives in, stops fighting me, and kisses me back. “I love you, Syd.” My wish came true, and I don’t care that we only had ten months together. They were the best ten months of my life, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I wished for us…and here we are. I hold him, I hold him, I just hold him, while everything around us burns. There’s no better way to go.

SOBBING

“I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you until my dying day.”

A swallow grips my throat when I look down at my arm, the familiar word staring back at me: l o t u s “Syd, please tell me why you wrote this,” I plead, nearly choking on my words. “Why ‘lotus’? What does it mean?” I feel frantic, utterly perplexed, my gaze shifting wildly between the woman I love and the word that has haunted me, guided me, for over two long decades. It was her. All this time, she had written it on my arm. But why on earth didn’t she tell me? And why is she looking at me like she has no idea what I’m even talking about? “Oliver, I–I didn’t…” Sydney shakes her head, a frown pinching her brow. “I didn’t write ‘lotus.’ I wrote…” She gasps then, or maybe it’s a sob, a choked cry of wondrous disbelief muffled by her palm that shoots up and cups her mouth as her eyes widen with realization. Sydney climbs over me, then gazes down at the letters from the opposite direction. “Oh, my God…” she rasps out. “Oliver…I didn’t write ‘lotus.’ You were looking at it upside down.” “What?” The word nearly catches in my throat as I blink, staring at the same scribbling I etched into a stone wall, knowing it meant something, knowing it was important somehow, but I didn’t understand it then. And I only understand it now when Sydney picks up the marker from the mattress and rewrites it with a trembling hand, right side up. She inhales a choppy breath, her tears spilling onto the ink. “It’s our initials, Oliver. I wished for us.” There it is, in plain sight, gazing up at me: sn +...

Sydney Neville + Oliver Lynch It’s always been us.

“I don’t enjoy when other men put their eyes on you. It gives me violent thoughts.”

“I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you until my dying day. You’re my best friend. You’re my queen,” he whispers, words spilling out like poetry. “Will you be my wife?”

“I’m very relieved you said yes,” he whispers, our foreheads touching. “Who else would I marry?” My nose scrunches up in a teasing way, my words echoing his response to me from many years ago, window to window. A smile stretches. “It also would have been a bit awkward for the people waiting at the bottom of the hill.” What? I turn then, looking down below us, my gaze landing on the crowd that has gathered. Our friends and family erupt into cheers, sparklers bursting to life, Gabe whistling up at us with an arm around Tabitha who is moving Hope’s little hand in an enthusiastic wave, Clem clapping through her tears, and even Lorna Gibson nodding with a knowing grin. Familiar neighbors, some who participated in Oliver’s original search and rescue, whoop and holler in celebration, and my tears fall as hard as my heart did on Oliver’s front stoop twenty-four years ago.

Our matching tattoos smile back at us: sn + ol

MY HEARTTTTT