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“Luke will be there. And he’ll still feel like the tide, sucking you out to sea.”
It’s shocking sometimes, when you look back on what you did or didn’t do, and the things you should’ve known. It seems so obvious now.”
He comes into the diner almost every morning now, and I wait for him. I wait for him like a child waiting on Santa. I wait like I’ve left my family behind to pan for gold in 1860 and he’s my monthly letter from home. I wait for him as if he means everything to me.
“You shouldn’t have to get used to hard things, Jules.”
“I’m an open book.” I laugh. “No one is less of an open book than you, Luke.” A smile flickers over his face. “For you, I’m an open book.
“He doesn’t want depth, Juliet, and he doesn’t need it. Not everyone does. There are people who skim the surface their entire lives. But you’re not one of them.
“I thought I was going to die, and the only thing that mattered, the only thing I wanted, was you,” he says against my mouth. “You were all I fucking thought about.”
Because I think I do know how to take care of you, and I want to take his place so bad that it fucking hurts to look at you sometimes.”
“Luke, I love you so much I’m sick from it, so much that you’ve ruined my happiness, because no matter how good my life is I will always want you. And I will always want you more than all the rest. But walking away isn’t nearly as easy as you think.”
People talk about love like it’s peaceful, but it isn’t, at all. It’s turbulent and anxious. It’s euphoria and despair. It’s the willingness to brave cold water and humiliation and stab the people who love you in the back. I’ll do all those things for Luke.
“Juliet, I’ll wait for you forever. But if you leave it up to other people, that’s exactly how long it will take.”
“I haven’t loved many things in this world,” he says, “but I loved you from the minute I saw you, and whether it’s today or seventy years from now, I’ll love you with my dying breath.” And then, without hesitating or calculating, he runs toward the edge of the cliff.
He gets roughly ten feet away and turns to look back at me. “Fuck it,” he says, reaching me in five long strides before grabbing my face and kissing me hard. I don’t stop him. I breathe in the smell of his shampoo, the salt on his skin, taste his lips and try to memorize all of it—his smell, his size, the tightness of his grip. “Choose me, Juliet,” he whispers. “Please fucking choose me.”
“I don't care how much time it took, as long as you’re mine in the end. I told you I’d wait forever, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.”
“Name the date. And we’ll need to buy a hammock.” He leans over my board and presses his lips to mine for a long moment. “As soon as possible. And I ordered the hammock yesterday.”
