You, with a View

by Jessica Joyce

Dearest Kat, I understand why we can’t elope. I truly do. I just want you to be well. The end of our relationship won’t stop me from loving you for the rest of my life. I don’t know if that helps or hurts. The only thing I ask is that you remember what we promised each other: never forget our time together, and think of it with happiness. I promised you it would be okay, do you remember? And it will. Yours always, Paul

I want to twist my hands around his memories like I’m wringing out a towel so I can get it all in one fell swoop.

Of all the people in the world, he had to be Paul’s grandson? Beyond a few accidental run-ins over the years, I haven’t seen him in forever, and this is how he reenters my life? It feels like fate, but not the good kind. The Final Destination kind.

“Was my face fresh in your memory, Shep? Been staring at my LinkedIn profile picture every night?” “Please don’t project your fantasies onto me.”

Paul laughs. “Us. We realized that first impressions don’t dictate what the final impression will be. Once we opened ourselves up to truly knowing each other, it was easy to fall.”

Time and distance will make you forget, but I’ve never had enough of either to forget the way Theo Spencer can aggravate every nerve in my body with the twist of his mouth.

“This isn’t an episode of Scooby-Doo, Shepard. You were never my nemesis. You were my…” I hate how I hold my breath. “My motivation.”

I eye him, utterly aware of his skin against mine, of the flex of his fingers as they wrap more solidly around my hand. Thank god it’s dark out; I can feel how pink my face is, but he can’t see it.

I wait for the voice in my head telling me I’ll never amount to anything, but it doesn’t come. Instead, I hear my own voice, assuring me that, though these photos aren’t the best I’ve ever taken, at least I took them. Maybe it doesn’t have to be my best to still be enough.

“There’s something about it. It’s quiet, but not a heavy kind of quiet. Just peaceful. Feels like you can breathe here.”

The air changes, storm-like, awareness rolling in on Theo’s hot exhale. For all of the ways we clash, I have no doubt we’d be good together like that, and he knows it, too. “You’re not supposed to like that,” he growls out, frustrated, his gaze tracing my face like a touch. Somehow his shirt has made its way into my fists. “Why did you say it, then?”

“I wouldn’t stop you if you kissed me right now.” I say it quietly in case he changes his mind, but his eyes darken, pupils dilating. He doesn’t move, though his mouth parts like he can already taste it. “Now you.” His breath dances over my lips. “If I kissed you right now, I wouldn’t stop.”

It’s not a secret now: I like him, so much, too much, and maybe he’ll ruin me. Not just because he’s curled over me now, mouth crashing over mine, holding on to me so tight I’ll feel it for days, but because he pulls back and says breathlessly, grinning, “I like you, too.”

“When Paul said he’s known from the beginning, when do you think he meant?” Theo pauses, palm pressed to his bedroom door. “I don’t know.” But something in his expression makes me wonder if he does, and he just doesn’t want to say it out loud.

It’s been more than a year since I’ve been on a date, and none have ever felt like this—like it’s the start of something I’m desperate to name but can’t, whether it’s too soon or because we don’t have enough time left.

But I think it’s miraculous when two people decide together that they’re going to hold on. Gram and Grandpa did that for sixty-some years, and they loved each other deeply through every minute of it.”

Paul sweeps his hand over my back while I cry, not just for the loss of Gram, but for the love she gave me in the first place. For the belief she always had in me, even when I didn’t have any in myself, and for the realization that I’m finding it again. To see it in her own words, like it’s a secret being whispered directly to me from her, is as perfect as it is painful. It’s exactly what I needed, and somehow she knew that.

If there’s anything I can learn from Paul and Gram’s story, it’s that I can fall and get back up, I can let go and it still won’t be too late to hold on to something else, as long as I keep trying. That eventually the peace will come exactly when it’s meant to.

“If this is worth it to you, Noelle, then be patient with our boy. It takes him three times as long to admit to his own happiness because he never knew he was allowed to have it.”

He gives me a look, pulling me in for a final hug. “You were hers,” he whispers. “So, now you’re mine, too.”