We offered Evelyn and Myra something to drink and they quickly grew comfortable with Ella. Couldn't help thinking of Sarah and how she should have been here with her fiancé, celebrating life and love with us. I wondered if she could dream while in a coma. Or if she had nightmares of the accident and couldn't wake up from them. Or if she lived in a continual blackness right now while all of us laughed and talked about meaningless things.
Miranda came inside, along with Dee, Ella's old employee from the coffee shop she owned, and two of Dee's friends, Griffin, who apparently didn't have enough skin for all the tattoos he wanted, and Reese, who had a southern accent and reminded me of Justin Timberlake with a tad more facial hair. I thought for sure Miranda would swoon her self silly over him, but as the night progressed she didn't talk much with him at all. The guys stuck with us on the deck and the girls together in the living room.
Finally, the stars salted the ink-covered sky and the ladies came outside with us. Patrick and Heidi gave everyone a hug goodbye. A little late to be out with a baby, I guess. I wondered when Ella and I would be at that place in life.
Lydia sat on Matt's lap. Those two were about as physical as it gets. One leg wrapped around the other, or an arm, or a hand, anything to make sure they were glued together. Ella and I weren't quite like that. We were subtle in public settings. She sat next to me and touched me with her eyes. She had a very romantic, mysterious quality about her. She didn't want the entire world to see what she said is only reserved for me. Kind of like regency era women who only let their hair down for their husbands. Everything regency with Ella. Romance to her was much sweeter and more elegant than the heated Hollywood romances women went crazy over nowadays. I loved that about her. Any woman can pull a mask over themselves and play sexy, but few women are genuinely sweet and delicate. It's a femininity I can't explain. The mind can't grasp things meant for the heart.
Evelyn, who downed one too many hard lemonades, stood in front of everyone and said, "Alright, ladies and gents, I brought a game for us all to play. These cards I'm holding are conversation starter questions, but the trick is you have to roll the dice and count from your left and stop on the person that equals the number you rolled. Then you have to answer the question as though you are that person. They will write down their answer and if you get it right you get a point. If you get it wrong, you lose a turn."
She handed the cards to Lydia. "You start." Then gave everyone a note pad and a pen.
Lydia picked a card and rolled the dice. "Okay. Question is for Griffin. What was your favorite subject in high school?" She gave him some time to write, then said. "I'm going to guess something music-related?"
He smiled. "English. I'm a writer and I always loved writing and books."
Miranda perked up. So did I. Didn't think I'd have anything in common with tattoo central, but apparently stereotypes aren't always right.
Matt pulled a card and rolled. "This should be easy. This is for you Gavin. What is your favorite book of all time?"
"Don't be so sure of yourself," I said and winked at Ella. She knew the answer.
"It's easy." Matt said. "Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens."
"Nope," I said.
"Come on. You collect all versions of that one."
"It's my second favorite."
"He's telling the truth," Ella said. My true best friend. "It's The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein."
I nodded. "She's right."
He laughed and handed the dice to Myra.
"My question is for Miranda,” Myra said. “Kind of hard. What is your biggest regret?"
I knew the answer to this and so did Matt. Myra wouldn't guess it in a thousand years. I liked the game though. Great way to get to know people. A little intimidating, but still fun.
Miranda wrote down her answer and Myra thought for a few seconds. "Um, I'm not sure, but I will say hurting someone's feelings?"
Miranda looked at Matt, then me. "It has to do with my little brother. That was a hard one. You should get another try."
"Rules are rules," Evelyn said. "My turn. Okay. Ella, what is your biggest fear?"
"Right now or in general?" Ella said as she linked her hand with mine.
"Right now, I guess." Evelyn waited for Ella to answer and offered her guess. "I'm gonna say your biggest fear is heights?"
Ella smiled. "I wish. Right now my biggest fear is losing my friend Sarah. Not sure if Lydia filled you in, but she was in a campfire accident with her fiancé and burned most of her body. She's still in a coma right now."
Everyone looked down. Except me. And Reese. We glanced at each other and he nodded to Ella and me. A silent way of saying, "I'm sorry."
Ella bit her lip to hold back crying. I pulled her closer and motioned for everyone to keep playing.
Dee picked a card and kept the game going. "Alrighty, Myra, I think I know the answer to this one. Do you believe in soul-mates?"
Myra swept her long black hair behind her ear as a smile softened her face. "This one is too easy. Everyone does."
"Yes," Lydia said. "Myra moved here from the Philippines because she met a guy on MySpace back when that was the cool thing to do. She came here for him, went to college here so she could get an extended visa or whatever that is, and they broke up. When I asked her why she wasn't sad about it she looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'When the right guy comes this guy will seem like a nobody.' And this was before Ella and Gavin's storybook news story."
"Will you go back to the Philippines, then?" Reese said.
"I will have to, but I might come back," she said, blushing.
Reese held eye contact with her until she looked down, face flushed. I looked at Ella. She shrugged and smiled. Too many potential love stories floating around the room tonight. Knowing Ella she'd have them all dating someone before the night ended.
"Okay." Reese picked a card and rolled the dice. "Myra." He smiled and spoke with his charming southern drawl. "What quality do you look for most in a man?"
She smiled and wrote her answer. "Make a guess."
He hesitated, then smiled and said, "American?"
Everyone laughed. She stood and walked over to him, picked up the card with the question, and said, "Katapatan. In English, honesty.” She showed everyone the card. "The real question on the card was 'what's your favorite childhood memory?'"
She sat back down, face red as a July sunset, and crossed her legs.
"Well, she got me there," he said. "But at least I'm clever."
We all laughed for a few minutes as the game fizzled out. We ended up talking in small circles. Ella watched the chemistry between Myra and Reese. And I watched her as she watched them. Meanwhile, Miranda grew quiet as the night progressed. Something wasn't right with her, but I figured I'd ask later. We wanted her to enjoy herself and get to know new people. She had a tendency to gravitate toward guys with depression. And she morphed into whoever she was around. Hence the colorful hair and weird clothes. Matt and I called her a chameleon because she changed for every guy she dated and refused to stay single long enough to figure out who she was outside of a man.
A person can want love all they want, but if they don't figure out who they are and learn to love their own self first, they'll never stay in love. They'll marry for the wrong reasons and divorce five years down the road. Inevitable. How can someone love you for who you are if you don't even know who you are? Maybe that was the advice I needed to give myself. Maybe I needed to learn to love myself, all of myself, even the ugly stuff.
After Ella and I escorted everyone out the door I pulled her into me and kissed every part of her face as the half-moon smiled above us. Streetlights in her eyes, cool September night on the brink of a thunderstorm, yes, it took all I had not to scoop the girl up and take her upstairs.
She kissed my lips and tapped my nose. "Getting hard for you, isn't it?"
"I'm guessing it's not hard for you?"
"It's killing me. Not just that. I want to wake up next to you afterward. I want to start our life together."
"So, let's start it then."
"You love me a lot."
I smiled. "Of course I do. What man would endure this weird 1800's relationship style nowadays?"
"Do you really think it's weird?"
"It wasn't weird back then. In fact, back then they barely saw each other at all before they married. So we would be scandalous to those people."
"But you know why I don't want to come upstairs with you right now, right?"
"I do."
"Then why?"
"Because you love me a lot.”
"I don't ever want to lose you. You're my best friend. I want it to stay that way forever."
"Me too, love." I kissed her hand. "You mean the world to me. I'll do whatever it takes to prove that to you."
Chapter Eighteen
Since I met Ella we had gone on car trips quite a few times. She is the queen of car trips. She plans snacks, takes care of the GPS, brings various drinks for various moods, umbrellas and boots in case it rains, and even sets up a playlist on her phone to set the mood. It cracks me up every time. She takes it so seriously.
Our trip to Pop's house for the grand finale of his scavenger hunt was no different. Prior to the trip she made me write down the soundtrack of my life. So, I did. Thinking nothing of it. Our trip to Lancaster included those songs. Ella reminded me so much of Pop. They both lived and breathed romance. It went beyond love stories and fused into life stories. They were emotional. Could turn a sunny day into a black cloud or a thunderstorm into a spring morning in three seconds flat. I didn't have that quality, but loved surrounding myself with people who did. They never failed to bring color to every black-and-white canvas.
When we parked in front of the house my heart wanted to jump out of my chest and run off into the woods.
Ella ran her fingers down my arm. "Been a while since you've been here, huh?"
I forced myself to breathe. "Not just that. He died here. In his room. I should've been here, Ella. I wasn't. And the reason I wasn't here—“
"Is because you were with me."
"It was the night I saw you on the news. I got a call from the nurse that he wasn't doing well and would probably die within a few hours. I chose to search Philadelphia for you instead of going to his side. He died with no family around. No one except his nurse. Yes, it was hard for me to deal with losing him and I avoided his sickness for a long time. Made myself believe he'd be okay. I ignored his letters. His calls. I acted like a child. And that night I got the call from his nurse right before I walked into my apartment, I was just in Lancaster for a job interview and considered driving right back to be with him. Then I sat down on the couch with Matt and Lydia and saw your face on my television screen. Honestly, I didn't remember Pop until the next day and it was too late."
"I'm sorry, Gavin." A tear zig-zagged down her cheek. "Let me take the blame. Don't be so hard on yourself."
"It wasn't your fault. It doesn't matter anyway. He would've told me to go after you instead of coming to him. I just feel horrible. If I would've just answered one letter or call."
"It's over now." She kissed my cheek. "There's nothing we can do to change the past. Let's go inside. I want to see where you grew up. And if he is giving us this house, you are going to have a real tough time convincing me not to live in it."
We walked up to the porch. My sweaty, shaky hand in hers. My best friend. The person who would walk through the good, the bad, and the ugly with me for the rest of my life. I loved her. Quite possibly more than I did five minutes ago.
I reached for the key, but Ella noticed it was already cracked open. She pushed it as my heart sank to the ground and a million balloons flew at our faces. Or at least what seemed like a million. We stepped back and watched them float past the trees, into the sky, until they became tiny specks on a sheet of blue.
We smiled and turned back to the door. A large piece of fabric hung from the top. I guess it was there to hold the balloons in place until the door opened and pushed them all toward us. I analyzed the set up, wondering how it worked so well, until Ella pointed on the floor.
A note. Taped onto the shiny hardwood. Pop's handwriting.
So, you’ve found love, but don’t forget love starts within and then crawls from your heart into the lives of others. Love doesn’t end with the person you’re standing with. It seeps into the lives of your children, your friends, and even strangers. Love is all around us, all the time. Just like the sky that those balloons made their way to. On cloudy days it’s easy to forget, but all you have to do is a catch a ride on a plane to see that the blue sky is always there. It just takes a little break sometimes. Without the rain the flowers would never grow. We need a break from the heat sometimes. Love is like that too. Even when it’s cloudy, it’s still there. It’s up to us to choose to live by this love or to love our own opinions and desires too much to ever notice those around us. This wasn’t what you did, Gavin. Forgive yourself, move on, and know that I know … more than anything in the world … how much you’ve always loved me.
I grabbed Ella's arm to balance myself and tried, with every ounce of manliness inside of me, to keep the tears behind my eyes. I fell to my knees, kissed the note, and stayed there, trying to forgive myself.
Ella knelt beside me. "Gavin."
I nodded. "I'm okay."
"I know, love. But I want to tell you that it's okay to not be okay sometimes. It's okay to cry."
I stared into her eyes and saw a heart so big it could crush this town. That was all it took. A few days ago she broke down in my arms. Now it was my turn. Tears wetting her shoulder, she held me. She held me until I cried every tear I held inside for the last thirty years.
Memories. They faded in and out of my mind without my permission. Learning to swim with Pop by my side. Going for long walks in the woods and catching cray fish. Planting a bazillion trees. Dancing to Elvis in the living room. Reading aloud at night by the fireplace. Cutting the grass and getting rushed to the hospital when the blade hit a piece of metal and sliced open my calf. Learning to drive and hitting a parked car. Graduating high school. Going to college. Pop was there for it all. Every important memory. He was by my side.