Chapter 25
From Fisher’s Journal
March 3, 2004
“Fisher, come on. It’s freezing! I kind of thought we’d spend our last night together doing something a little bit warmer. Maybe with less clothing.”
Lucy’s musical laughter tickles my ears as she tries to lighten the situation and pretend there isn’t a dark cloud hovering over the two of us. She’s fought back tears every time we talked about our plans for today, our last day together. It makes me love her even more than I already do, knowing she’s doing everything she can to be strong so that I can walk away from her tomorrow without the distraction of worry and regret.
Tightening my hold on her hand, I pull her up the last couple of large boulders at the very top of the rock pile that lines either side of Fisher’s Lighthouse. Moving behind her, I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her close, resting my chin on top of the knit cap that covers her head. We stare silently out at the dark, endless ocean in front of us, a few angrily cresting waves the only bright spots in an otherwise sea of black nothingness.
“I love this spot. I always feel like we’re the only two people on earth when we come here. The entire world disappears and it’s just you and me,” Lucy speaks softly. I feel the vibrations of her voice travel through her back and gently rumble against my chest. Squeezing my arms tighter around her, I try not to think about walking away from her. After tomorrow, I won’t be able to touch her face, hear her laugh or see her smile for eighteen long months. My first deployment right after boot camp was a measly nine months and it dragged by, so I know being away from Lucy for twice as long is going to be akin to torture.
I didn’t think twice about signing up for the Marines my senior year of high school. I didn’t bat an eye when I came home and told my parents that I wouldn’t follow in my father’s footsteps and become the next fucking king of Fisher’s Island. I never regretted the rift my decision caused in my family, making my mother cry or having my father disown me. He only speaks to me when we were in public and he has to put on a good show of being a wonderful family man and supportive father. I even went along with the lie he told the island about how I moved out of their mansion on the cliffs and into my grandfather’s two-bedroom cottage in town because I wanted “a new experience” before I shipped out. I didn’t care about anything other than getting away from this damn island and the legacy that I never wanted.
The day I signed those fucking papers, though, I met Lucy Butler. After eighteen years of living in this one-horse town where everyone knows everyone else and the only new faces were temporary, Lucy was a breath of fresh air in my otherwise stagnant world. She didn’t blow through my life like a hurricane, but she disrupted my world just the same. Lucy was more like a gentle breeze that whispered against your skin, teasing you, soothing you and forcing you to chase after it just so you could feel it again. The first time I got her to smile, I felt like the world finally made sense. The first time I made her laugh, I felt like I could walk on water. The first time she kissed me, right here in this very spot, I felt like the fucking king my father always wanted me to be.
Almost three years later, nothing has changed. I still hate everything about this town, but I keep coming back because I can’t stand to feel the way I do when I’m away from her – like nothing makes sense, like I’m out there in the middle of that dark ocean, treading water all alone and trying to stop myself from sinking. Lucy keeps my head above water. She reminds me that there are still good people in this world who love you and expect nothing in return.
Given the situation in the Middle East, being redeployed was inevitable and I’ve been dying to get back in the action, but getting the orders still sucked and I did something really stupid that day. All I could think about was Lucy once again putting her life on hold, waiting for a man who wasn’t guaranteed to return to her. She had a good life here, full of beach parties with friends, working at the inn she loved and the fun and excitement of tourist season coming up to look forward to. I had the desert and IED’s, air raids and suicide bombers. We were only a few years apart in age, but a lifetime apart in experiences, and I told her as much.
It was the one and only time she ever hit me. My sweet, shy, beautiful girl lit up with rage and called me every name she could think of after she smacked me. I chuckle to myself when I remember that night a few weeks ago and Lucy turns around in my arms, sliding her hands up to rest on my chest as she stares up at me.
“What’s so funny?” she asks with a smile.
The beacon that circles around the lighthouse behind us slides over her features and I take a few seconds to memorize her face—her cheeks pink from the low temperature in the air, her silky, strawberry blonde hair spilling out from under her hat and splaying across her shoulders, her bright blue eyes sparkling as she smiles and the faint hint of freckles sprinkled across her nose.
“I was just thinking about the day I got my orders and you showed me your right hook.”
The corner of her mouth tips up in another smile, and with the dim light of the moon and the steady flash of the lighthouse, I can see her eyes cloud with worry. I wanted to bring her to this spot to tell her how much I love her, and now I’ve screwed it all up. I can tell she’s thinking that I might have brought her here to deliver the same spiel I gave her after I received my orders, the one about how maybe it isn’t a good idea that she wait for me, that maybe it would be better if she moved on. Her hands clutch tightly to the lapels of my wool coat and she pushes herself up on her tiptoes so that she doesn’t have to crane her neck to look me in the eye.
“Don’t even think about it, Fisher. I don’t care if the Marines turned you into a muscled, fighting machine, I will still kick your ass,” she threatens. She takes a breath, gearing up to give me more hell and I quickly bend down and cut off her words with my mouth. Her lips are soft and cold against mine, but with a swipe of my tongue, they immediately warm and she opens for me. She moans into my mouth, moving her arms up and around my shoulders, pulling me closer. I breathe her in, committing her smell to memory so I can pull it forward every single moment I’m away from her for the next eighteen months.
Moving back, I reach behind my neck and grab her hands, pulling them between us. Without taking my eyes off of her, I remove her left mitten and toss it to the rocks at our feet, kissing the tips of each of her fingers as I speak.
“I love your laugh,” I tell her, kissing the tip of her thumb.
“I love that you make me want to be a better man,” I admit, kissing the tip of her pointer finger.
“I love that you support me even though what I do is hard on you,” I tell her softly, kissing the tip of her middle finger.
“I love how strong and independent you are,” I state, kissing the tip of her pinkie.
Reaching into my coat pocket, I have a moment of panic when I don’t feel what’s supposed to be in there. I finally find it shoved down into the corner and breathe a sigh of relief as I pull it out and slowly slide it onto her ring finger.
“I love the way you look at me. I love the way you love me. No matter what, I will always find my way back to you,” I whisper, kissing the tip of her finger that now sports a diamond ring.
The lighthouse beacon circles back around at that moment and I see a tear roll down her cheek. The day we had it out and she convinced me that I was being an ass and that there was nothing she could do but wait for me to come home because I was taking her heart with me when I left, I told her to come out to this lighthouse whenever she was feeling sad. I told her that no matter where I was in the world, no matter what time of day, I would know she was here and I would see the beacon from the lighthouse in my mind, guiding me back home to her.
“I know we’re young. Shit, I know you’re young and I’m an old fucking man already at twenty-two, but I don’t care,” I tell her with a nervous laugh. “I’m already going to spend the rest of my life loving you. It would be a hell of a lot easier if you were there with me. Please, marry me. Marry me, Lucy Butler. We can travel the world, we can grow old together on this damn island, we can do anything you want. I don’t care what we do or where we do it, as long as I’m with you.”
I finally stop talking and rub my fingers over my bottom lip as I stare down at her, watching her examine the ring on her finger each time the light strobes across us. I don’t want to picture the lighthouse in my mind whenever I close my eyes for the next year and a half. I want to picture this ring on her finger and know that she’s mine, know that I have something worth fighting for, worth protecting my own ass for, worth coming home for.
“Yes,” she finally whispers as a smile lights up her face. “Yes, I will marry you, Jefferson Fisher.”
I let out the breath I was holding as Lucy presses her palms to my cheeks and stares into my eyes. “Keep your head up, stay safe, come home to me, and I will absolutely marry you. Just please, come home to me.”
Her voice cracks as she tries not to cry. I pull her against my chest and hold onto her as tightly as I can, wishing I never had to let go, wishing I didn’t have to get on the first ferry off the island in the morning and walk away from this woman who is my everything. I take these moments to enjoy the feel of her body against mine, the brush of her hair against my cheek and think for the thousandth time just how perfectly we fit together. I experience it all and I let it consume me, I let it warm my heart and fill my thoughts because after tomorrow, I will have to shut it all off. At oh-six-hundred hours when the ferry pushes away from the island and heads over to the mainland, I will have to close my mind to the smell of her skin and the sound of her voice. I will stop being a lover and become a Marine. I will get the job done and I won’t let anything distract me. Distractions can get you killed and I will do everything I can to keep my promise to Lucy.
I will always find my way back to her.