Chapter 54

The world around me changes in a strange new way. One minute I can tell we’re in a neighborhood, and the next on a busy road, and then the freeway. But when we exit the freeway and start on the windy roads, I’m entirely confused.

“Okay, I might be sick,” I say. “Too much winding.”

“Almost there,” he assures me, squeezing my hand.

He’s right—we park only a minute or two later. I reach up to slip the tie off my head, but he stops me.

“Not yet,” he says. “Still not quite there.”

So I wait. I let him help me from the car, finding myself surrounded by crisp night air. “Where…”

“Shh,” he whispers, and kisses me.

But before I can wind my arms around him, we’re walking again, me in a daze, Levi an explosion of energy. I can feel it in his hand twitching in mine, the way his footsteps sound (frantic and quick) on the dirt. He’s quiet, however, and the world around me is quiet, so I don’t make a peep. I focus my energy on not tripping, as the ground becomes hard and bumpy. When we go down a hill, I let him carry me on his back; when the grass gets high enough that it’s tickling my knees beneath my skirt, I let him pick me up, one arm under my arms and the other under my legs.

When it seems like we’ll be walking forever, he finally sets me down on soft, sandy ground. “The beach?” I ask.

“Nope.” He reaches up and, in one quick movement, unties the tie and lets it fall across my shoulders.

I can see, suddenly, and while there is a vast expanse of water, it’s not the ocean. The mountains, dark with night, rise up around the lake on all sides, and above our heads the sky is raw and full of stars.

“I was here the other night,” Levi says, as if to fill the silence. “It’s so quiet and peaceful and I just needed to think about everything, you know? Well, I ended up just thinking about you, for the most part, because who are we kidding—but anyway. It was relaxing.”

I can’t speak because I’m choking on my own emotions. The landscape blurs for a second, then clears as the tear drips down my cheek.

“Bee?” he asks uncertainly.

“Oh, Levi.” I hang my head, barely managing to keep myself from sobbing loudly. Silent tears drip. “This is beautiful.”

“Hey,” he says, and puts his arms around me, pressing my back against his chest. His lips touch my neck, then a little higher, and that’s when he feels the tears, tasting them as they smear against his lips. “Bee.”

“You know beautiful things make me cry,” I protest. “Don’t be alarmed.”

He turns me and tucks me into his embrace so that we’re chest to chest. (Erm, well, my chest comes to his stomach. Whatever.) “I’m not. I just want to hold you.”

“Oh, in that case…” I squeeze his waist, letting the silence of this place overtake me. I could say that’s the reason I’m so calm, or maybe the beautiful view, in which thousands of stars are reflected in the smooth lake surface.

But I’d be a fool to claim that. We all know it’s Levi.

“How did I ever leave you?” I ask suddenly.

He doesn’t respond, just tightens his arms around me.

“Don’t let me go,” I say.

He bends to kiss me—what I think will just be a peck, but what turns into something lingering, and too precious for me to stop. (Even when I lose my breath.)

“Is it all right that I just want to kiss you all day long?” he breathes.

“Totally fine,” I whisper back. “Even better if all day turned into forever.”

“That’s obviously what I was implying. I proposed already, and we’re going to have twelve kids, remember?”

I smile, my palm on his cheek, my thumb brushing the side of his lips. “Are you being serious or…”

He blinks twice. “Well, I guess I could go down to ten, if you were persuasive enough.”

“Shut up, Levi,” I say, putting two fingers over his mouth.

“In reality,” he says, ignoring my protests, “I’m actually thinking about moving into the spare bedroom at the new office. And, I dunno, one day maybe you can join me.”

“You really are proposing!” I exclaim.

“Only hoping!” he defends, a sheepish grin on his lips. “And promising. You did just tell me to never let you go.”

An alarm, loud and clear and shrill, echoes across the lake, coming from Levi’s pocket. I cringe. “What. Is. That?”

He groans and pulls out his phone. “Time to drive back to the hotel. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I say, and I mean it. I just want to be with him.

“My mom wants to see you before she leaves, anyway.”

“She’s at the event?” We haven’t moved to leave yet, so I slide a little closer, savoring these last few moments alone.

Levi grins. “Awesome, huh? My dad’s a loser, and Mom always wanted to come anyway. I think everyone’s happy with this arrangement.” He squeezes my hand, pumping it twice. “Ready?”

I squeeze back. “Thank you for this, Levi.”

He kisses me on the nose, murmuring the sweetest, softest “You’re welcome” that I feel from the tip of my nose to the bottoms of my feet. And then I let him carry me again: past the reeds, back up the hill, along the path to the parking lot. He helps me in, not letting go of my hand until he has to close the door, but then he’s in the driver’s seat and holding my hand again.

Once we’ve started driving again, the silence of the lake behind us, I turn up Bon Iver and let the sounds consume us, louder than the last time. We sing along this time, both of our voices clashing with the music, neither of us caring. He laughs when my voice cracks, but then he forgets an entire verse, and I get to laugh back.

Then Levi pulls up to the stop sign just before the main road, and since there’s no one ahead of us or behind us, he looks over at me. When our eyes lock, I reach behind his head and pull him toward me and kiss him. Right there in the middle of the car, in the middle of the road, with the band he loves playing in the background and my heart completely in his hands.

We weave ourselves together. I let him kiss me and kiss me and kiss me, his hands on my arms, our faces so close they could be melded together, our clothes completely out of sorts. My crown braid swiftly comes out of its bobby pins, and his hair has been so ruined that I know it won’t go back to how he had it before.

A familiar ache blooms in my heart. I can’t breathe without it spilling out—through my bloodstream, over my bones, into my skin. It isn’t just a part of me; it’s what makes me alive. It’s what makes me his. What makes him mine.

Approaching headlights startle us back to reality, the car zooming past our hidden road. We sit back in our seats, breathing like we’ve just run up the mountain. “No more,” Levi huffs. “Stop distracting me.”

I laugh at him, and he pushes on the accelerator, a little hard, a little excited, which makes me laugh harder. With the mountain road winding ahead and his hand over mine on the console, I have the loveliest thought: Us, driving on forever and ever (him in his blue suit and me in my gold dress), heading straight into the sun, where I imagine the whole world is lit up in glory, and we are at the heart of it all.

The End