Page 84 of Never Too Late

Dax

“I pray every day that you’re okay. I hope every moment that nothing has happened. And I love you every second.”

Pulling into the car park outside the graveyard, my body feels a sense of relief. I’ve distanced myself from here recently without realising. This is the longest I’ve gone without coming here, since we moved back.

Is that why things have been going wrong? Has bad luck been on my side all along?

I know Jae comes almost daily. He comes in search of Idah because she still hasn’t replied to any of our texts. Part of me is starting to wonder if she was even a real person and not a figment of our imagination. She hasn’t been in work either, yet Cee swears she’s fine and he’s there waiting for her to come back.

We’ve tried to get more information from him, which he’s been reluctant to share. But we don’t want to cross her boundaries either.

“When people go off the grid, it’s for a reason,” he mentioned when we last spoke about it.

And I’ve got to respect that, and her.

It’s early evening by the time I manage to come here. The sun is starting to set in the distance and it’s one of the reasons I love this view so much. The oranges and reds bleed into the blues of the ocean, merging together, creating a blanket of beautiful rays of colour.

I slowly trail my fingers across each stem and leaf of the ivy as I make my way down the path, ignoring the wave of anxiousness that lightly washes over me. Pushing every negative feeling away, wanting to take in this moment and everything around me.

My safe space.

My second home.

I hate that I’ve spent time away, I hate even more that I don’t understand why I did. Before I got to the grave, I quickly made a stop at the florist at the bottom of the high street, picking up two bunches of flowers. Jae has a routine of laying sunflowers for Lottie, but it only feels right for me to do so too. I slowly approach Lottie’s headstone, sunflowers already surrounding, showing Jae’s stopped by already. My heart fills with pride and love. I will never be able to believe he’s mine. And I stand directly in front, placing the pale pink roses – gentleness, admiration, sympathy – in the middle of the sunflowers, bowing my head in respect.

“Where is she, Lottie? I feel lost. I think she’s the only one who can understand exactly what’s going on in my head and I think I’m the only one who can for her too. I just need her to be okay,” I whisper in the wind. I stand and wait a few minutes, wondering if she’ll magically turn up, and my chest sinks when she doesn’t.

Where do you run to when things get to be too much, Idah?

I slowly turn and walk towards the back gate leading to the cliffs, with my head still bowed, walking straight towards Mum’s bench when my breath comes to a halt. Several bunches of sunflowers surround it. Protecting the bench the same way the flowers tattooed on my skin do to me. And for once, I don’t find myself crying, I find myself smiling. Laughing. Instead of sadness consuming me, joy fills me. Quickly, I take out my phone and take a photo of the scene in front of me, sending it to Jae, captioning it with the three words I haven’t said out loud since I got him back.

The three words I don’t tell him enough.

Dax: I love you.

Keeping my phone in hand, I walk closer towards the bench, seeing a silver chain wrapped around catching the sunlight - Jae’s dog tags.

I send another photo.

Dax: I think you’ve forgotten these, soldier. Someone must have wrapped them around the bench in case you came back looking for them.

Jae: No mistake, I did it myself.

Dax: What do you mean?

Instead of texting back, he video calls me.

“Hey, what do you mean you put the dog tags there?” I ask with a confused look on my face.

“You remember what I told you before I left, yeah? Whenever you –”

“Feel overwhelmed, I squeeze tight and don’t let go.”

“Good, pretty boy, you remember. Well, I thought you needed your mum to have them more than me. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, whenever you feel overwhelmed you can squeeze me. I wrapped them around the bench so you could do that to your mum. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, she will take away the pain. Me and her both will.” His beautiful emerald eyes have tears in them and he still looks perfect.

I'm shaking, struggling to breathe.

And so ridiculously in love with this man.

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