Page 109 of Sparking Sara

“We’re going to be sisters,” she says gleefully. “I always wanted a sister.”

“You’re very pretty,” I say, taking in her long blonde hair and toothy smile. She has a slightly crooked smile that I recognize as Oliver’s. In fact, she looks so much like him that if he were younger, they could be twins.

Twins. I think of Denver. He’s been wanting me to meet his sister, Aspen. He talks about her all the time. I can tell they are very close. I told him I would, but she’s coming to town in a few weeks, when I’m still in London.

Unlike Denver, Oliver doesn’t mention Octavia much. I guess it’s because they didn’t grow up together. He only lived in London the first few years of her life. Still, they seem to be very comfortable with each other. It makes me wonder why we’d never met.

“What grade are you in?” I ask Octavia.

“I’m in year nine.”

Oliver takes my suitcase and pulls it up the walk. “That’s seventh grade to you Yanks.”

Over the next few hours, Enid and Harry regale me with tales of Oliver growing up. I have a hard time staying awake, but they tell me it’s best to push through and stay up until bedtime or else the jet lag will kill me.

I yawn for the millionth time as I crawl into bed. “I can’t believe I traveled so much. Didn’t I have issues with the time differences?”

“You learn to handle it,” he says. “You used to take sleeping pills a lot so you could sleep when you were supposed to.”

I recall seeing a prescription for them in my cabinet at home. I wondered why I had them.

“That can’t be good for me, can it?”

“I guess you do what you have to do.”

“Well, I don’t want to do that anymore,” I tell him.

He looks at me thoughtfully before turning out the light. “Don’t want to do what—take sleeping pills, or travel?”

I shrug in the darkness.

He crawls into bed behind me. “We used to talk about moving here, you know.”

I stiffen. “Moving to London?”

“Yes. It’s much closer to a lot of the places you like to visit. Europe is where the real art is. The culture. It would be easier for the jet lag not having such a large time difference between the places you travel to the most.”

I turn around in bed, facing him for perhaps the first time when lying together. I can somewhat make out his face with the moonlight coming through the window. “But what if Idon’ttravel anymore? I’m not painting like I used to, Ollie. I may never get back to painting like that again.”

He kisses my forehead. “You’ll get back to it. You’re too talented not to.”

“But what if I don’t want to move to London? What then?”

“Then we don’t move to London,” he says. “Or we postpone it. I told you we’d take it slow. Your happiness is all I want.”

“It’s been months, Oliver. Why are you being so patient with me?”

“Because”—he hesitates, and something gnaws at my gut—“because I love you, Sara. And shouldn’t we do anything for the ones we love?”

It’s been thirteen weeks since my accident. Eight since I went home with Oliver. And he’s never said those words to me. Maybe he was afraid of scaring me off. Maybe now that he’s back home, he feels more confident and secure.

“I … I …” I close my eyes, squeezing a confused tear out of them.

“It’s okay, luv. You don’t have to say it back. Not yet.”

He brushes a hair out of my face before leaning in to kiss me. I let him kiss me. I always do. Because that’s what fiancées do—they kiss. They kiss and a lot more. I know he wants more. I know he deserves more. I’m just not sure I’m ready for more.

“Sleep now,” he says. “You’re exhausted and we have a busy day tomorrow. I’m going to take you to the church where your parents got married.”

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