Page 83 of The Moment I Met You
She stands by my side and grips my hand. ‘Of course you are. We all are. Why don’t you go and look inside the church before you come and say hello to everyone?’
I have already noticed the church, of course. It would be hard not to. It is newly built, but it is beautiful – mellow stone, solid steps up to a shining wooden door, one small bell tower. A cross atop it all, casting a cruciform shadow on the dust of the ground beneath. It is different than the one that came before – simpler, smaller – but still striking. Still symbolic, I think, of faith – if not in God, then in the resilience of humankind. The ability to rebuild, to return, to survive – to cling on to life in this remote and rugged land.
We walk together up those steps, and Em pushes open the vast door. Inside, it is not quite as dark as it used to be. There is more natural light flowing in through bigger windows, and walls of stained glass illuminating whitewashed walls and the dark wood of the pews. It smells of incense and candles still, as well as sawdust and stone, the newness of its construction.
I light a candle, leave it flickering in its holder after saying a quick hello to my dad. I feel odd. Displaced. Like I am floating outside my own body. The last time I was in a church here, I saw Alex, back in a world when we were strangers. Minutes later, he was shielding my body from a collapsing building, and tumbling with me into a temporary tomb. The last time I was in here, I was carrying a baby that I lost.
I walk to one of the rows of pews, and sit. I lean my head into my hands and close my eyes. I do not have rosary beads and I’m not sure what I believe about religion, but I know this place feels holy. Special. I say a prayer, to whoever might be listening – one of thanks, for my own life, for my family. For Em, and Harry, and Alex. For anyone who lives in fear, for anyone who has suffered loss, for anyone who is lonely and yearns to feel the kind touch of a loving hand.
I hear the movement of someone near to me, and wait for Em to either sit or speak.
‘Penny for them?’ says a voice from my side. A voice I know so well.
My eyes snap open, and I look up. It is him. It is Alex.
‘This is the bit where you say “I’m not that cheap”, and I make a comment about a bathroom wall.’
This, I think, is actually the bit where I stare at him, unsure of how to deal with the rush of emotion that I am feeling. I knew he might be here. I knew I might see him again. But knowing it has not prepared me for feeling it.
I reach up and touch his face, run my fingers across his cheekbones, his jaw, his lips. I stroke his hair, and let my hand come to rest on his shoulder, and continue to stare.
‘It’s real. It’s me,’ he says, smiling gently, sitting by my side. ‘God, I’ve missed you. I don’t think I even realised how much until right now. I didn’t even dare hope that you’d actually come, that you’d turn up. I thought perhaps you would be too afraid.’
‘I was. I am. But I couldn’t stay away … How are you, Alex? I’ve missed you so much as well.’
‘I’m better now,’ he replies, ‘now that you’re here. Do you like the church?’
I tear my eyes away from his face, and gaze around the building.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘You’ve built a place for magic to happen.’
‘Look,’ he says, pointing to a quiet corner of the building. ‘The stained-glass panel in the middle.’
I follow his gesture, and I see it – sunlit, glowing in shades of green and gold. A hummingbird, filtering the light amid a small sea of similar windows all showing birds and flowers and natural wonders.
‘That was for you,’ he explains. ‘For us. A memory we shared, on that first night.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ I say. ‘It’s perfect.’
We gaze at each other, both clearly catching up on what we might have missed. I kiss him lightly, and place my hands in his. I do not seem capable of removing them. It is entirely possible that I will want to feel my skin touching his for the rest of my days. I have let him go too many times. I have, as Harry said, done the wrong thing for the right reasons. I will never make those mistakes again.
‘We split up,’ I say. ‘Me and Harry.’
‘Em told me,’ he replies gently. ‘I can’t pretend to be sad about it. I’m just grateful to have you with me again. To have a second chance, if that’s what you want?’
Our fingers intertwine, and I say, ‘It is what I want. I didn’t know exactly how much until I saw you and now, I don’t think I’ll ever let you go. I’m scared that if I let go, you’ll disappear. That I’ll never find you again. That all of this might be some kind of hallucination. If it is, I never want to leave it.’
‘It’s not a hallucination. It’s me, and you, and it’s happening. I never stopped loving you, Elena. I never stopped wanting you, or thinking about you. And I never want you to let go of me again.’
We are silent then, bathed in the glow of the stained glass. We are together – we are home.
‘Come outside,’ he says eventually. ‘Come and see another sunset. We can talk, we can laugh – we can plan all the sunrises we will get to see.’
He leads me by the hand and we walk out, into the big sky and the shimmering air and the village that both broke us and made us whole.
We walk out into the unknown. Into a future that is new to us. Into a life that we will build together.
I do not know where we will live. I don’t know what we will do. I don’t know if we will have children, or travel, or get married.
I don’t know what the rest of my life will look like – but I embrace that uncertainty. I embrace it because I am certain of one thing: Alex and me.
This is where we spent those first moments together, as strangers.
And now we have more than moments. We have forever.
