Page 42 of Leave Before I Love You
But when two weeks pass, you have to wonder if they’re even remotely in the vicinity of where we are or if they’ll ever figure it out.
For all I know, we were off course by ten, twenty…fifty miles. If the pilot was feeling off before or maybe if his senses were blurred, he could have been flying in a completely different direction than intended.
I, for one, know I sure as hell wouldn’t have realized.
I take a deep breath to clear my thoughts of all the negativity and turn my mouth to Henry’s shirt-covered chest to place a small kiss there.
As much as I want our time here to end, I wonder what that’ll do to us and all the things we’ve become—all the things I’ve become accustomed to.
I turn back into my sleeping position and tuck back in, letting myself settle and drift back off into the comfort of Henry’s cuddled sleep. I don’t know what’ll happen here. I don’t know what I’ll say when I get all boozed up to celebrate two weeks tomorrow night. Or if it’ll expose me to both Henry and myself in ways I never dreamed of. And I don’t know what’ll happen when and if we leave here and go back to our lives as we once knew them.
All I know is that for a little while longer, I can pretend it doesn’t exist.
I can pretend Henry and I are the only two people in the world and that my dreams are reality.
Because here, in Henry’s arms, the world doesn’t feel so heavy.
Here, I don’t have to be afraid.
Here, in the stillness of morning… I can almost say it.
I can almost admit the truth—that whateverthisis,whatever we are, I don’t want to live in a world where it doesn’t exist.
Henry
As the warmth of an Avery-nuzzled sleep tugs me one way, an unfamiliar sound pulls me toward another, clouding the very monotone reality we’ve come to expect for the last thirteen days.
It’s a low hum, like a distant drum or heartbeat, and it fights with the gentle rhythm of the ocean’s waves. It feels like a dream—like I’m standing on top of a building vent shaft waiting to leap, no matter the consequence, and I struggle to make sense of my warring emotions.
It feels wrong and right all at once, and my body jolts as it battles to stay snug with Avery instead. Reflexively, I squeeze her deeper into myself and inhale, taking in the fading scent of roses and salty skin.
I open my eyes and blink rapidly, trying to make sense of my nightmares and reality and where the line is drawn between them. Avery stirs on top of me as the sound gets louder, and I push to sitting, taking her with me.
Her hands find my thighs as she tries to keep herself upright among my shifting.
“What is that?” she asks, her voice raw and raspy with the unshed onus of slumber, rubbing at her face.
I listen harder, flipping through a mental catalog to make senseof the buzz, and poke my head out of our shelter to take a look. The sun is up—we’ve clearly overslept from our normal routine—and a wavy haze cascades through the rays as they hit the water, but nothing else I can make sense of looks out of the ordinary.
She pokes her head out beside me, both of us listening and trying to track where it's coming from.
We stare at each other for a long moment and then another, and when it finally hits me, it does so with the force of a bullet to the chest.
“Holy shit!” I whisper-shout, shoving my way out of the tent and making Avery scramble to follow me as I take off at a run.
My eyes are bleary in the already-bright sun, and the reflection of the water makes it hard to focus, but I swear on the bright-blue space of the horizon, I see a small dot, traveling from left to right. It doesn’t look like a bird, and it sure as hell doesn’t fly like one.
“It’s a helicopter!” I try to yell, my voice still hoarse from both sleep and dehydration.
Unexpectedly, the words snap something in Avery, and she takes off at a run for the water first, her lean, tanned legs eating up the distance more quickly than I’ve ever seen them move. I follow closely behind, waving my arms widely and wildly to try to catch the aircraft’s attention, and Avery mimics me as I come to a stop beside her knee-deep in the water.
She jumps up and down and hollers and screams, and I do the same. My hand bumps her arm and knocks her to the side, and she stumbles in the water, but neither of us falters. I stare hard, afraid if I move or blink or take a breath, the vision will disappear into thin air and I’ll have to face the devastation of my imagination playing tricks on me.
I don’t trust that it’s not a mirage, and I certainly don’t trust the surge of adrenaline that’s dumped into my veins not to get me in trouble.
“Heyyy!” Avery screams, her sweet voice cracking with theeffort to be loud, and my ears ring at the volume. Without anything to talk over, we’ve gotten quieter over the last two weeks.
Both of us jump higher as the helicopter seems to turn and come toward us, and a weird swirl makes a whirlpool in my fucking stomach.
