Page 106 of Fall for Me

“Chelsea!” I yelled as I ran, knowing I sounded like a lunatic.

By the time I reached my truck, my chest was heaving and I had to lean over, my hand on my truck’s hood. Running in steel-toed boots had turned my legs to jelly.

It was her. I knew it was her. I had to catch her.

I yanked open the door to my truck, and that’s when I saw it. A sketchbook.

It was the one I’d bought her, the one I thought for sure she’d tucked away on some shelf or maybe even in the trash. I’d thought it was a mistake to give it to her.

I picked it up, my hands gripping it as tightly as if I were holding a baby.

My hood had fallen back as I’d run over here, and rain slicked through my hair and down my face now, into my eyes. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, sat in my front seat, then opened the book.

There were pages and pages of drawings, in pencil, colored pencil, even paint, the pages thick with it.

My heart swelled a thousand sizes as I kept going. She did it.

My thumb brushed a page that stuck out from the rest. It must have been detached and slipped back in. I flipped to it, sucking in air as I landed on a watercolor rendering of the photo of me, Kevin, and Lois. I ran my finger over Kev’s turquoise shirt, my eyes welling.

I looked up, through the windshield. Far in the distance, Lucy was waving her hand frantically in a forward gesture.

Go.

I pushed the ratty tennis ball and satchel of plastic bags on the passenger seat aside, setting the sketchbook down in their place, my heart thumping. Then I threw the truck in gear.

I had no idea how to find her. The only thing I could think of was to get on the highway—she had to be on her way back to Vermont.

When I reached the end of the service road, I hesitated. Barkley Falls, the closest town, was a mile to the right, the highway two miles in the other direction. She’d been driving Eli’s truck. She had her own car—the only reason she’d be driving Eli’s truck would be because she was with him, and she wouldn’t have left him here.

A few minutes later, I spotted it. Parked right downtown, in front of the local diner, Aubrey’s.

I threw my truck into park on the opposite side of the street and ran across, without a thought about traffic. A driver honked at me, long and hard. I jumped out of the way of the screeching car, my pulse in my ears. I held my hand up in apology but didn’t look. I couldn’t see anything except that face in the window.

Chelsea, standing, her green coat still on.

I stood on the sidewalk, rain sluicing down my hair and face.

She turned, walking toward the door, while I stood, praying I wasn’t dreaming all of this up. When she pushed out the door, her face was stricken.

“Was I too late?” she shouted over the rain. She’d seen me with Lucy. She’d thought—

I shook my head. “Never.”

She walked toward me. “I didn’t want you to wait, but I prayed you would. I didn’t want you to, but I did, I—”

I couldn’t wait. I ran toward her, scooping her in my arms and lifting her off her feet. Chelsea’s hands went to my jaw, smoothing my hair off my face, laugh-crying. Her wet hair was plastered against her cheeks and I smoothed it back, revealing all of her beautiful, rain-dropped face, that scar, weaving like the Quince.

I kissed her then, long and hard and with every cell in my body calling her name. Her tongue prodded, pleading against mine, her hands curled tight in my sopping hair, her breath pressing her body to mine.

“I love you, Chelsea Kelly,” I breathed. “With my whole goddamned heart.”

When she pulled away, her face was slick with rain and tears. “I love you, Seamus. I loved you before and didn’t know how to say it. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, baby,” I said. “Don’t ever be sorry. Everything that came before, it brought us here, and this is the only place in the world I want to be.”

She let out a sob. “Even all wet?”

“Even soaked to the bone.”

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