My beginning and the end (Completed)

Gathered affection

Days or hours later. Who knows anymore. I felt much better physically. I told him I would accept his hand in marriage. He didn't look as happy as I had expected. What else did he want. He asked me twice to marry him, and now that I said yes, he doesn't want me to?

I put on the wedding dress and placed the wedding band back on my ring finger. I told him we should get it over with and do it right at that moment. He told me he wouldn't want to rush it like last time. I told him to get ready, we were getting married. He finally relented and went to the bathroom to fix himself up.

I waited and waited, sitting on the living room couch. Finally, he came out. He was wearing a fine white shirt with tuxedo trousers. I took both his hands and asked him if he would take me as his wedded wife. I couldn't remember what else was said at weddings as I hadn't been to one recently.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even look me in the eyes, so I just asked again. "Will you take me as your wedded wife till death do us part." "I-I don't." He stuttered.
"What?" I answered him back, confused. "But this is what you wanted." I answered him confused."I'm not going to force you into marriage. I want you to love me back as I love you. I just want you to love me." He said.

I sat on the living room couch in defeat. "I know you won't love me back right away, but I'll wait patiently for you, Jade." He said.
Jade? He called me Jade?
"Why did you call me Jade suddenly?" I asked him, but he just ignored me. He sat down beside me and took my hand. "I know you'll love me one day, even if it takes another century to get you back." I caressed his face and told him his wait was over before it even started. "I've always loved you. No matter the years, I've always had love for you." -"it might not be the love you need, but it is all I have left." I told him. "But you're not in love." He answered back. "I might not be in love with you, but I'll always have my love for you." I answered and smiled back at him.

- - -

It was an early morning. The sun had yet to rise. I woke up before Damien and went out into the kitchen to see what I could conjure up. I looked at his ingredients and settled on making my special sandwich for breakfast. He didn't have any bread, so I just used bagels instead.

I was just about finished making the bagel when Damien woke up. He stumbled to the kitchen, half awake, and sat down by the kitchen table. He rested his elbows on the table and had his head in his hands, trying to balance the weight of it. "Good morning sunshine, care for my special bagel sandwich," I asked him cheerfully as I cut the bagel in half. He didn't answer and just grunted, I took it as a yes. I set it in front of him and waited, eager to see if he would like it or not. "Usually, I would use bread and not a bagel, so I hope it tastes as good." I explained to him. He started eating and finished the bagel quickly. After he finished, he looked up at me and asked me what I put in it. It was so delicious. "It's a secret, but I can tell you it's in the sauce." I told him.

I went to the bathroom and took a shower. When I came back, he told me he had something to ask me. We sat down in the living room. He asked me if I had remembered anything from all of my past lives. I looked at him confused. "All?" -"You're implying I've had many." I asked him befuddled. "You don't remember any of the others?" -"This isn't the first time I've found you again, Evelyn. There's been at least 4 lives you've lived now." He told me. He explained that he first noticed me again in the late 1960s as a teen. Then again, he refound me in the 80s as a baby. He recognized my birth marks, he said. Then he found me again in 1997. He was working in the hospital and saw that birthmark again. He remarked that he hadn't expected to see me so soon after the previous times. He told me how I had died so young in my previous lives and that I had already surpassed all the ages I passed away at.

I couldn't answer him. I was shocked. I was already shocked that I remembered my life as Evelyn and that he was still alive and around after all this time. I looked at him with a blank stare like I had just gotten news that my car was towed and I was facing an eviction and there was nothing I could do about it. I asked him how old he was. "160 in December." My jaw dropped when he said that. But he looked so young, like he was forever 25.

We talked for a while. He told me everything he knew and remembered of my past lives. Turns out Sandra, the name on the birdhouse, was actually me. He frequently interrupted himself to ask me if I remembered anything he was mentioning. I did not have any flashbacks or even vague familiarity of any of it. Maybe I just needed another tour of my past lives to remember it all. It worked the first time around.

The sun had set, and we were still sitting on the couch talking. He had made dinner and such, but we went back to the couch to talk again. We talked back and forth about the past and the present. I honestly loved talking to him like this. I thoroughly enjoyed all of our conversations. We were both so tired we fell asleep together on the couch.

When I woke up, I was still on the couch. Damien wasn't there anymore. I got up and looked around to see if he was there. He had left again. I made myself some breakfast. I wasn't sure how long he would be, so I went back to the loft. I was curious what was in the box that had my year of birth on it.

I found the box again. There was a thick layer of dust on it that I brushed away. I opened the box and saw my medical records from when I was born. There were also a few pictures. There were pictures of me, my father and also my mother. I had never seen a picture of my mother. My father didn't want to talk about her. He didn't even describe what she looked like. We looked very different from each other. The biggest difference was our hair and eye color. I had inherited my father's brown eyes and his dark brown hair color, and my mother had light blond hair and green eyes. I could feel myself getting sadder the longer i looked at the picture. I wondered what she was like.

I heard the front door open. I panicked and hurriedly threw everything back into the box and closed it. I climbed down the ladder and closed the hatch door. I walked out, and Damien told me we would be going somewhere tomorrow. He told me I should dress nicely for the occasion. I was both excited and nervous about where we would be going.