Lovestruck

April Fool's Day

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head, tears slowly falling, hugging his knees.

"What is it Jack?"

"My dad."

"What about him?"

"He's gone."

I frowned, knowing what he meant. His father passed away. I sat down next to Jack and put my arm around him. He leaned in to me and started to cry. "When a person dies, they're still looking over you, and that they're waiting for you to join them in the future. Where ever they're at, they're happy."

"How do you know?"

"I don't know. I just know. Your dad is watching after you. He knows I'll watch after you, too."

Jack hugged me tightly. "Are you sure?"

"I'm certain."

"Thank you Cupid."

"You're welcome."

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Jack, Dad, and I were sitting on the porch looking at the ocean and talking. Beau was sitting on the beach with Lady and Mary and Winnie, making sand castles. Mo was in the kitchen, feeding Noelle and keeping her out of the sun. The rest were out canoodling or shopping. I thought Eli was taking a shower, but all of a sudden, he ran right out of the house and across the beach extremely fast. He bolted down the beach, all of us looking at him.

"Eli?" Dad shouted, but Eli kept running. Dad quickly ran after him and I looked at Jack, confusion written on our faces.

"Well, go follow him!" Jack exclaimed, not sure what to do.

I high-tailed it off the porch and ran after them. I saw ahead that Eli had collapsed onto the edge of the ocean by a cliff, hiding in the shade where it was hard to see him. Still, I could tell he was crying. It was his honeymoon. He shouldn't have been crying. I caught up to him and Dad had already been sitting with him. "What is it?" I asked, catching my breath.

"I don't know yet," Dad said. "Eli, what's wrong?"

"Remember what I told you?" Eli asked, covering his eyes. "About that unborn child?"

"Yeah. You said it was like you."

"Well it's not. I thought it was. I thought it was suppose to be a miracle, like Beau was a miracle for Jack and Cupid. But he's not."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"She had a miscarriage. It passed away."

I remembered the conversation we had. Eli had been in denial. There had to be a Father Time or another Dark Ages would start over. I sat down and Eli leaned into Dad, crying still. "I'm scared, Cee. Why do things have to be like this? I wish I could just have a child with some woman, but then he'd have a defect. I wouldn't have known about the stupid defects if I had never met you but of course I did and I fell in love with you and all our lives have just been so complicated. If Theodore had never gotten in the way then we could've gotten together, but then Cupid wouldn't have been born and Joli would've been so alone. Then Beau probably never would've come into existence."

"It's like it's all connected," I said absent-mindedly.

"What?" Eli asked, looking at me intently.

"Well, just look at our lives and see how we are all so dependent on each other, how we've all been the cause and effect of each other. I can tell that things are gonna be okay."