The 24th Reason

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I sat in William's 1955 Cadillac Eldorado as he drove. We sat in complete silence as he started to drive along the twisting road that connected our old Victorian house to the main road. People lived on our road, but they minded their own business and we liked it like that. I never liked crowds of people and neither did Will. We lived in our own world, away from society, away from anyone who would bother us.

In the mornings, we sat on the front porch and drank our coffee while listening to the birds. On sunny days, we would go outside and garden or just sit outside and have a couple glasses of wine on our back patio. On rainy days, we would paint or cook or sit on the couch and watched Seinfeld.

Every day in the summer and fall, we would sit outside and have a bonfire. We would sit next to each other, and I would play my guitar while he would play his ukulele. Sometimes he'd tell me stories about the war and how grateful he was that he made it out alive. The orange glow of the flames would float upwards toward the pine tree with no leaves or needles in our backyard. All the other pine trees had leaves, but we loved this one more.

Eventually, we would have to put the fire out and go inside, but during those moments, time was endless. Summer was endless.

On November 1, we would always wake up to the peach tree in our front yard toilet papered and my 1984 Toyota Corolla egged. We knew it was the Perkins family. They always did that stuff on Halloween and they were always the ones causing mischief and we hated them for that. We hated the whole family. But, we let it go. It wasn't very smart to get involved with laws and court cases when I only had ten more years tops.

Winter would come, and we would buy each other presents for Christmas. Usually the presents were a painting he did of me or of our cat, Allison. I would give him new ukulele strings or a new instrument we would learn how to play together.

Life was great for us. We laughed, we loved and most importantly, we made the most out of our life. We didn't do everything, but we pushed life to the limit and didn't waste our lives.

William's voice broke my inner monologue. "Gloria," he glanced over at me and whispered, "I love you."

I looked at his eyes. When we were younger, I fell in love with him and his brilliant green eyes. He has aged, but his eyes were as brilliant as they were sixty years ago. "I love you, too," I responded. I grabbed for his right hand and we both looked up and held a gaze for a couple seconds. I could still see his younger face from when he was sixteen behind his old velvety skin. I could still see his defined jawline and his pink lips from when he was younger. I smiled and looked out the windshield. "Watch out!" I yelled.

It happened in a blur. I closed my eyes and both of our heads went through the windshield.