The Longest Five Years (Completed)

Luke, cont.

I find the album and put it on. I went to the store and picked it up as soon as I heard Reagan would be home this year. I reach under the couch and pull out the present I hid before, setting it under the tree. She walks out with two glasses of red wine and a gorgeous smile on her face.

"It's good to be home," she says, handing me a glass. Bing Crosby stops singing and Judy Garland starts and she can't hide her surprise as we sit down by the Christmas tree. She's got her new pair of earrings in, and her hair is down around her shoulders. I tear my eyes away from her bare legs so I can focus on the moment and think about what I'm going to say. I slide the present to her. It's in a square box, wrapped with sparkly silver paper and a big red bow.

"Merry Christmas," I say nervously, raising my glass of wine to tap against hers. "Again,"

"Merry Christmas," she says back, clinking my glass back before taking a sip. Her lips are red; she's put lipstick on and shortly it'll be all over me. I can't wait. But first, this moment. The one I've waited all day to share with only her.

She reaches for the box and I touch her hand. "Spoiler alert. It's not a motorcycle. You've outdone me, Reags," I admit. Why am I being so lame? I'm nervous.

"We'll see," she whispers as she pulls out the album.

When I first had the idea, I was stoked. I looked through all the photos I'd ripped from the frames and the walls and sealed up tight in boxes, even the ones I swore I'd never look at again. I dug and dug through the history of us at her parent's. I made extra copies and had a custom cover leather album to documented all things Luke and Reagan from the very start.

She takes a breath, like this just knocked the wind out of her. She looks up at me tenderly, like I just gave her back her memories.

It opens with one of the very first photos Erin ever took of us. She was lying on Reagan's bed, listening to her play guitar. I was listening from inside the doorway, and Erin snapped a photo of the two of us. It's black and white. We're on opposite ends of the picture, but the smile on my face is clear.

"I have always loved your voice," I tell her honestly. "It's been my favorite thing since the first time I heard it. Even back then..." I point to the picture

"Luke," she covers her mouth. "Oh, god. Look at us," she laughs, turning each page slowly, as if she's reliving every single one. "I forgot about some of these," her fingers run over the photos affectionately.

"I felt the same way when I saw them," I swallow. "I asked your Mom to dig through her old albums. We had plenty of pictures from our short time, but nothing from before. Not these," I smile at her as we continue to look at each one.

There's a photo in there of the two of us at her 16th birthday. She's holding up a chocolate cupcake and sticking it in her tongue. She'd nearly killed me a few hours before when I rode with her on the way back from taking her driver's test.

"I'm so glad we lived that day," I tease her and she laughs. "Those cupcakes were worth it, don't you think?"

"The best," she sighs.

There's one of the two of us at my high school graduation - she's behind me pulling off my cap from behind my shoulder. She told me if I didn't graduate, I couldn't leave home. I told her she couldn't get rid of me that easily.

Next, we're swimming in the ocean on a family trip to Florida. She's 17 and we're headed to a Halloween party at a neighbors. She's a paramedic. I'm a firefighter, and we decided we were clearly the sexiest rescue team in the state. Erin was there, too – she was a cop, of all things, but she was taking the picture. She was taking most of these pictures.

It's not that I think she's completely emptied her memory of all the good parts of our life together, but it's really nice looking at this way and remembering the way it felt before shit hit the fan.

She flips through the pages, smiling. When she gets to the middle of the book, my nerves kick in. Sure, we were married, but the more that I think about it, we were on a path to self-destruction before we ever really got started.

There's one of prom. One of us from her 18th birthday on the deck at the cabin that we managed to take ourselves. One from Hawaii. One from the cabin when it was our home - we're sitting out on the dock with our feet in the water. There's one I took of her performing alone on stage when I saw her for the first time.

I know these are the moments that led up to pain, but they happened, and instead of it being a countdown to our destruction, it's more like a reminder of how we've grown.

"This is the best present I've ever gotten," she tells me when we reach the end. "It's official. You outdid me," she tells me with a quick kiss.

The last photo in the book is the one of the three of us at the cabin, where are faces are squished together because we took it ourselves. She turns the page and it's blank, just like the next 100 or so. It's not the most original idea by any means, but I hope she sees the significance here.

"Our greatest hits," I tell her carefully."There's a lot of open space there for new memories. Big ones. Great ones," I smile at her and my heart flutters. "But it'll take awhile...to fill all these pages. Years..."

She turns to me and I lose my breath. Her eyes are shining and she's nodding.

"I hope it does," she whispers. "I hope it takes a lifetime."