It has been a long time since I've seen such a lovely sight as the one in front of me now. The water glistens in my eyes. It's glorious, glittering, like jewels. There's a tiny cave beside the ocean (and in the ocean is where I see a few fish jumping up from its waves as we pass by) and I follow Harry inside it.
"This is home...for now." He says, gesturing around us.
I take a moment to look around. Strings of lights cross from one side to the other throughout the cave, rough scratch marks adorn the walls, and a lump of something soft lies in the back, probably a bed. There's a pile of food stuffed inside a basket, and a couple lawn chairs sit around a small pile of wood. He sees me staring.
"I'm gonna light a fire later. It tends to be cold at night." He explains, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"It's summer." I tell him, confused.
I didn't think it was cold at all when the sun was at its strongest.
"Like I said." And he walks out toward the lake, but I can't tell if he is expecting me to follow or not.
I follow him anyway.
"How did you get the lights to work in a cave?" I ask once I come up behind him.
His body doesn't move. I feel the breeze withering around us, like the summer heat is coming back hard, but then it is all gone. A flash of cold air bursts suddenly at us, and the temperature feels like it just dropped massively. I'm never this cold back at the beach house. Is it the cave? That doesn't make sense.
"Solar power and uh...something else. I have some hidden talents."
I snort.
"Hidden talents? Oh really? Other than seducing women?"
He smirks and shakes his head slightly.
"That's not a talent. That's a gift. My talent is I can fix things." Harry tells me.
I lean against the cave wall, just watching him. It's a pretty sight around me, but as for the one in front of me? It's one for the angels to behold.
"Well okay. So what happens now? How long do you want me to stay here with you? Do you know what was wrong with my Auntie?" I ask him.
He huffs a little.
"One at a time, alright? And just relax. You can stay here as long as you like. I'm not going to stop you from going back to that beach house...I just wouldn't recommend it."
"Oh...right." I shift uncomfortably.
I have a feeling he knows. He probably knows more than I think or he lets on.
He sits on the edge of the sand and relaxes back. I lie beside him. The sky is such a pallet color, almost a transition between night and day. It's so strange.
"It's nice out." I comment, staring at the scene above.
There is a small silence, a strange silence, and then I hear him say it. Like, oh my good Lord, he actually says something that sounds a whole freaking lot like-
"I'm falling in love with you." He says abruptly.
I nearly chock on my own spit.
"What?" Did I hear him right?
"I said I am falling for you. It's not...I'm sorry." He struggles for the right way to say it, then I stare dumbfounded as he sits up and, with pride, looks straight into my eyes.
The backdrop of the strange sky is very becoming on him.
I sit up and stare at him, my chest heaving, my eyes watering.
"You love me?" I ask in wonder.
"I'm not sure yet, but there is this funny feeling escaping me when you smile, all the time, and so I think it may be true." He says, touching his heart as if that simple touch of his hand to his flaming incubator of love will predict the matter.
"This is funny." I say wondrously.
"How so?" He looks hurt.
I laugh despite myself.
"No, silly, I adore you too." I kiss his cheek. He grins like a little boy. "It's like a phenoix, the way they live and die."
His eyes seem to glaze over as he looks out to the sea.
"I don't know those stories."
"The bird dies in flames and then is born in its ashes, of course."
He smiles. "Similes...Metaphors. Ahh, the things we all love to use, but hardly ever mean."
I sigh deeply.
"How extraordinary..." I breathe, my insides curling in heat and fire. "The way the soul can extinguish things and like fire they burn, and through the ashes are reborn."
"It's really great, yeah." He says. "But I wouldn't be as poetic as that, but yeah, it's great."
"Yeah." I say, giggling at his awkwardness.
He suddenly stands up and, face red, holds out his hand.
"Do you want to...do you want to dance with me?"
I smile very small and take his hand.
He pulls me closer very slowly, then places one of his hands on my waist and the other in mine. We begin to move sweetly, quietly, our feet embedded in the sand like washed up seashells.
"You're a good dancer. Where'd you learn?" I ask, our heads close as our bodies sway back and forth.
"No where. I taught myself." He says, then twirls me around and pulls me back tight to his chest.
We sway slower, closer, silence creeping on us as the night grows darker. But it doesn't feel strange. It feels amazing.
"The day I met you felt like a birthday, beginning with water, ending with rain." He sings suddenly.
I giggle.
"What song is that?" I ask him, laying my arm on his shoulder as I look up at him.
He smiles, but doesn't answer. He just keeps singing. He has such a wonderful voice.
"But the beautiful kind.
Not the sad kind...
The kind where you can dance.
Birds of many colors and more flocks of families above the crossed trees flying your name
High where the people can't touch it
The grass can't bloom its flowers
And you bloomed
You rose
You tulip of glory
In a rainbow of winter
And I walked with you, sailing, there in a shower of my heart and all my days."
When he stops I'm blinking back tears, but because my head is on his shoulder and his mouth is next to me ear I know can't see me.
"It's like a poem." I choke out.
"Yeah. It was one...one that I wrote. But I find I'm much better at singing than saying stuff." He tells me.
It's quiet.
Then he whispers, "Be my baby." Oh so softly into my ear as his hands move my hips to a beat in his head.
It feels like melting to me, when he says it, like defrost, and I feel myself shake a little in nervousness.
I smile, then turn up my head as we lean away. We're gonna kiss. I just know it. Then fate punches my gut.
I scream as I catch sight of something behind us, lurking upward.
A black smoke rises above our heads. It suddenly feels extremely cold and tears wallow my eyes. The smoke swirls the air, drops so that it devours the sand, then follows us as we fly into the cave. Harry starts laughing as we reach the back. I shove him.
"How the actual crap can you be laughing right now?" I demand.
"It's harmless fog. I don't know why you're freaking. It's, like, that silly fake smoke from the Trick Trains. It travels this way at night. That's why I said I would light a fire. You ran from it like it was a monster or something."
I blow out a huge breathe. Whatever.
"Well, forget the freaking fire. Let's just stay in here."
He grins, trying not to laugh.
"Shut up." I say.
He places his hand on my cheek as we sit down in the cave floor, clammy and alone. He finally leans closer and I feel his lips two inches-two freaking inches-from my own. My heart starts beating frantically like it's screaming Get me the hell out of here! and I know. I just know I love him too.
"I love you." I speak gently.
His lips touch mine, lavishing, creating, worshiping, and I feel it, the friendship becoming passion and the like transforming to love.
We stay in the cave kissing and talking all night, falling asleep cuddled against the floor in the lump of softness I witnessed earlier. I'm overwhelmed suddenly by how much I love him and how extraordinary it was I didn't know it before. Thoughts stream through my head, becoming crazier or deeper or more obsessively passionate. I'm okay in this cave with him. I don't have to be home in my mansion or back at the beach house. We don't have to be on a Trick Train or a seashore to be in love or have fun together. It's amazing, love, and even more amazing how quickly it destroys everything else inside you that doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter where we go. Or if when summer is over, so is he...gone from me. This love is so strong. Let the wind take him to Australia, or to the coast of St. Sebastian. Let him write the best broadway production the world has never seen. I'll be here waiting if he does, in this cave, on this shore, because this is where I met him. The place I was invented, not as a human being, but as a soul. He can even go to the moon. As a matter of fact, I hope he does go to the moon. I may not know all the secrets the world is hiding but I do know this: We were meant to be together, and one day soon-one fine morning or night when my hair is gray or not alive at all-he will find me again. And I will continue to love him until the day I die. And if there is a chance that there is life after that, I will love him then as well.
I know there is nothing I can do. Harry is standing before me, ready to be my forever. I lean up to kiss his lips, the warm confinements that are my safe haven. There is no surrendering to it. I am his. He will keep the nightmares away for as long as we are together, the dreams inside my head, my soul deep into my heart, and of that I am positive. I smile at him, giving him everything in that single most promising gesture, because if you're at the end of your rope...untie the knot in your heart.