Marley looks from my hand up to my face, questioning. She looks down again as I slowly unfurl my fingers.
Nestled there in the center is one perfect snow-white pearl.
I hear Marley’s sharp intake of breath as I lift her hand and gently place the pearl in her palm. It’s too much. Her lip quivers, and the dam breaks. Tears she’s held in for years finally rush out. I wrap my arms around her as her shoulders heave, and she buries her face into my chest.
I sit there, holding her, letting her cry. I keep her safe while she feels the pain she’s never let herself feel.
After, we sit under the cherry blossom tree, her eyes still red and puffy.
She plucks little flowers from between the strands of grass, dozens of tiny blooms littering the ground around us.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she says as her hair falls in front of her face, still shielding her in some small way from me and everyone else.
My hand brushes lightly against hers, that magnetic pull between us suddenly alive again. Somehow stronger than it’s ever been. “We’ll figure it out as we go,” I say, her hazel eyes shifting up to meet mine. “I’ve waited all this time for you. The slower we take it, the longer it lasts.”
I reach up to tuck a yellow Doris Day behind her ear. “And I’m okay with that.”
The smallest trace of a shy smile lets me know she’s okay with that too.
41
The next evening we meet up in the Cardiology waiting room, and Marley hands over her yellow notebook of stories.
It’s so cool to see the story that she wrote for us, a world that I actually lived in for an entire year, here on paper. I see the places my brain filled in the gaps, building, making real memories from every one of her sentences.
I tell her about those moments. How I thought Kim had died in the accident. How I almost lost my mind trying to cook my mom’s béarnaise sauce. How I got into a fight with Sam at one of our Saturday touch football games.
I laugh as I read a few paragraphs about a time we fed the ducks at the pond, a big brown-and-white one almost taking my finger off while Marley laughed in amusement. I look over at her sitting on the opposite side of the couch from me, taking in the small smile on her face. The same girl I fell in love with.
Real.
I study the dark circles around her eyes, the curtain of hair hiding her from the rest of the world. Her sadness is heavier now than it was in my dream because she lets me see it all. She doesn’t hide behind her words, writing about the person she so desperately wants to be. Sometimes the darkness completely overtakes her, but I can see the Marley I know hiding just inside the shadows, fighting her way out.
I grew in the dream world. But I think she did too.
“This duck that almost bit my finger off… it was the same one that chased me that one time, wasn’t it?”
Marley’s lips tug up at the corners. “He didn’t stop until you gave him the rest of your popcorn.” Her leg lightly brushes against mine as she shifts her position, my heart skipping a beat. “That duck was always my favorite.”
“Of course it was.” I laugh, nudging her.
“Did you write it all down?” I ask, pointing to the page in front of me. “Everything you said to me?”
She nods, her finger lightly tracing the top of the notebook. “I tried to. Sometimes I would just start talking and the story would come flowing out. I didn’t even have time to write it.”
“What did you say about the first time we met?” I ask, flipping back to the beginning, thinking about the moment. I’ve been so busy jumping around looking for certain memories, I didn’t even start on the first page. “He looked like a complete wreck? Garbage on two legs?”
Marley laughs and shakes her head, the look in her hazel eyes making me melt. “I definitely didn’t say that.”
I smile to myself as I turn my attention back to her notebook, her words jumping off the page at me.
She saw him and she knew. She knew that he would understand.
* * *
The next day, I scroll slowly through another page of rescue dogs, trying my best to focus on the floofy Alaskan malamute or the stocky bulldog, but Marley’s arm resting up against mine is all I can think about.
That and the fact that we’re shoulder to shoulder in my tiny hospital bed, her face literally inches from mine. I force the thought out of my head.
We’re taking things slow. Pull it together, Lafferty.
I stop my scrolling, pointing to a silver Yorkie rescue.
Marley sits up and grabs the iPad, her eyes widening as she flips through the photos. “Oh my God. It’s her. It’s Georgia!”