She didn’t answer right away. Instead she stood, wiped her face, and walked to the edge of the porch where she leaned against the post. She crossed her arms and watched the water before answering quietly.
“No.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Allie,” he said. “We’re adults now, we have the choice we didn’t have before. We’re meant to be together. We always have been.”
He walked to her side and put his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life thinking about you and dreaming of what might have been. Stay with me, Allie.”
Tears began to fill her eyes. “I don’t know if I can,” she finally whispered.
“You can. Allie . . . I can’t live my life happily knowing you’re with someone else. That would kill a part of me. What we have is rare. It’s too beautiful to just throw it away.”
She didn’t respond. After a moment he gently turned her toward him, took her hands, and stared at her, willing her to look at him. Allie finally faced him with moist eyes. After a long silence, Noah brushed the tears from her cheeks with his fingers, a look of tenderness on his face. His voice caught as he saw what her eyes were telling him.
“You’re not going to stay, are you?” He smiled weakly. “You want to, but you can’t.”
“Oh, Noah,” she said as the tears began again, “please try to understand. …”
He shook his head to stop her.
“I know what you’re trying to say—I can see it in your eyes. But I don’t want to understand it, Allie. I don’t want it to end this way. I don’t want it to end at all. But if you leave, we both know we’ll never see each other again.”
She leaned into him and began to cry harder as Noah fought back his own tears.
He wrapped his arms around her.
“Allie, I can’t force you to stay with me. But no matter what happens in my life, I’ll never forget these last couple of days with you. I’ve been dreaming about this for years.”
He kissed her gently, and they embraced as they had when she first got out of her car two days ago. Finally Allie let him go and wiped her tears.
“I have to get my things, Noah.”
He didn’t go inside with her. Instead he sat down in the rocker, spent. He watched her go into the house and listened as the sound of her movements faded into nothing. She emerged from the house minutes later with everything she’d brought and walked toward him with her head down. She handed him the drawing she had done yesterday morning. As he took it, he noticed that she hadn’t stopped crying.
“Here, Noah. I made this for you.”
Noah took the drawing and unrolled it slowly, careful not to tear it.
There were dual images, one overlapping the other. The image in the foreground, which occupied most of the page, was a picture of how he looked now, not fourteen years ago. Noah noticed that she had penciled in every detail of his face, including the scar. It was almost as if she’d copied it from a recent photograph.
The second image was that of the front of the house. The detail there was also incredible, as if she had sketched it while sitting beneath the oak tree.
“It’s beautiful, Allie. Thank you.” He attempted a smile. “I told you that you were an artist.” She nodded, her face cast downward, her lips pressed together. It was time for her to go.
They walked to her car slowly, without speaking. When they reached it, Noah embraced her again until he could feel the tears welling up in his own eyes. He kissed her lips and both cheeks, then with his finger softly brushed the places he’d kissed.
“I love you, Allie.”
“I love you, too.”
Noah opened her car door, and they kissed one more time. Then she slid behind the wheel, never taking her eyes from him. She put the packet of letters and the pocketbook next to her on the seat and fumbled for the keys, then turned the ignition. It started easily, and the engine began to turn over impatiently. It was almost time.
Noah pushed her door closed with both hands, and Allie rolled down the window. She could see the muscles in his arms, the easy smile, the tanned face. She reached out her hand and Noah took it for just a moment, moving his fingers softly against her skin.
“Stay with me,” Noah mouthed without sound, and this for some reason hurt more than Allie would have expected. The tears began to fall hard now, but she couldn’t speak. Finally, reluctantly, she looked away and pulled her hand from his. She put the car in gear and eased the pedal down just a bit. If she didn’t leave now, she never would. Noah backed up just a bit as the car started to roll away.