Midnight Lily(72)

"Hi," she said, turning her body to face me.

"What are you doing here?"

"I've never walked across the bridge," she said. "The sunset was so beautiful tonight, and it just called to me, I guess. And now, the moon." She glanced up and I did, too. "Do you see that?" And then I did. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before, so intent on finding her. The moon above was full and bright, so brilliant it outshone the stars.

"I do now," I whispered. We looked back at each other and Lily tilted her head, her smile fading, and a slightly nervous look replacing it.

"What are you doing here?"

I took her hands in mine. "You told me I had to understand what I was agreeing to. What being with you means. That sometime in the future you will just . . . go away. And it won't necessarily be because something terrible happens and it won't be because you want to. And it won't be because I could have done anything to prevent it from happening. Or sometimes it will be because something happened that you couldn't handle. It's unpredictable and—”

"Yes," she choked out, sorrow moving across her face, averting her eyes away from me and then back again. "Yes, Ryan."

"Then I'll come find you."

She laughed on a sniffle. "What?"

I squeezed her hands more tightly. "If you go away, then I'll come find you, even if it means I have to get lost for a while, too."

She shook her head, her smile sweetly puzzled. "How will you be able to do that?"

"Because," I said, moving even closer so our bodies touched and she had to tip her head to look up at me, "I'm not afraid of the darkness. I've been there before. I'll step into it willingly, unhesitatingly, and I'll come find you. No one else could make that promise and mean it, Lily. No one. No one except me."

A tear spilled from her eye and streaked down her cheek, but I continued to hold her hands, neither of us wiping it away. "I don't want to bring you into the darkness," she said.

"I might be the one to go there first. I can't guarantee that I won't. Would you come for me, Lily? Would you?"

"Yes," she said, a sudden intensity in her voice. "A thousand times, yes. But this is why people would say we're all wrong for each other. People would say we're encouraging each other to be sick."

"That's ridiculous. I'm not saying I want you to be sick. I'm not saying I want to be sick. What I'm saying is that if you get lost, I will find you. And I will bring you back. Wherever you are, whoever you are, I will come there, and I will find you. And I hope you'll do the same for me."

"I don't know if that's possible, Ryan," she said tenderly, moving a piece of hair off my forehead, "and even if it is . . . the world certainly isn't set up for that kind of thing. Unless you're Willy Wonka and you own your own chocolate factory."

I gave her a slight smile. "Then we'll make our own world. No one can know what's possible until they've been inside minds like ours. And I believe we'll figure it out. Somehow . . . Do you believe, too?"

She finally smiled again, her lips trembling. "You make me believe."

"Good, because it's true."

She breathed out a small laugh and looked down, tilting her eyes up, looking so beautiful it made my heart ache. And deep inside, I felt something stir to life, as if my soul itself was just beginning to wake. Finally. "I love you, Boy Scout," she whispered.

"I love you, Lily of the Night. I love you so much." I let go of her hands and reached up to hold her face, her beautiful face. I brought my lips to hers and kissed her. "I'm going to love you forever," I murmured between kisses. "Forever. In the darkness, or in the light." She smiled against my lips as the world moved on around us. And for just that moment, we had found our very own world, and we lived in it joyfully.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


Lily



Ryan unlocked the door to his apartment and pushed it open. I laughed out a startled sound of happy surprise when he lifted me in his arms and carried me over the threshold. "I think this is reserved for brides," I said, laughing.

He grinned. "It sort of feels like today is our unofficial wedding day," he said. "I'll do it again when it's official." He headed down a hall where he entered his bedroom and kissed me as my feet touched the floor. At the mere thought of someday being his wife, happiness filled my heart. I smiled against his mouth and pulled free, looking around his room. It was as tidy as the rest of the apartment, with simple, masculine furniture and a red and blue quilt on the bed. He had neat piles of books everywhere. A bookworm. And he still read paperbacks. My eyes lit on a shelf filled with models of all types—old-fashioned cars, ships, trains, airplanes, helicopters. I leaned in more closely, looking at the details of them. Everything was so tiny, so precise, so perfectly placed. I took a moment studying them. "You have the heart of an artist," I murmured.

Ryan came to stand next to me. "Nah, they're just models. They come with instructions. You can't really mess them up." I tilted my head, looking at the details of a helicopter, the way he'd drawn a bird on the side of one, its wings spread in flight, the wind streaming through its feathers. Another one had the 49ers logo on it. Most of them had tiny people drawn at the windows, drivers, passengers, all so beautifully done, their expressions different, some happy, some pensive, some bored. Everything was so tiny. How had he done that? I blinked, a sense of déjà vu overcoming me as if I'd seen something similar before . . . on a windowsill once upon a time, the light streaming in as I’d passed by an open door. As quickly as it came, the feeling passed. I stood up straight and turned to him.