Chapter Twenty-Five: My Life HereAfter by Rosaline Saul
“I cannot believe you actually asked my dad’s permission.”
David smiles impishly. “I wanted this to be a date.”
I watch David perplexed as he shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth. When he turns his head to look back at me, the movie starts, and I turn my head toward the movie screen. During the movie, he does not put his arm across my shoulder to pull me closer to him or even reach for my hand.
When the movie is finished, he rushes me out the door.
“What’s
the rush?” I ask. Did he find me so boring he wants to get me home as quickly
as possible?
“You
have to be home by eleven.”
“It’s
only nine.”
“I
know.”
When we reach his car, he holds the door open for me and I
slide into the seat. It is a new car; the leather interior still smells of
leather.
After we drive for a while in silence, David steers his car
into the parking lot of a miniature golf course. He turns to me after he parks
the car and switches off the engine. “Before we do this.”
“We’re
going to play mini-golf?”
“I
want you to know I’m doing this with you, not only because it’s on my list, but
because it’s specified on my list I do it with you.”
“So,
let’s go scratch something off your list,” I say as I open the car door to get
out.
I laugh so much; it is hard to hit the balls into their
little round holes.
When we finish our round of eighteen holes and he had to hit
my ball through the spinning windmill sails or otherwise we would have been
here until well after eleven, he grins when we walk back to his car.
For the first time, since he collected me from my house
earlier this evening, he reaches for my hand and laces his fingers through
mine.
I notice he is not driving home, but he drives up the long
winding road, past all the glass houses nestled within the folds of the
mountain, and then he stops and parks his car when we reach the top of the
hill. The lights of the little town where I have lived my entire live sparkles
brightly, like stars in their own right.
“Come,”
he says as he gets out of the car. He walks to the front of his car and then he
slides up the hood until his back rests against the wind shield.
Nervously I sit down on the front of the car. “I don’t want
to scratch your car.”
“Come
sit here with me, your neck will get sore looking up from there.”
Carefully I slide up until I am sitting next to him and copy
him by putting my head back and looking up at the stars. The stars are brighter
up here than they are down below in the valley where my home is.
“Since
the accident, I come here often. It makes me certain there is a God and we
weren’t all just in a collective nightmare,” he says.
“You’re
still not sure after everything that’s happened?”
“Sometimes
I'm sure.”
“Even
if I cannot see it or find it in the stars, it’s something I feel.” I put my
hand on my chest, my open palm can feel the beating of my heart. “I can feel it
in here.”
He lifts his hand and pushes a strand of my hair away from
my face. “I like your hair like this, it’s grown since the accident.”
I turn my head to look at him. “Sometimes I don't understand
what everything is supposed to mean”
“Maybe
you’re not supposed to understand. You don’t have to know everything, you
know.”
He lifts his head and moves closer to lean across me. “I am
going to kiss you now.” He smiles slowly. “Properly.”
“Do
you know how to do it properly?” I laugh nervously.
Softly he touches my neck, my cheek, then my mouth with his
lips. It is a tender, soft kiss.
He pulls away, his face still close to mine. “I love you,
Sunel.”
I reach up to him and curling my fingers in his hair I pull
his lips closer to mine. “You make me feel…”
“Loved,”
he finishes my sentence.
I smile up at him. “As if being with you is as it should be
until the day I die.” I close my eyes and cringe embarrassed. “I cannot believe
I just said that out loud,” I criticise myself. “I am such a fool.” I try to
sit up, but he holds me down gently.
“No,
you’re not a fool. Can I tell you a secret?”
I nod my head, not looking back at him, but looking up at
the stars to the side of his head, not focusing on anyone of them.
“When
you walked into the camp with Mark and Carly that day when we were in the
hereafter and I saw you, I could not believe my eyes. I thought I would never,
ever see you again, and even though I was always so angry, pitching my parents
against each other, drinking, acting wild, stealing, thinking I was more
important than what I was, the biggest regret I had was never telling you how I
felt about you. When I reached for you on the bus as it tumbled down the
bridge, the only thing I had the time to grab onto was your hand, and then when
Mark said you came back with him from the other side to look for me, it was as
if you chose me and maybe God sent you to me to rescue me. He believed in me,
but he knew I could never do it on my own, I would need help. My love for you
would drive out all the rage and resentment I had.”
He did not say anything for a long moment.
Then he says softly, as he shifts the weight on his elbow,
“When everything seemed at its darkest; when my whole life was falling apart,
it was the moments I saw you in the school halls which kept me sane.”
I frown a little. “Even when I was acting childish and
ignorant of the consequences of my own actions? That’s doubtful.”
“It’s
true. My soul belongs with you. It’s like rain and sunshine, without either one
of them there could never be a rainbow.”
I chuckle. “Can you be any more clichéd?”
He smiles widely and then plants a kiss on my cheek. “I
can.” He pulls me close to him, hugging me to his chest, and then he kisses me.
He kisses me in a way I want to be kissed always. It is perfect.
When he pulls away from me, he smiles and then shifts his
body to lie back against the wind shield of his car, pushing his arm in under
my head.
“So
can the first mission be scratched off from your to-do list now?” I joke.
“Not
for a long time yet,” he replies.
I snuggle closer to him until my head rests on his shoulder.
In awed silence, we look up at the sky and as my eyes search
for Heaven, I am thankful that sometimes things do happen for a reason, even if
sometimes the reason is inconceivable and confusing. We were two suffering
people, two broken halves, and God put us together in just the right way.
Things happened with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but in
hindsight, it brought David and me together. If not for that accident and then
those couple of seconds or minutes we spent in purgatory, even though it felt
like weeks, days or maybe just a couple of hours, we would still be walking
past each other in the school halls, without ever knowing we could make
rainbows together.
When I consider the reasons, I do sometimes wonder about my
classmates who died tragically when the school bus crashed through the barrier
and fell into a river.
Two of those classmates were my closest and best friends, Charlene,
and Lionel, and I have learned from asking questions and looking for answers
the main reason people die is because people sin.
Even people who are innocent of sin die because others have
sinned.
Even though Charlene, Lionel and my other fifteen
classmates, maybe more, were destined for greatness, their greatness wasn't
destined to be on this Earth, it was to be elsewhere, and as crazy as it sounds
my destiny was to be the catalyst which started their journey to greatness.
This will always be my burden, and I will always be looking
for the answers to all my questions until one day when I die again, because we
all die eventually, and then I will ask Vera, and she might have the answers.
Being happy had always seemed so crucial, such an essential
part of what measure’s a person’s worth.
From an early age, I was taught, trained really, to be
happy.
It had become this overwhelming preparation, yet at the
first sign of adversity, the darkness seeped in uninvited. Some people often
define happiness in terms of living a good life, rather than simply as an
emotion, but happiness is a strange concept and can mean many things to
different people.
I glance at David; his breathing is soft and relaxed.
“Do
you really, really, really love me?”
“I
do, with all my heart,” he says quietly.
“Then
will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Never stop.”
This is the end and we hope you enjoyed reading this story!
Comments
Post a Comment