"Two souls are sometimes created together and in love before they're even born." -F. Scott Fitzgerald
When eight year old Beau Ruby met twelve year old Colton Caine, she had no idea she was meeting the love of her life. She had no idea she'd grow...
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The days that followed my grand finale of therapy, walking to Beau, went by so quickly it was almost a blur. In a matter of days, Beau had decided on a date, sent invitations to be rush delivered back to her, stamped envelopes, and found what she called, "the perfect dress".
There was more, I knew, but she didn't give me all the details. She still worked at the flower shop during the day, and she had slowly started decorating it for fall. She came home at night covered in glitter and smelling like cinnamon and pumpkin from hanging decor at the shop all day.
Life with her was surreal. I was staying at Verne's—her house—every night. We slept together every single night, her head on my chest, cheek pressed against my skin. It was everything I had wanted for as long as I could remember. It was as if time before wanting her had never existed. Everything melted together, and it was just her. She was the reason I worked so hard in therapy, the reason why I had put off going back to work for long, and the reason why it was so hard to drag myself out of bed in the mornings. I always had to untangle myself from her arms and legs, and it was the sweetest form of torture.
September was still hot. There were two seasons in the south: hot and cold. There was no in between, and you might get both in the same month. At night, we slept with the windows open in her room, and we still sat on the edge of the dock sometimes in the evenings, dangling our feet into the water.
In the days leading up to the wedding, I thought a lot about the two of us... and the path we had walked to get here. I thought of the nights I couldn't sleep, praying to any god who would listen to bring her back.
I thought about seeing her for that first time again on Ms. Verne's porch, covered in bruises and looking so small. I don't know that I've ever felt such rage like I felt then. She was mine. The thought echoed again and again in my mind. Not mine in that possessive, hands-off-she's-mine kind of way, but mine in the sense that she was sun in my solar system. Mine in the sense that life wasn't worth it most days without her. Mine in the sense that someone had hurt her—physically put his hands on her—and I could not make it better.
I was replaying different memories in my mind the night before the wedding. She was asleep, curled on my chest as always. I ran my hands through her hair, twirling the dark waves through my fingers and around my knuckles. She smelled like jasmine, a lingering scent from her shower before the rehearsal earlier.
We had walked back across the field, hand in hand. The breeze had picked up, as if rain might come in during the night. She didn't say much on the walk, and I knew she was probably thinking about Verne. She did that a lot these days, and the closer we got to the date, the more she seemed to be bothered by Verne not being around to see it.
She was wearing one of my worn, soft, old football T-shirt's and a pair of black panties, and I had pulled the shirt up slightly at her back so I could press my other hand against her skin there.
