Be Brave With Me

Chapter Thirty-Three

They say Europeans have made an art out of traveling across their continent. 

Aura stepped up into the helicopter, convinced that she, too, had the art of traveling mastered. She'd been doing it for as long as she could remember, after all.

The helicopter flight from Monaco to Nice took all but seven minutes. She got sick - twice. The flight from Nice to Naples lasted not two hours. She sat squeezed in next to the bathroom and a barking dog in a ridiculous carry-on bag. The train took her from Naples straight to Sorrento in an hour and a half. Its departure got delayed three times. Aura fell asleep waiting on a bench in the train station next to her backpack and would've missed it had it not been for a German tourist who shook her awake just in time. Buses covered the remaining distance from Sorrento to Ravello, and she only had to change lines once. She got sick again - on both of them.

None of it mattered, though.

She was on her way back to Theo.

That was all that mattered.

If she had to travel across the other half of Europe, too, and ask yet another stranger for his empty lunch bag to throw up in - she'd do it. Happily.

She was on her way back to Theo. On her way back to the boy she had always loved who had grown into the man she was in love with.

They would start over - together. They would start their life - together. Freed from his legacy at The Harrington, freed from the expectations and public attention of being the daughter of The Carmichaels.

He, no longer The Theodore Harrington. She, no longer The Aurelia Carmichael.

They'd simply be Aura and Theo. In love.

God, how she loved him.

She should've told him. She should've made sure he knew. Every day. She should've whispered it to him while serving dinner, should've pulled him into the pantry to tell him with her lips on his skin, should've murmured it into his curls when he burrowed his head against her neck to fall asleep at night.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

She would be able to tell him. Soon.

As soon as this bus had crawled its way up the winding road to Ravello, and she had fallen to her knees to praise the steady ground beneath her feet.

She'd find him at the Vista and explain everything.

First, she'd ask for his forgiveness. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. That didn't change the fact that she had left him like she had left him eight years ago, though. She had hurt him like she had hurt him eight years ago.

Then, she'd tell him. Over and over again.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

What would he do? How would he react? Would he wrap her into his strong arms and kiss her? No. He'd smile down at her with that smile of his and whisper, "I know, sunshine."

But she was the one who finally knew.

She knew now what if felt like to love and be loved. She knew now that you couldn't force it, couldn't control it, couldn't will it into existence. She knew now that you might not find it in the family you were born into, but you can find it someplace else, with someone else.

Once you've found it - love for a guy, a girl, your best friend, your sister, your grandma - you need to protect it. It's not something to be left behind in the middle of the night after an argument, not something to be dismissed by a cynical eye roll over drinks at a random party, or to be ripped apart online in the comments. It's too precious, too rare in this world. It needs to be protected at all costs.