Emily

I charged down the road like a manianc. Rain poured down onto the windshield faster then the wipers could whisk it away. I couldn't believe this was happening. This couldn't be happening, it wasn't fair.

I kept glancing at the picture of Emily I had taped to my dashboard. Her brown hair was blowing across her smiling face as she lay on her side, her arm laying in front of her to press down the long, lush grass and a joyful light shining in her eyes. She looked so happy. So carefree. So healthy. So much like herself. I still remember the day I took that picture.

It was over a year ago, before the cancer came to rule her life. She had just gotten her driver's license and was ecstatic. To celebrate, we had driven out to the unkempt field that bordered the school grounds.

We lay there for hours, just talking, our bodies hidden in the dancing stalks.

After a while, the topic of collage came up. It seemed so far away then, even though really, it was just around the corner.

She wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a photographer. She felt a deep need to help people, to heal them. Me? I was just content to capture every moment of beauty that happened to show itself to me, including the perfect one that was sitting right before my eyes.

I carried my camera everywhere and would often coax Emily to pose for me, like she did that day in the grass.
It was there that I said it. Well, I more of blurted it out.

She was talking about different collages she was thinking about applying to and masterfully describing different medical career paths I couldn't begin to pronounce. Her eyes were dancing across the sky as if she could already see herself examining a patent.

I turned my head to the side so I could watch her and before I knew what I was saying the words tumbled out of my mouth, "I think you're beautiful." She looked at me in shock for a moment before a large grin spread across her face.

"You do?" She already knew I liked her. She knew since eighth grade when I had asked her if she would be my girlfriend. We had only met that year and I was completely smitten with her. She had looked down at the floor, a small smile on her lips, before telling me she wasn't ready to date yet.

I still remember exactly what she said to me, "I want to get to know you as a friend first, get to know you as Ryan, and not just as my boyfriend. In a few years, when we're older, if you still feel the same way, ask me again. But for now let's just be friends."

I took it hard and didn't speak to her for a few days before realizing what a jerk I was being and consenting to her offer, holding on to the fact that she didn't actually say no. For the sake of a friendship I had tried to put those feelings behind me, but looking at her wide grin that day, they all came rushing forward in full force.

"Emily, it's been two years. I don't know if I can wait any longer. I want to be more than just friends."

Her smile grew, her eyes scrunching up the way they did when she was extra happy, "I want that too." Her words were quiet, almost as if the moment was a fragile thing that would break if she were to speak too loudly. "Just one thing," her voice was still in a low whisper, "you can't kiss me, ok?"

I quickly nodded my head. I already knew Emily wanted her first kiss to be up on the altar on her wedding day with the one man she felt was worthy to become her lifelong partner.