On the edge

Epilogue

"Any more questions, please?"
"Yes!" a short man, probably in his late fifties, shouted from the last row of chairs in the seminar room.
He rose from his chair so that he could be seen by everyone, as he asked, "How is it possible that this species went unnoticed for all these years? I mean, you said that you discovered it not very deep under the sand surface, Doctor Reid."
As soon as the man had finished his sentence, everyone turned into the opposite direction to stare at a young woman pull a strand of bright copper hair behind her right ear. She wore a large white blouse, a grey pencil skirt and, as an exception, black pumps. Her long hair fell over both her shoulder and reached down to her elbows. A set of deep, dark-brown eyes watched the entire audience attentively. She took a deep breath and then admitted that she didn't have an answer to that question.
"I don't know," she said bluntly.
"Maybe nobody has looked carefully enough before me," she joked, and a little laughter went through the room.
"But, as I said, I discovered them under a dead coral reef. I do suspect that they've always been this close to the surface, but one doesn't usually repot corals, or purposely kill an entire reef to look what's underneath, so it's only natural that they haven't been discovered earlier," she concluded, and again, the entire room chuckled.
Her explanation seemed plausible, and everyone seemed satisfied with it. A few more questions were asked, and Sue answered all of them patiently. And when all was said, she thanked the professor who had put her thesis forward to the director of the London Museum of Natural History, the director himself for letting her be part of this seminar, and her very good friend, as she referred to whoever had let her join him on his little cutter every morning; basically the one person who had actually made it possible for Sue go diving whenever, and wherever she needed to; discover a new species of sea mollusks and write a dissertations about it. And after many words of praise from all possible kinds of people, some masters of the matter, and some merely reporting on it, after everybody else had left, and Sue was packing her notes and documents; a single man came forward.

He had been standing in a corner during the whole presentation, apart from the rest of the audience, almost as if he was hiding. He wore beige safety boots, dark blue jeans, a white shirt, a navy blue bomber jacket, and black-framed club master glasses. He had gentle hazel-brown eyes and was gifted with generally soft, yet masculinely pretty features. He had short hair of a very exceptional colour; one would seldom see on the street. It was somewhere in between dark-blond and light-brown, with a lovely silver undertone shining through. He stood six feet tall, and when Sue turned around, after he had called out her name, she had to look up to look at his face; even with her high heels on.
"Jim?" she asked, a bit startled; a great lot surprised.
"Oh my God, it's you!" Sue exclaimed.
"I almost didn't recognise you!" she admitted, "I mean... Your hair!"
James ran his left hand through what was left of the curtains he had worn so proudly for almost three decades.
"Yeah, that..." he replied, "That was kind of a very late, very necessary change."
Sue smiled at him happily. It was nice to see a known face after having spoken to a hundred strangers.
"You uh... You look good!" she said, "How's the shop going?"
"Alright... I signed a contract with a local university not too long ago," James told Sue, "I'll be providing anything necessary for the sport of punting for their campus. I've expanded my father's business... Well, kind of."
"You build boats now?" Sue asked.
"Kind of... I mean, canoes, punts, and kayaks are hardly boats..." James said.
"That's nice," the red-haired replied and smiled again, "It's nice to hear you're doing fine."
She gazed at the blond from head to toe, sighed a little, and then continued, "It's been so long..."
"Seven years," James agreed with a nod.
"Yeah..." Sue said remorsefully, and James thought he felt a bit of the sorrow that lay on her heart so heavily at the thought that while she had taken one chance, she surely had missed another.
"I just... After Joanna got married and moved to Rochester with Matthew, there wasn't... There wasn't..." she began.
"Nothing to come back to anymore," James finished her sentence, "I understand that... After your father's shop was sold and-..."
"No!" Sue cut him off, "There were, there are thing's, I'd go back for! Definitely!"
James was visibly caught a little off guard by her words, and once Sue realised what she had just blubbered, she turned bright red, but went on nonetheless, "I just didn't know how... What to do about it... At the time. You know?"
"I don't think anyone of us can really say they'd understand what you've been through," James said, and Sue knew that with us, he meant the people in the small town of St. Margaret's Bay.
The many curious eyes, the uncountable, creative minds, and the very, very busy mouths, that were always discussing the latest news. Of course, stories like Sue's, a story of death at sea and coming back to life, went viral very quickly. And the tale about the redhead who had fallen off the cliffs one windy morning had become more and more bizarre, each time someone reported the complete truth, based and nothing but facts, to his neighbour, his co-worker, or classmate.
"And I admire you so much for doing this," James continued, "This whole maritime thing... I admire you for not being scared of the sea after what happened, and living out your dreams. Many others would not dare to set another foot into the deep, cold sea..."
After he had expressed these feelings of great admiration, the two silentely stared at each other for a moment. While either had a million confessions to scream, a thousand words left unsaid, of oppressed feelings and secret longings, neither spoke a single, simple syllable.
"Anyway," James finally broke the rather awkward silence, "Congratulations. You're a doctor now."
Sue laughed a little and said something about being kind of a late bloomer, earning her doctor title at the age of thirty-five.
"But better late than never, I guess," she added, and James agreed entirely.
"Plus, I think discovering a new species perfectly makes up for the years you were putting your true calling on hold," he said.
Sue thanked him for his kind words and the flattery, and when they found each other gazing wordlessly into one another's eyes again, James decided to share with his old acquaintance what he had in fact come for.
"I uh-... Well I've seen that article in the newspaper, about this seminar," he began, "And I saw your name on the list of the people who would present their work, and I..."
The blond drew a sharp breath. While over the past seven years he surely had grown a lot, was less awkward, nervous, and weird around people, who had also began to perceive him more as an actual human being and member of their community, James had to admit to himself that nothing, no time, no matter how long, would ever take away that feeling in his stomach at the lovely sight of this copper-red hair.
"I thought I'd come and congratulate you... You know, a bit for everything; the doctor title, the species discovery, and, of course, your birthday last week," he said.
"You remember my birthday?" Sue asked.
James never seemed to cease to surprise her.
"Of course..." he replied, almost a bit offended, as he handed her a small packet.
"A little something I wanted to give to you for the longest time now," the blond added.
"You shouldn't-..." Sue was about to say, but James insisted that he had to.
"Thanks..." the red-haired gave in with a shy grin.
"Well then," the young man said, "I should probably get going and leave you to your work... You surely have a lot left to do."
"I uh-... Yes, so to say," Sue agreed to the pile of work she had to finish.
"Alright then," James said slowly.
"Alright..." Sue repeated after him, trying to think of something to say.
But her mind seemed blank.
"Goodbye then..." the blond helped her out.
"Yes... I guess so... Goodbye..." was all Sue appeared capable of coming up with.
And as she watched James leave through the door on the other side of the room, she suddenly felt as if the misery of the entire world rested on her shoulders. She felt herself being crushed under its weight, and she felt her heart crumble inside her chest. With a loud sigh, Sue decided to unwrap the gift James had given her. She opened it and discovered an about four inches long piece of ash-brown wood, which James had carved into the shape of what Sue recognised as a Celtic sailor knot. The pin to make the barrette hold the hair in place had her name engraved. Sue let it glide through her fingers and looked at it from all possible angles. She was well aware for the signification of a sailor's knot, and somehow very sure that James was as well; and that he hadn't simply chosen it because it looked good, or because it was something that make one think of the sea.
And Sue asked herself what she would do if she knew that this was the very last time she'll ever see James. What she would do if she decided not to make the same mistakes as her father, and what could be, if she stopped wasting time; time she probably didn't even have.

James was already in the great hallway when he heard someone, unmistakably in heeled shoes, run after him. He didn't think much of it until he heard a voice call out his name; a voice he would always recognise.
"Jim!" Sue shouted across the entrance hall and had several people look at her.
"Wait a second!" she begged, and was very relieved when she saw James turn around and look at her; although a bit surprised, surely no less jubilant.
One, close enough to witness the scene, would probably find it almost funny to watch all these tender feelings, this sweet, sweet, innocent love, blossom in between these two people, as they stood next to the giant skeleton of a dinosaur; a species, gone for so long now; extinct several million years before the first human even set foot on earth. But maybe that's exactly what the irony of life lies in. James had both his hands tucked deeply into the pockets of his jacket, while Sue held the hair-slide in hers. She looked into his light-brown eyes and muttered to herself that they could have had a lifetime together, and look what they had made out of it. So far, nothing at all.
"You know," she then said, with a smile, soft as summer rain; and James could have sworn that it was the sweetest smile his eyes had ever been graced with.

"We never had that cup of coffee... Or tea."