The Keeping of Words | Spencer Reid

33| Bliss

Mrs. Reid. She was married now. They shared a last name, and that name was proof that were really and truly a family – no one could dispute that. Bianca Reid. That was her name now. She followed Spencer – he was her husband now – into the hotel room, all too happy to finally set down her bags.

It was warmer in the city than on the plane, and she was quick to change out of her clothes, the stale scent of the airplane still clinging to them. By the time she slipped out of the bathroom in a sundress and sweater, he had already swapped shirts and was nursing a cup of coffee on the bed.

"So where to first?" she asked. The hotel was right on the Amstel River, at the intersection of several major canals. "There are a bunch of old churches nearby, and it wouldn't take long to get to some of the museums either. The Rijksmuseum is about ten minutes from here."

"Four years ago, we were in the National Art Gallery, and you promised that someday we would go to the Van Gogh Museum together. I'd like to finally make good on that promise." He grinned at her, starting towards the door of their room, ready to head back out into the world.

"Wait," she said. "There's something I wanted to give you first." It took a moment of digging around in her suitcase, but she finally withdrew a small notebook, with a hard purple cover. He took it from her tentatively, and thumbed through the first few pages. All of them covered in her handwriting.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Poems," she answered. "I've been writing them since that day in the park last summer. I've never shown them to anyone else, and I'll never publish them. They're for you and only you." Verses that had been written in Verona, in a hospital, in his living room while he tried to sleep through his withdrawal. Love letters in the most poetic format, for only him to read. "Once you read something, you never really forget it, and well, I never want you to forget how much you mean to me."

Tears swam in his eyes for a moment, and he hastily swiped them away with the back of his hand. "Thank you," he said. Then, looking as though he'd just remembered something, he grabbed his satchel. "I have something for you, too."

Spencer presented her with a small, wrapped package. She tore the paper off with care, not wanting to damage whatever it protected. When the wrapping fell away, she hesitated, glancing up at him uncertainly before opening the cover of the book. Her breath caught in her throat. "Spencer," she murmured. "But this is..." There was no way he meant it, did he? To give her something that was so crucial to him.

"It is," he said. "And I want you to have it."

"I don't understand." Bianca looked back down at the novel in her hands, The Narrative of John Smith. Not just the same book, but his exact copy. With Maeve's handwriting inside.

"After Maeve, my heart was broken. That book was the only thing that remained. Somehow though, you managed to pick up the pieces for me. Every day I'm grateful for that. And I want you to know that you have my whole heart. Every part of me is yours, forever. There is nobody else who means more to me, who has ever meant more to me than you do. I don't want you to ever doubt that."

Saltwater briefly blurred her vision, knowing how much that book meant to him. "I love it. I love you. So much."

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone; but rather with another. I still believe that. Because I've found it with you."

No longer able to stand it, she hugged him tight, trying to keep from crying any more. Through his shirt she could hear his heartbeat, the steady rhythm that gave so much more meaning to her own life. The man it kept alive was her future, and she marveled sometimes at the stroke of fate that had brought them together.