Still.

3

Lorelei

The rain is starting to collide in large, heavy drops on our heads as we run to Finley's vehicle. His "truck" as he called it is actually an old, yellow Jeep with a white cover. He pulls open the driver door and I slide in to the passenger side. Soon, he's in the Jeep too and he's pulling the door closed. He drops his wet clothes in a heap between us. I watch him as he turns a camera around in his hands, inspecting it.

"So," I say, pulling my feet up so that I am sitting criss-crossed. "You take photos?"

He looks up from his camera to me. His blue eyes remind me of electricity. Lightening. Blue lightening flashing through the sky.

He looks back down at his camera and inspects it some more before he's holding it up to his face and pointing it directly at me. He holds it to his right eye as he squints his left shut. His left cheek rises, and his mouth parts open, the left side of it rising up as well. He's adorable.

I smile softly at him, not because he's pointing a camera at me, but because I can't help but to do so when he's making that face. I hear the faint shutter of him taking a picture.

He pulls the camera away from his face. "I don't take photos." He slides the camera securely into a bag before tucking it neatly under his seat. "I capture moments."

"Deep," I tease and it causes him to roll his eyes.

Thunder claps and crackles through the sky and his eyes flick up to the dark clouds above us. "We should probably go somewhere soon. Rather than sit here and get sucked up by the ocean." He looks back to me. "Are you hungry?"

"Finley, my dear," I pluck the sunglasses dangling from his rear view mirror and push them up the bridge of my nose. "I am always hungry."

He smiles at me as he puts the car in drive. And then we're off, heading away from the beach and toward town. And I can't help but feel like I was meant to meet him today. I can't help but feel like he is my new beginning.

***

Finley

The sun beams through the crack in the blackout curtains of our bedroom. I wince as the light lays heavily on my eyelids. I turn over, facing away from the window, and reach my arm out to pull Lorelei into my arms, but the space where she was laying when we went to sleep is empty. My eyes fly open and I sit up in a panic.

She's probably fine. Stop freaking out.

My eyes scan our bedroom, but show no sign of her presence. So, I push myself out of bed and start down the hall, hoping she's just sitting at the bar in the kitchen, drink a cup of coffee. Maybe she'll even be reading a book. But when I get to the kitchen, she isn't there. I look to the living room but she isn't there either.

"Lor?" I call out and when I get no answer, I sprint back down the hall to our room. I grab my phone up from the nightstand on my side of the bed and just as I'm about to press the call button next to her name, I see the cracked door down the hall. I don't know how to describe the feeling of relief and dread mixing together to become its own emotion, but that's what I feel.

I walk down the hall to the door and I can hear her soft sniffles on the other side. I take a breath before I gently push the door open. She's curled in a ball on the rainbow shaped rug. She's cradling a stuffed rabbit. It was the first thing we bought when we found out. I feel my heart breaking as I look at her. She's still in my baseball shirt, but her hair is dry now and tangled. I walk over to where she's laying on the floor and sit down next to her. Rigley is in the corner, laying down and watching Lorelei with concerned eyes.