Seven Weeks to Forever (Love / Romance)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Countdown to The Life-After: day zero.

In the entire time I've been back here in The Before, I've never hoped morning wouldn't come. But at 2 a.m., after I've been lying awake in my bed for hours, I wish time would stand still. I breathe in slowly, trying to clear the image of Riley out of my mind. I can't think about him now. If I do, every part of me will want to go back on the decision I've made. My love has to be stronger than my fear of what's going to change.

All I can do in these last hours is try to stay calm. I pull myself up to sit cross-legged, my back propped up against the pillows on my bed, and put the tips of my index fingers and thumbs together. Resting my hands on my knees, I focus on my breath as Amarleen taught me to do.

It feels as though my eyes have been closed for only a few seconds when I bolt awake, my head jerking up from where it's fallen forward. Every one of my limbs tingles, and the energy is so strong that my spine feels like a live wire. It takes me a minute or two to catch my breath and settle into the energy.

When I look over at the clock, I see that three hours have passed since I last checked the time. There's also something on my bedside table that wasn't there before—an indigo feather.

Thanks, Noah, I think. He's here with me, I know, even though I can't see him. I will soon.

I rub my eyes with my hands, fighting back a yawn. It's time to get out of bed for the last time in The Before, but it takes a lot of effort. My body doesn't want to cooperate with me, or maybe it's me who doesn't want to cooperate with myself.

"A little help, please," I whisper into the still-dark room. Then I'm standing, effortlessly, putting a comb through my hair and getting dressed. My clothes are the ones I'll be found in when my body is pulled out of the ocean.

The streets are empty when I leave my house to drive to Malibu, since it's still too early for most people to be up. It will look like I went for an early morning run on the beach, and then maybe waded into the waves to cool off. Even at sunrise, it's already a blisteringly hot day. Everyone will think it was all just a tragic accident that happened to a young girl who didn't know about the riptide.

I park my car in a deserted beachside parking lot. Once I'm on the beach, I jog for about a mile, leaving footprints in the sand. I'm doing my best not to think about Riley when I pass by the spot where he left the bouquet of pink roses that morning a couple of weeks ago. The flowers aren't there anymore but I'm reminded that Amanda must have walked this way too, maybe also trying to keep Riley from her mind.

I stop jogging as the first rays of daylight hit the beach and I get to the spot where I need to be. Dropping to my knees in the sand, I let the sound of the ocean waves fill my ears. I close my eyes. Soon the golden glow of The Life-After is all I can see, the light stronger than it's ever been since I left to come back as a second-timer.

The glow remains around everything when I open my eyes again. Noah is here now. I glimpse him standing by the shore.

"Ready?" he asks, reaching for my hand.

"Ready," I echo, letting my fingers join his.

I put one foot in front of the other, keeping hold of Noah's hand while we head for the ocean. My feet meet the water and I feel as if I'm floating on top of it, even though I wade deeper into it with each step. I can't feel the temperature of the water, and I know I won't be aware of anything when I go under. When I'm waist deep, I look back to the shore for one final, silent goodbye.

Then I'm moving again, deeper and deeper until the water is at my shoulders. I start to bend my knees. The water is up to my eyebrows and I'm close to breathing it in when I feel myself being lifted up and carried somewhere high above the surface. It's only a few seconds until there's sand beneath my feet. When I open my eyes, I'm back on the beach. Noah is nowhere to be seen.

The shoreline and the cliffs around me are still outlined in golden light, so I know I haven't lost my connection to the energy of The Life-After. I look around for Noah again but still can't find him. What I do see makes me squint into the sunlight and wonder if I'm still submerged beneath the ocean's waves, having some kind of between-life dream. I can't possibly be seeing what I think I am, because what I see is David at the end of the beach. The breeze ruffles his dark, shaggy hair.

He walks closer to me and there's a smile playing on his lips. I should smile back, but my mouth, much like the rest of me, doesn't want to move. If I can reach out and touch him, then perhaps that will prove this is real. Still, my arms stay glued to my sides.

In the decades since I left my life here as Anna, and for most of the years since my return to The Before, I've imagined finding David. I've dreamed of disproving everything Noah told me about what happened to him once he vanished. I've wanted to believe that David's energy was here somewhere, lingering, because energy can't be destroyed. Every time I let myself have that daydream, though, I was so swept up in the relief and excitement of seeing him again that the feeling lasted even after the daydream was over. Now that the daydream is real—or I think it is, at least—relieved and excited isn't how I feel.

I know I loved David once, very much, and I'm sure a part of me still loves him. But it's different now. When I look at him standing in front of me, I don't feel the way I did back then and I can't come up with the words to tell him this. I don't need to, though, because he seems to hear my thoughts.

"It's okay," he says. "This is how it's supposed to be."

It seems like it's been forever since I last heard his voice. I want to know where he's been since he disappeared a lifetime ago, but something isn't letting me ask him.

"How did you get here?" I ask instead.

"You freed me." That's all he says.

"I don't understand."

He nods and reaches out to touch my arm. I expect to feel a tingle of energy like I do when Riley touches me and our energy connects, but I don't. When I focus, I discover it's because my energy isn't reaching out to connect with his. It should be. Our energy used to be linked so strongly that it destroyed me when I didn't have that connection to him anymore. Or at least that's how Noah explained it to me.

"This is how it's supposed to be," David repeats, answering my thoughts again. If he can hear them, then his energy must already be elevated to a level that's far above mine. This doesn't even begin to make sense.

He moves his hand away from my arm. I watch him, hoping something in his energy will tell me everything I want to know. It doesn't. Either I'm thinking that or it's clear what I'm trying to do, because he opens his mouth to speak again.

"When your energy began connecting with Riley's, my energy started to become free from where it was bound. The more you connected, little by little, the freer my energy became. When you opened yourself up fully and let yourself love again, what I did wrong was set right. Pardoned or forgiven, I guess, since your energy healed things. It's like I served my time and now I'm free to move on."

"You couldn't somehow tell me this as your energy was set free?" Maybe that's not how this works, but it seems like he would have been able to reach out to me.

He holds out one of his arms. "Do you recognize this?" he asks, opening his fist. A white feather lies flat on his palm. I stare at it.

"The feathers were from you?" I ask.

"Yes. They were all I could send when you started connecting with Riley."

A hand touches my shoulder, and I force my eyes away from David and the feather. Noah stands beside me.

"Are you ready?" he asks. I start to answer him, but then I realize he isn't speaking to me.

"I'm ready," David says.

I open my mouth to ask him what he's ready for, but he fades away in front of me and the feather flutters into the air. Within seconds, there's no sign he ever stood here on the beach, except for one white feather that's landed on the sand.