Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter forty-seven

It's a strange and uncomfortable feeling to know that you're constantly being watched. By the nurses, your parents, and the girl you love, but are unsure where you stand with.

With Liz, as Jeremiah's words linger in the back of my mind, I'm tired of being unsure.

She visits me today and we just sit in my room together, reading our respective magazines. It takes me awhile to work up the courage. I keep psyching myself out by running over all the possible outcomes of the situation and none of them end well for me.

Finally, with a sigh, I realize I literally have nothing to lose. (Except her. But I don't know if I even have her, so that negates the entire scenario.) "Why are you here?"

She looks up at me, eyebrow raised. She points at my journal. "I thought we went over this already, Adam."

"The journal doesn't answer my question. Not really. Why are you here? Now? You left me for two months without a word and now you're back. It doesn't make any sense."

She sighs. "When we..." she looks at me as if she wants my permission to not say it, so I nod that I understand what she's getting at. "I was raised in a Christian home where purity and virginity were everything. As a young Christian girl it was my responsibility to never compromise myself and save myself for the one I love. No one knew what my uncle had done, either, so as far as everyone knows, I'm still a virgin." She looks at me, tears forming in her eyes, but not quite escaping their prison. "I lost myself in you that night. I loved you Adam. I still love you, but I couldn't control myself. It was like I had to have you and nothing else mattered. Everything else faded away and it was just us, together, in that moment." She wipes her nose on her sleeve. "And after, when it was over, I realized what we had done and it was too much for me I felt dirty and my mind kept going back to when my uncle would..." she doesn't say it and I don't make her. "It's like I couldn't escape this feeling of being not good enough, of being worthless. And it's not anything you did. Not on your own, anyway. It was both of us that night. But it reminded me too much of what it was like to be used like that and cast away like I was nothing, like I was just a toy to be bought and sold and thrown away when it gets worn out.

"I guess, I was afraid. I was afraid that if I stayed with you, I would just keep losing myself in you and you would get tired of me and throw me away like my uncle did, or I would become just a thing for you. So I walked away. Even though I loved you, I walked away, because I was afraid you would throw me away too. I walked away from you before you had the chance to walk away from me." She sobs into her hands. "I know I was wrong, now. I didn't realize how much I had hurt you and I hate myself for it." She looks up at me. "I thank God every day that you're alive because I love you. I love you so much, Adam."

I hear the sound of my heart breaking in her quiet sobs and I scoot to the edge of the bed. My body is weak, but with every ounce of strength I have left, I reach out to her and press my fingers against her chin, lifting her head until her eyes meet mine. I see the ocean in her eyes. She is everything I've ever wanted. She is my sun and my heaven on earth. She is the adventure I embark on every day and I feel it now, the pain of her choices. I'm not mad at her. I've pushed plenty of people away. I'm mad at myself for ever letting her think that I would ever treat her like her uncle treated her. "I love you too, Liz," I whisper. "And I'm sorry for all of this. I'm sorry for bringing you into my mess."

She smiles up at me. "I guess our gravitational pull was too strong."

I laugh. "I think we've definitely made a few waves." Then I kiss her, slow and sweet, drawing her every breath into my lungs until our hearts our mended to each other again.

The pain isn't gone. It will never be gone. But the hope has come. And with it, healing may finally have its day.

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