Roots [Completed]

Chapter 5 - Part 6

[Be Brave by Owl City]

Epilogue

I search the clouds for shapes.

It's a beautiful autumn Saturday. The leaves started changing a few weeks ago, and now fall is in full bloom, metaphorically speaking. Half of the trees on campus are a vivid yellow and the rest are orangey red. They frame my view of the sky like a perfect picture frame.

I squint at the upper left. I raise my hands in a square around it. It's perfect. What's taking Topher so long? It's going to disappear before he has a chance to see it.

I sit up on the picnic blanket. A few wayward students are coming from the library, but there's not a ton of people on campus today. I finally spot Topher jogging back from the parking lot, our water bottles in hand.

I rest back on my elbows, glancing back up at the cloud. It's getting a little wavy around the edges, but it will do.

Topher's footsteps get louder and then pause on the sidewalk next to our picnic blanket. The bangs of my fro bounce against my forehead as I look up.

The sun catches on his hair and reflects out like a golden mirror. I think the past few months have been good for him; his skin is more tan, glowing with a kind of healthy life to it. His face, once so clear and concrete, is torn by several jagged scars that twist his expression into a grimace.

I smile.

"Hey, handsome. What took you so long?"

"I'm not the one who hid the water bottles under the back seat," he retorts. He sits down on the blanket next to me, kissing me quickly on the lips and then reclining, soaking in the sun.

Between the beginning of the semester for me and the hassle of rearranging the acquisitions of the pack for Topher, we haven't had a lot of time for things like this. It's nice to get a break.

"I found one while you were gone. Look." I lie down beside him, keeping our heads close together. I find the cloud again quickly. "There."

Topher follows my pointed finger. He makes a little oooh! noise.

Up in the sky, the cloud is shaped almost perfectly like a giant paper airplane, its tail dissolving into the air.

I look from the cloud to Topher's profile. His crooked smile is familiar to me, now. It was once startling to see his face rendered unrecognizable by the scars. I suppose some people think he has lost his beauty, somehow, but I can't imagine that. It's been too long since I've seen him as anything less than gorgeous. By virtue of himself, he is stunning.

A cool summer breeze ruffles the collar of his shirt. I'm warm all the way down, like it's coming from inside. A few remaining birds flutter in a nearby tree.

Topher turns to meet my gaze, the smile still bright in his contemplative eyes. Whenever he looks at me like that, I feel so melty inside.

"What are you thinking about, Janey?" he whispers.

My smile falters.

"Don't you ever wish you could freeze us in this moment?" I say softly. "That we could stay here, forever, and nothing would change?"

Topher seems to consider this for a moment, then he presses his forehead against mine, eliminating the small space remaining between us. He kisses me long and deep enough I feel almost dizzy when he pulls away.

He tucks my loose curls behind my ear.

"I have a tomorrow to look forward to," he tells me, tracing a little pattern down my cheek with his thumb. "And one after that, and one after that. We have a life of tomorrows, Jane. I don't want to miss a single one."

I close my eyes, and I can see it. A lazy Sunday and a movie marathon, ice cream in the parks, and, distantly, a home we share, my mothers with a young baby girl bouncing on their knees. Future plans seem to finally be cementing in my body, real and tangible, in a way they couldn't for so long. Occasionally, it seems like too much, the concepts of graduation and grandmothers, mortgages and marriage.

But we would have time and each other. Perhaps I would lead an ordinary life.

An ordinary life. What a miraculous concept.

Soon, we have to pack up the lunch we brought, throwing away the empty sandwich bags and candy wrappers. I had spotted a cloud that was a perfect likeness of Princess Diana, and Topher had seen a giant snapping turtle in a cumulonimbus, so, all in all, it was a productive day.

Sometimes, I still find myself comparing them; I have caught myself thinking how Sam was so different from Topher, and, in the worst moments, thinking of the few ways he was the same. Even now, months after he died. He haunts my vision like the shadow of a violent, explosive light, impossible to blink away.

Time has touched my memory of him, though. It has given me clarity about who he was, what he was, and, most of all, what he wanted. Sam wanted the one thing that he could not take, and therefore the one thing I could not give him: my love

And Topher understands without words. We walk home under the falling leaves, and he smiles around the scars twisting his expression.

It takes time. But slowly, we begin to let go. Not only to heal, but to recognize ourselves with the scars. Despite everything that has changed, we find some part of ourselves that was once two kids, playing in a backyard, the summer sun warming their skin.

The End.