“That’s not news.”
My dreams and I spent the rest of the day playing in the waves on the shore in the backyard of our new home and later that night, two childhood friends held hands beneath the stars.
“Well that went wonderfully,” Ian said with a chuckle. “Fuck, I think I had a small stroke.”
“I think it went the way it was supposed to.”
“I never wanted her to know.”
“Ian, she’s lived with it for a while. She just needed to hear from you what she already knew, that it doesn’t matter.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Also, you’re kind of incredible. Who knew the insane man with the shitty accent and bubble butt, would turn out to be Mr. Wonderful? Definitely not me.”
He kissed the back of our clasped hands.
“I think I first loved you when I was fourteen. Not the way I do now, but I’m pretty sure I loved you even then.”
“I loved you because you gave me sweets.”
“I know,” he chuckled.
I stopped and turned to stare at my husband whose laughter lines had deepened and only made him more appealing. I reveled in the sexy grays that framed his temple. I looked forward to every year I noticed those subtle differences because it meant we would spend those years together. “Ian, how lucky are we to have met at all?”
“Coming from different worlds, we had so many chances to miss each other.”
I nodded. “Does this make you a believer?”
“It makes me a believer of us.”
“Forever a realist.”
“Not so much anymore.”
“Why is that?”
He cupped my face and brushed his lips against mine. “Because I married my miracle.”
I laid in bed gazing at the twinkling galaxy outside of our skylight window thinking of the narrow roads that brought us back together. Sometimes what’s meant to be isn’t written in the stars, instead, it’s a journey on the path less traveled without a map of guidance, without certainty. Though Ian didn’t fully admit it, I was sure he had to believe that every battle we fought in our separate lives—good or bad—led us to that beach, to a glimpse of the life we could share together, and that was enough for us. That brief blip in time was all we needed to decide on the life we wanted. In that moment, I was grudgingly thankful for a body that wouldn’t cooperate and a mind that ran in circles, and I knew without a doubt my husband was grateful for the trials that led him to me because, without them, our stars wouldn’t have finally aligned. Our lives would’ve turned out differently, and for me, that would have been the real tragedy. In finding each other, we also discovered the why of our journey.
Ian tenderly kissed my stomach while I whispered a prayer of thanks to the stars above with renewed faith.
Not all love stories come with happy endings, but some do.
THE END