Providence (32 page)

Just as I settled against him, he pulled away.

“Your lips are different than a pair of hard plastic speakers. Now behave yourself,” he smiled.

“Sorry,” I said unconvincingly, nestling in the crook of his arm. Listening to the rain tap out a soft song on the roof, I closed my eyes and smiled. It was the first time I had ever been glad for it to rain on vacation.

The pages of the book Jared held were full of hand-written words. He had begun at the very top of the page, writing in tiny script, using every empty space available.

“What is that?”

“My journal. I thought I’d get caught up. I’m about a month behind. I didn’t want to leave anything out,” he said, kissing my hair.

“You keep a journal?” I asked in surprise.

“What else is there to do for the six or so hours I’m awake at night?” he smiled.

“Do you ever write about me?”

“Nina, most of this book is about you,” he said, as if it should have been obvious.

I sat up. “Seriously?”

Jared grinned, amused at my reaction. “Yes. You don’t believe me?”

“Of course I believe you…I just….” I looked down at the thick book, and noticed that there was only half an inch left to write in. “That’s a lot of pages.”

His features softened as he scanned my face. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

“You took notes on things I did?”

Jared laughed. “No. Well…sometimes. Mostly I wrote about the way the things you did made me feel, or plans I’d make, how I could get around Jack’s wishes, how I would live without you, how I would make you happy. It got me through some rough nights.”

“Is there anything bad?”

Jared grinned. “Would you like to read it?”

“No!” I cried. Embarrassed that he thought that was what I wanted, I felt the familiar fire burn under my cheeks. “It’s your journal. It’s none of my business.”

“I don’t keep secrets from you. You know that.”

I looked down at my hands and picked at my fingernails. “It’s private. I wouldn’t want you to read my journal.”

“You don’t have a journal. I probably would have read it if you did,” he said offhandedly.

I looked up at him, shocked.

“I’m kidding!” he chuckled. “There’s nothing I’ve written that I’m ashamed of. I think it would be a good thing.”

He closed the book and placed it in my lap. I was curious to know what the journal contained, but it felt wrong to read it, regardless of the permission I’d been given.

“Nina. It’s okay. Read it,” he said, taking a finger and flipping open the cover to the first page.

I spent the stormy afternoon with my head propped up against Jared, reading his private thoughts. Once I’d pored over the first few pages, the guilt slipped away and I found myself absorbed in every word. It was an odd sensation reading my memories from pages written at a time when I didn’t know he existed.

I chewed on my thumbnail as I read through my life from the outside. Jared played with my hair; otherwise he sat motionless and silent. Half way through one of his more lengthy entries, I realized it was written the night he’d taken a bullet for me.

…
Claire extracted the bullet. I’ve been angry, but this time I was furious. I saw that bastard aim at her and I wanted to tear his head from his neck. I couldn’t end his life fast enough. That’s one less of Donovan’s men that will go after her, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I can’t figure it out. I yelled at Claire to finish so I could go back to Nina. I couldn’t even explain to Claire what I was so mad about, because I don’t know myself. The need to get back to her was ridiculous, because I knew that Dad was with her. She’d gone home by then, but I had to be near her and I was angry that I felt that way.

It’s like I’ve been addicted to her, but I didn’t know it until tonight. As if I didn’t already have to be near her to protect her, now I just need to be near her. It’s infuriating.

So now I’m here, watching her talk to Cynthia. I still don’t know what my problem is. For the first time, I was afraid that I would fail. And not just fail—that I would fail HER. Claire accuses me of being a perfectionist, maybe that’s what it is. Or maybe I just didn’t want to let her down. But why the hell should I care? She wouldn’t know either way. I don’t want her to die, but that should be obvious, right? She dies, I die.

Maybe I just care. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing… for me to care about her. She’s a sweet girl. She’s kind to others. She’s intelligent. She’s comically stubborn. She does that cute tuck-her-hair-behind-her-ear thing when she’s nervous. She’s beautiful… unbelievably beautiful. Anyone with any sense would care about her…spending all this time around her, I guess it was inevitable. But this is more than just caring. If I wasn’t bleeding all over myself I would have grabbed her and…I don’t know. What am I thinking? She can’t know about me. Maybe that’s what I’m angry about. Maybe I want her to know I’m protecting her. I think a part of me wants her to know. She’s walking around her house and has no idea that I saved her life today. And that should bother me WHY? She shouldn’t know. She shouldn’t know that I protect her or that I care about her or that I think she’s beautiful. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous if I had feelings for her? But maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that.

I think I’m in love with her.

I looked up from the pages of Jared’s journal to see that he was watching for my reaction. I pulled myself up quickly and scrambled to kiss him. His mouth turned up into a smile as I pressed my lips against his, so I pulled back to look into his eyes. His expression was triumphant.

I took in a deep breath to speak, but Jared’s face twisted into a frown. “Don’t say ‘aw’.”

I shook my head quickly. “I wasn’t! I was most certainly not going to say ‘aw’. That was amazing, thank you.”

“You should read the night of your sixteenth birthday. Or the day you graduated from high school. Or the night you went out with Philip Jacobs.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think I want to relive my sixteenth birthday. And I know I don’t want to relive the three hours with Philip Jacobs. Yech.”

Jared smiled. “I could read it to you. And I’ll leave out the parts you don’t want to hear.”

I leaned back against him, settling in to hear my life through Jared’s eyes.

I was amazed at how much he loved me for so long, and how he fought the sometimes insufferable longing to speak to me. There were parts that were difficult to listen to, and parts that—if I had wanted to interrupt him, which I didn’t—I wanted him to go back and read again.

He skipped to the entry he wrote the day of my high school graduation. He wrote how proud of me he was, and how beautiful I looked in my cap in gown. He spoke of how happy I felt and wondered where my college years would take us. Jared wrote a lot about being worried that once we gained distance between us and Gabe and Jack, that he would introduce himself.

His eyes clouded over as he read to me his fears that I would fall in love with someone at college, and the unknown reaction he would have watching me be with someone in that way. I learned how devastated he was at the prospect that I would never know how much he loved me, and how he dreaded the day I got married and had children with someone else. Jared’s voice broke as he read the words.

When he turned to the entry on the day that my father died, tears welled up in my eyes as he described watching Gabe fade away. Jared’s hand tangled in mine as he spoke of the moment he stood a few feet away from me, watching me sob on the bench. When the bus left the curb, the fight in him to stay away from me was gone. The tone of the pages changed significantly after that.

Jared smiled as he cited the joy he felt every time he ran into me, the expressions and feelings I would have, and how it felt the first time I’d said his name.

“Read what you wrote today,” I smiled.

“I will later. The rain stopped,” he said, shutting the book.

I looked up as I listened for the rain, but the only sounds were the intermittent dripping from the roof and the fronds of the palm trees, and the birds singing brightly just outside the cabin.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, sitting up and stretching.

“Why don’t you show Cynthia around the village?”

I smiled at his selfless suggestion, kissing him before I made my way to my mother’s cabin. She was drying her chair with a towel, a book in her other hand.

“Hello, Dear,” she said. Her sunglasses moved up with her smile.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go to the village with me. It’s really eclectic. I think you’d like it,” I said, resting my arms on the wooden railing.

Cynthia sat in her chair and opened her book. I knew the answer before she’d given it.

She smiled politely as she always did before she diplomatically turned down an offer. “I think I’ll just relax here, Nina. Why don’t you and Jared go exploring?”

“We’ve been almost everywhere,” I shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

Cynthia didn’t look up from her book. “I’m sure. Go have fun.”

I clambered up the railing and leaned far over it to land a kiss on her cheek. She simply grinned and continued reading.

Jared waited for me outside his cabin. “No dice, huh?” he said, opening his arms to hold me.

“She’s never been this way. I don’t understand it,” I said, pressing my cheek against his chest.

“She just misses Jack,” he reassured me. “What do you say we rent one of those cycles from the village and take a ride up the coast…try to find a village we haven’t seen, yet?”

I smiled enthusiastically and nodded.

Jared took turn after turn, indiscriminate of dirt or paved roads. A few huts came into view, and moments later we were in more of a town than a village. It looked like it might have been one of the more populated places on the island. Jared parked the bike and we walked along a cobble stone road. The buildings were less primitive than in the village we frequented.

The sunlight began to wane when Jared squeezed my hand. “We should head back. It’s going to be dark soon.”

I sighed, sad that another perfect day was over. Just as we turned around, a bell began to ring. I turned my attention in the direction of the beautiful tolling and noticed a group of people standing together on a street corner a block away, staring in the same direction.

“Let’s go,” I said, tugging on Jared’s hand. “I want to see what all the commotion is about.”

Half way down the road, a bright white chapel came into view. I gasped as I watched a newly married couple walk slowly down the steep rock steps to the small crowd that cheered, chanted and sang. Soon, they all began singing the same, happy song.

The group followed the couple down the street, clapping and singing in unison. The bell tolled a few more times and, as if on purpose, rang one last time before the last of the joyful procession disappeared.

I looked back to the chapel, hypnotized by its beauty. It stood taller than the other buildings with its meager two stories.

“Do you want to look inside?” Jared asked, gently tugging on my hand.

“I don’t think so. I just want to stay here.”

“Okay,” Jared murmured, obviously curious at my emotions.

I couldn’t explain it, but I felt a bit weepy. It was as if the building had spoken to me, asking me to stay a bit longer. Jared wrapped his arms around my middle, touching his lips to my hair. I felt the sweat bead on the skin of my back that pressed against his chest.

“What is it?” Jared asked after several moments.

“It’s just so beautiful,” I said, my voice breaking.

“No…there’s something….” he said, clearly confused by my mixed emotions.

I leaned my head back against his chest. “We’re going to get married in this chapel.”

“Right now?” Jared asked. I turned to scold him for mocking me, but he had a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

My grimace instantly turned into an appreciative grin. “I’d like to come back here…when the time comes.”

Jared’s irises glowed with the same azure blue as the sea. “I would travel to the ends of the earth to marry you.”

He grazed the line of my jaw with his thumb and pressed his lips against mine. I melted against him. Jared’s grip tightened as he sensed my elation, and my imagination transformed my clothes into a white dress and Jared’s khaki shorts and t-shirt into a suit.

“We’d better get back,” he said, looking up at the dark clouds rolling in from the horizon.

I nodded, and he led me away from our chapel. I watched it as we walked down the block until it disappeared behind the palm trees.

Friday morning came too soon, and Jared became the authoritative personality he transformed into when organizing the progression of our things from one point to another. Once in the air, Jared put his hand on mine.

“You’ve been quiet all morning. You want to talk about it?” he asked.