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When the game is finished, I am sad Jared has to go, wishing he could stay with me instead. After he greets my parents and they tell him he is always welcome, I walk with him to his car.
It is freezing cold outside. I feel a chill creep beneath my jacket and my feet are immediately icy cold.
Jared leans back against his Jeep and puts his hands in my jacket pockets. After he pulls me closer to him, he pushes his face in between my neck and jacket collar, and sighs. His warm breath blows over my neck and his cold nose is like a block of ice against my warm skin.
I shiver and say, “Wish you didn’t have to go.”
“I know,” he says against my neck. “Like last night, to hold you in my arms and fall asleep while listening to your breathing.” He lifts his head, holding my gaze for the longest moment and when he lowers his head, his soft lips brush against mine tenderly. He whispers, “It’s funny, but it feels as if I have always been waiting for you.”
His words echo the strange feelings of divine intervention I have been experiencing since meeting him. Even though I feel as if it is hopeless, I still have a strange feeling that maybe, somehow, we can do everything right and maybe, only maybe, Jared and I will have a future together. I reach up, wrapping my arms around his neck. Standing on my toes I lean into him and kiss him.
He pulls away from me slowly, and smiling he says, “Look, it has started to snow.”
I look up and taking a deep breath, I say, “It’s beautiful. This is my first time ever seeing snow for real.” A snowflake falls on my nose and I look back at him laughing. He is staring at me, a grin playing on his lips. I feel immeasurably happy. It feels as if my heart is going to burst and I cannot help it, before I can stop myself, I say, “I really love you.”
“You don’t have a million reasons why you should love me?”
Letting go of my apprehension, I decide I am not going to be scared to love him only because I have this feeling I might lose him. “No, it is like you said, I feel like I have always known you.” I hesitate. “Always loved you – you were gone, but now you are back.”
He cups my face in his hands, looking at me fixedly. “I really love you too.” He leans down and kisses me on the tip of my cold nose. Wrapping his arms around my shoulders, he pulls me deep into his embrace.
My cheek is nestled against his chest, and I can hear his heart beating fast.
With a long sigh, he says, “I really have to go now. Once this snow stops and forms black ice on the roads it could get difficult driving.”
“Okay, I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
“We could always run away,” he suggests.
“Yeah. Let’s,” I say seriously.
He laughs happily while opening his car door. Getting into his Jeep, he says, “Go inside, it’s cold. I’ll watch to make sure you’re okay, so if you slip do it sexily.”
I chuckle insulted. “Bye. Text me when you get home and I’ll see you tomorrow.” I remind him, “Be nice to me at school.”
I walk to my front door slowly, and then I watch him while he starts his car and carefully drives out of our driveway.
Wanting to avoid the thousand and one questions I know is waiting for me I decide to go to my room. I pop my head past the lounge door briefly, and call out, “Good night Mum, good night Sean, night Esther.”
They turn to me, saying goodnight. Sean’s voice has a slight disappointed note, because he probably had a million things he still wanted to say.
I smile as I go upstairs and start changing into my pyjamas for bed.
Soon I am comfortably snuggled in between my bedding, with my phone in my hand, calculating how long it would take Jared to get home and waiting in anticipation for his text message.
I am almost drifting off to sleep, when I hear my phone’s ring tone. Grabbing it hastily, I press the send button while I press the phone against my ear.
“Hello.” His voice comes to me through the phone.
I smile. “Glad you got home safe. I miss you.”
“I miss you too, Lizzie.”
“Don’t call me Lizzie, I hate it. Sean thinks it’s endearing, but it is just frustrating.” I chuckle. “It sounds better when you say it though.”
He laughs and I can imagine the light in his green eyes. The same eyes that can see right through my pretences—that can see me. “I hate to have to say good night, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Okay.”
I can hear Aaron calling him urgently and saying something about his mum.
“Bye, Elizabeth,” he says in a rush, and the phone goes dead.
Reaching across the side of my bed, I put my phone on my bedside table and then I sigh contentedly as I close my eyes, but sleep does not come straight away.
Thoughts fill my mind. I wonder if souls really come back repeatedly. Do they really, with the billions of people on planet Earth, manage to find each other again?
If souls really came back though, it would imply my mum met my dad, and they had me. My dad then died so that later my mum would meet Sean and I would end up in Ireland, where I would meet up again with Jared. I cannot even contemplate the idea of my dad dying so I can be happy now. It is unthinkable. I fall asleep still contemplating the possibilities of having known Jared in a previous life. Would that be why I fell in love with him so instantly? Why it feels as if we just continued from where we left off?
