Morning tiptoed softly in with the sun, as though someone were slowly turning up the dimmer switch. They’d forgotten to close the curtains last night. Megan rolled over, her feet cold, wrapping more blankets around her.
As she tugged at the sheets, there was an answering tug back from the other side of the bed. She opened one eye. And then the other.
Incredulity covered her like a mist, altogether startling and refreshing.
“Good morning.” Tom stretched luxuriously and then froze, catching up to what Megan had already realized.
“We did it,” she whispered.
“How can we be sure?” he whispered back as though their voices might crack this delicate discovery.
They both reached for their phones, showing each other the new day on their calendars.
“But how can we be sure?” Tom asked again, still whispering.
“Well, if it is the same day, then Donna’s at least an hour late bursting in here and pitching a fit about her rehearsal-dinner dress.”
They gave each other mini-high-fives before glee yielded to the gravity of a looming wedding. Despite how hard Megan had wished for the day of the rehearsal dinner to end, she hadn’t quite worked out just what she’d do if her wedding day actually arrived.
Taking a deep breath, she leaned back onto her pillow. Tom mirrored her actions. Whenever Megan had a seemingly unsolvable problem rise up at work, she’d breathe, clear her mind, and wait for the brainstorm to come.
But instead of answers, all she saw were the dollar signs of their families’ travel and event expenses, cash that might be a drop in the bucket for the Prescotts but for the Givenses side were the bucket.
She thought of the friends who’d taken time off work to come to the other side of the country, used portions of their hard-earned paychecks to buy wedding gifts.
She imagined the shocked faces that would fall, giving way to anger or tears or I-told-you-sos. Every messy imminent exchange, not to mention all the gossip.
“What do we do?” Tom asked, obviously full of the same questions.
“I don’t know.”
“Should we start telling everyone the wedding’s off?” There was a small crack in his voice. She might have missed it if she hadn’t been so close to him. If she didn’t know him as well as she did.
Megan rolled to her side and took in his familiar profile, the cut of his jaw, the line of his forehead, the angle of his nose. She’d stared at this face for countless minutes over the years, never stopping to appreciate that one day she might not have his face to stare at. She searched his expression now for answers. Indicators.
“Yeah,” she agreed, her own voice threatening to break. “I guess we should.”
“Then we should probably get started. We’ve got a lot to do.” Tom swung his legs around and off the bed with great effort. He retrieved clean clothes from his suitcase, pulled on his briefs, his slacks. Slipped his arms through his shirt, taking care as he buttoned it closed.
Megan followed suit, because it seemed to be the thing to do. Get dressed. Close this chapter.
They brushed their teeth, avoiding each other’s gaze in the mirror. When he left to give her a moment of privacy, she tried to feel anything but bottomless grief. She washed and dried her hands. Opened the bathroom door. And took a moment to stare at her former fiancé—the man she’d loved her whole adult life—seated at the table where they’d sipped champagne the night before so he could put on his socks and shoes and walk out of her life. Forever.
Life was a series of actions and consequences, coincidences and happy accidents (to borrow a phrase from her grandparents’ sailboat). Over and over again, the past seven days had taught her what she was willing to let go of and what she wanted to keep.
What she wanted to keep.
A fondness for Tom broke through her until she was flooded with nothing but how much she loved him. Not based on nostalgia or the devil she knew. It was a feeling of seeing him in the light of a new day. It made her knees buckle.
Over the course of their relationship, she’d tried to be a good partner to him. Over the course of the last few days, she’d tried to be true to herself. Could there be a way to do both? To have both?
Because Megan suddenly knew that if she let him walk out now, she’d never forgive herself.
“Hey,” she said softly, leaning against the door frame.
“Hey.” He spared her a quick glance before returning to his shoes with extreme focus.
She wondered if he were trying very hard not to cry.
She took a seat beside him and rested her chin on her hands, willing him to look at her. “For a class called Natural Disasters, this lecture is pretty dull. Disaster-free, even.”
He froze, only the smallest of smiles indicating he knew just what she was doing. He locked onto her with his gaze. “Have you ever noticed our professor looks like a nerdy version of the lead singer from the Cure?”
“I have.” She nodded, then reached out, an invisible thread reaching out too, winding around their connected hands. “Megan, by the way.”
“Hi, Megan By-the-Way. I’m Tom.”
She snorted at his ridiculous joke, watching the flicker of familiar amusement dance in his eyes at the snort. “So, Tom. What’s your favorite song by the Cure?”
He appeared to consider this. “Good question. I’m going to have to think on this. I mean, I’m partial to ‘Pictures of You’…but I’m also willing to admit that ‘Just Like Heaven’ has its merits.”
Megan leaned across him, her arms grazing his chest, and grabbed the notepad and pen on the side table where the phone lay. She scrawled some of the lyrics to “Just Like Heaven” onto the paper followed by something just as important. She ripped the top page off, folded it, and gave it to him.
“What’s this?” A catch in his voice gave her all the hope she needed.
“It’s my phone number, Tom.” She swallowed, tamping down the emotion in her own voice so the next thing she said to him would be clear. “I’d really like to see you again.”
He unfolded the paper, eyes gleaming with happiness as he read the lyrics and her number. He folded it back up, put it in his pocket, and looked up at her. “Well, now I know exactly what I want to do with this day.”
Her heart beat against the pendant she’d been sure to put on that morning. “Yeah? And what’s that?”
“I want to go wherever you’re going.”