"I volunteered for tour after tour, never wanting to be back here. It's … easier over there. When we come home, we can't forget, can't walk away from war, especially knowing we'll probably be sent back, so I just kept going. At least over there, everyone understood. We were all in the same place, hurting in the same way, pretending we were fine because it was the only way we'd survive.
"By the time the war was over, I'd changed so much, withdrawn into myself. I didn't know how to be the old me, and I wasn't sure who the new me was. I was still angry, so angry. And even at that, I thought about trying to find you. But there was no way to reach out. Not after a thousand letters I'd never answered. Not after ignoring you when you changed your mind and begged me to come home. After your last letter, I … I was sure it was over. I told myself I could move on, that it was time. But it was empty, and so was I."
"This will be my last; my heart can't take any more," she recited from the letter, her voice distant, just as I'd imagined when I'd read it over and over again.
"I hear you. Your silence is deafening, the answer clear. Since I'm sorry will never be enough, I'll only say goodbye."
We lay in silence for a few long minutes, hanging on to each other, the years folding up like a paper fan until the length had been shortened, bringing us back together again.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness," I whispered, and she propped herself up, looking down at me with her face framed by curtains of dark hair.
"I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't changed."
I reached for her face, thumbing her cheek. "How can you be sure I have?"
Her eyes, her bottomless eyes told me only of her faith. "I can see it here." She ran her fingers across my temple. "And here." She touched my lips. "I can feel it here." She laid her hand on my heart. "I know you, even when you don't know yourself. Even when you pushed and pulled me, deep down, I knew how you felt. But I couldn't fix you, couldn't help you because you didn't want help. You wanted to be broken, and you wanted to hurt all of us, to warn us away. It almost worked."
"You believe in those of us who didn't love you the way you've deserved. Why?"
"Because," she said as her lips smiled small, "I knew all that you could be, and I wished for it with all of me."
"I'll spend every breath that I have proving you right." I pulled her down to me, my hands in the curve of her neck, her lips against mine, her breath my own.
So many years I'd missed. So many kisses, so many words from her sweet lips. How happy we could have been all that time — my chest burned at the thought. But I was through looking back to the past when my future was right in front of me, right there in my arms.
There was no urgency, only the long kiss, the kiss that never ended, only flowed from one moment to the next, softly, gently. I broke away after what felt like an eternity or a moment and climbed out of bed, walking around to turn off the lights. Snow fell beyond the window; the ground had been covered in the time since we'd been inside, and the full moon reflected off the crisp white canvas, lighting the room in shades of indigo. I reached over my shoulder, grabbing a fistful of sweater to tug it off. Then my shirt. Then my jeans, leaving me just in my underwear.
She'd pushed herself up to sit, taking off her sweater and jeans before climbing under the covers in a tank and her underwear. I slipped in next to her, the heat of her body radiating, mingling with mine as we lay chest to chest, our legs entwined, her arms folded and curled against my chest, my arms around her back, hands in her hair.
It was a moment I'd dreamed of, a moment I'd rejected. It was a moment we'd shared so many times, so many years before. It was the moment, the now, the present. The beginning and the end. The end of our pain. The beginning of our future.
"What happens now?" she asked, her breath skating against the skin of my collarbone.
"Now, we start over. I've got weeks left before I have to go back, and there are still so many things I need to do here. Like spend every second I can with you."
"And then what? What happens when you leave again?" The fear in her voice was slight, controlled — her heartbeat betrayed her.
"That's up to you." I leaned back so I could see her face. "If you're happy, if you still want me, then you can tell me what you want. If you want to come with me, you can. If you want to stay, I'll wait for you. I'll wait forever, if you want. I'll give you anything, if you ask."
She closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again to show me her shining irises. "I've waited for a second chance to answer this question. I've dreamed of what it would be like to give the answer I wish I had so long ago. And now I can tell you that I will follow you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth, if you'll give me your heart in exchange for mine."
"My heart has been yours as long as it's been beating. It'll be yours until it beats its last."
A sparkling tear rolled down her cheek, and she cupped my jaw, leaning in to kiss me, sealing the promise.
As my fingers wound through her hair, the kiss deepened, the urgency we'd lacked before now present in her hips pressing against mine, in her hands holding my face. The time apart had erased nothing — I knew her body if it were my own. The last time I'd been with her, I'd been driven by fear, by pain. Now, I was only driven by my love for her.
My hand trailed down her ribs, down the valley of her waist, to the curve of her hip. I savored every touch: the warmth of her skin under my palm, the weight of her body against mine, the softness of her lips as they moved gently against my own. The moments of waiting, of pain and longing, they had washed over me, passed through me, leaving me clean and new.