The Best of Me - Nicholas Sparks [54]
She rested her chin on her knees, hugging them tightly to her body. “You know what I remember? I remember the time you and I drove to Atlantic Beach. When we saw all the starfish? It was like they’d all washed up at once, and we walked the entire length of the beach, tossing them back into the water. And later, we split a burger and fries and watched the sun go down. We must have talked for twelve straight hours.”
She smiled before going on, knowing that he was remembering as well. “That’s why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn’t constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me. And nothing else mattered—not my family or your family or anyone else in the world. It was just us.” She paused. “I don’t know that I’ve ever felt as happy as I did that day, but then again, it was always like that when we were together. I never wanted it to end.”
He met her eyes. “Maybe it hasn’t.”
She understood then, with the distance that age and maturity brings, how much he’d loved her back then. And still did, something whispered inside her, and all at once she had the strange impression that everything they’d shared in the past had been the opening chapters in a book with a conclusion that had yet to be written.
The idea should have scared her, but it didn’t, and she ran her palm over the outline of their worn initials, carved into the workbench so many years ago. “I came here when my father died, you know.”
“Where? Here?” When she nodded, Dawson reached again for the carburetor. “I thought you said you started visiting Tuck only a few years ago.”
“He didn’t know. I never told him I came.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t. It was all I could do to keep myself together, and I wanted to be alone.” She paused. “It was about a year after Bea died, and I was still struggling when my mom called to tell me that my dad had had a heart attack. It didn’t make any sense. He and my mom had visited us in Durham the week before, but the next thing I knew, we were loading up the kids to go to his funeral. We drove all morning to get here, and when I walked in the door, my mom was dressed to the nines and almost immediately began to brief me on our appointment at the funeral home. I mean, she showed hardly any emotion at all. She seemed to be more worried about getting the right kind of flowers for the service and making sure that I called all the relatives. It was like this bad dream, and by the end of the day, I just felt so… alone. So I left the house in the middle of the night and drove around, and for some reason I ended up parking down by the road and walking up here. I can’t explain it. But I sat here and cried for what must have been hours.” She exhaled, the tide of memories surging back. “I know my dad never gave you a chance, but he wasn’t really a bad person. I always got along better with him than I did with my mom, and the older I got, the closer we became. He loved the kids—especially Bea.” She was quiet before finally offering a sad smile. “Do you think that’s strange? That I came here after he died, I mean?”
Dawson considered it. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it’s strange at all. After I served my time, I came back here, too.”
“You didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
His raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”
He was right, of course: While Tuck’s had been a place of idyllic memories, it had also been the place she’d always come to cry.
She clasped her fingers tighter, forcing the memory away, and settled in, watching Dawson as he began to piece the engine back together. As the afternoon wound down, they talked easily of everyday things, past and present, filling in pieces of their lives and exchanging opinions on everything from books to places they had always dreamed of visiting. She was struck by a sense of deja vu as she listened to the familiar clicks of the socket wrench