I broke then. Racking sobs tore through my body and I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t lift myself off the cold phone booth floor. The door flew open and Leo bent down. He helped me to my feet and took me to the path. But still the sobs didn’t stop. Dylan flanked my other side, helping Leo carry me down the path and to the bus that waited for us. A familiar hand landed on my back, and I knew it was Savannah. That was my girl. Always there with a supportive touch. With her love and our shared two squeezes of our hands.
The journey back was a blur, time relinquishing itself to sadness. I couldn’t say goodbye. I just couldn’t say goodbye.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Not yet.
Leo and Dylan helped me from the bus into my room. They laid me down on the bed, and before my head even hit the pillow, Savannah was wrapped around me. I breathed some then. I always did when she was near. But the sobs still came. They came until no tears fell down my cheeks and the sun had given way to the moon. Leo stayed in the room with us the entire time, letting me purge everything from my soul.
He eventually got up from his seat and said, “I just need to speak to Mia.
I’ll be back in a minute. Will you be okay?” I nodded my head. I couldn’t speak. My voice was lost.
When he left, Savannah immediately sat up. Her eyes were red with sadness.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. “Sorry that hurt you so much.”
I stared into those blue depths and knew that if we were to have any kind of future, I needed to get better. “I love you,” I said, just as a knock sounded on my door. Mia came through, Leo following behind.
“Savannah,” Mia said, gently, “let’s go and have some dinner.”
“No.” Savannah shook her head. I wanted to smile at her tenacity, but I couldn’t muster enough energy to do it.
“You haven’t eaten,” Mia said. She then looked to Leo. “Let Leo and Cael talk some.”
Savannah opened her mouth to argue, but I said, “Go on, Peaches.” I met Leo’s eyes. The look he gave me told me he needed to speak to me about something, something I wasn’t sure I was going to like. “Get something to eat.”
Savannah searched my face. “Are you sure?” her gaze dropped. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I know, baby,” I said, sitting up and cupping her face with my hands. I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her mouth. “I’ll be okay. I promise,” I said, praying those words were true.
“Okay,” Savannah said, full trust in me. It made me feel a little stronger. She was still in this with me.
I watched her leave with Mia, heart breaking all over again, when she turned back and gave me a watery smile. When the door shut behind them, I turned to Leo. “I need that extra help when we get home,” I said. “Today made me realize just how much farther I have to go.”
Leo nodded, then said, “I suggest we leave now.”
Shock and panic instantly surged through me. “Now?” I said, jumping off the bed. “I don’t want to leave now. I don’t want to leave Savannah. I want to travel home with her and the others. See this through until the end.”
Leo came over to me, a wary expression on his face. “Son, I will never make you do anything you don’t want to do, but I worry if you see Savannah again, or stay until the end, you won’t go.” I pictured Savannah’s face, remembered her arms clasped around me, how she made me feel safe and like I could just lean on her forever … I exhaled in defeat. He was right. I
knew he was right, but I just wanted to see her, one more time. I wanted to say goodbye. Make plans for when we were apart. How we would keep moving forward.
“Cael, do you love her?” Leo’s question made my head snap up and pull me from my racing thoughts.
I met his eyes. “Completely,” I replied. My voice was steady. My love for Savannah was the one thing I was certain of. Everything else had shaken me to my core. My love for Savannah was concrete.
“Then you need to leave now, son. To have any kind of future with her, you must keep going with therapy. This trip isn’t enough. Right now, you’re in a precarious place, and I’m advising we go immediately. I’ve seen what happens to people when they break and delay help.” My stomach churned. That was Cillian. I didn’t want to be like him. “Let me help you, Cael. Take my advice and let me help.”
My heart was beating too fast and I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know what to do for the best. I wasn’t sure I could leave Savannah. “You have a real chance at happiness, the both of you,” Leo said, speaking straight to my heart. “Let’s make Harvard, this fall, the goal. To be with Savannah again. When you’re healed and can give her your everything.”
I could see that. Us both happy and healthy, dealing with our grief at college—the college we were fated to be at together. I wanted that. I wanted that so much that it was suddenly all I could see.
He knew I was teetering, then pierced me when he said, “You don’t want your love for her to be lessened by sorrow. You don’t want her to have to share you with residual darkness. Come with me, let us help you, and then give her your entire—
healthy
—heart. Give her you entirely.”
Those words knocked the air right out of my lungs. Savannah deserved the world. She deserved to be loved totally. Leo waited patiently for my response. “Okay,” I finally rasped out, my heart breaking as I did. It wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted her … but I needed to heal.
I had to do that alone.
Leo exhaled in relief. “You’ve made the right decision, Cael. I’ll give you ten minutes to pack your things. I’ll go and make the final arrangements.”
Leo left the room, and I stood on the spot for a few, silent minutes. I couldn’t make my feet move, like they were protesting what I was about to do. But just thinking of making it to Harvard this fall, Savannah beside me as we lived happily and pain-free and didn’t just exist … it had me moving in seconds. I threw my clothes into my bag and looked back on the room, on the impression of Savannah that was still on the bed. That girl loved me, and I would prove to her that I could be in this with her. One hundred percent. That although young, we could make it.
Seeing a hotel notepad on the desk, I ran over and wrote a note to my girl. I just hoped she understood. I was breaking our pact. I was keeping something from her again, leaving her without a goodbye. But as much as it hurt, as much as my soul was screaming at me to stay safe in her arms, this was important, to us both.
Taking my wallet off the desk, I stared down at it, feeling the heaviness of Cillian’s note to me inside. Without overthinking, I yanked it out, gasping for breath when I saw his familiar handwriting and the seven words that had destroyed me for the past year. It had haunted me, plagued me and eaten away at me until I was nothing but a mangled mess. I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I was done with it.
Welcoming one final surge of anger, I ripped the ticket into pieces and threw it on the ground. It was an albatross to my healing, a weight that was pulling me down.
Grabbing my bag, I walked out into the hallway and found Leo in reception. I immediately looked for Savannah. Maybe I could just see her face one more time. Just a glimpse. Maybe if I just got to kiss her one final time, I
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.