Page 53 of The Champion
“I love you, Sway.” He whispered to me, winded.
“I love you too.”
I felt as if everything I’d been through recently waslike this hurricane pulsating outside.
Like it was almost some sort of metaphor for what ourlives had become. A hurricane comes to shore destroying everything in its path,leaving you with the devastating aftermath.
I’ve learned over the past year that it’s not about thestorm. It’s about the aftermath and what you make of it and how you recoveredfrom it. Sure, some storms in your life can be so damaging to you that it’shard to come back. But coming back, rebounding, restarting, that is what reallymakes you who you are. That’s whatdefinesyou and those pages withinyour story as my mother said.
The more I thought about what my mom’s letter meant tome, the more I realized she was exactly right.
She was right when she said everything that happened toyou were the pages in between the story of your life but it doesn’t dictateyour future. You control that.
I was going to decide how this was written. I was goingto write my own happy-ending.
Despite creating my own happy-ending, one thing heldtrue, you can’t avoid the storm. Sooner or later, it’ll find you. But the bestpart about a storm, in my mind, was relying on the one you love to pull youthrough it and letting him.
Through everything, Jameson was here to pull me throughit. And I let him.
Still naked, laying there for a good hour, we listened tothe waves breaking against the shore as the sun began to rise. The lighting inthe room had changed from cerulean to a soft but glowing pink with ginger hues.
“I miss Charlie.” I whispered against Jameson’s barechest tracing circles over his scar from where his chest tube was after hisaccident in Pocono last year.
“I do too.” He murmured placing a kiss on my forehead.“He was a special man to a lot of people.”
“I felt like he came over that morning to say goodbye.”
“I know what you mean...beforeI left for Daytona he pulled me aside and gave me this long speech about how Ineeded to take care of you and Axel.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “What did he say?”
His lips twitched into a smile blinking slowly. “He toldme that you will always be his little girl.” His hand brushed my hair away frommy face. “He told me that no matter what—put you first and I’ll have no regretsin life. He also said not to work my life away and he told me...that he felt like I’d always been a son tohim.”
Slumping back against his chest, I felt the vibrations ofhis voice as he continued speaking. “You know...Andreaand Mallory asked if we wanted to put a memorial race on the schedule for theweekend of Charlie’s birthday.”
Choking back tears, it took me a moment to actuallyspeak. “I think that’s a good idea.”
I found that even if you move on to acceptance, it’s hardto let go entirely.
To me, that’s the hardest part is letting go I think, butit’s a necessity. Healing and acceptance can’t begin until then.
You remember though, and that’s what you should do.That’s the healthy thing to do. Hold on tight to those memories, they’re allyou have left.
They were allwehad left.
The rest of our days on the island were usually spentindoors and in bed with each other.
We made it to other parts of the house but spent most ofour time enjoying each other. This year was going to be crazy and I knew that.I intended on taking advantage of the alone time and he seemed to be on theexact same page.
The disaster of getting here didn’t end once we werearrived. It seemed anytime we ventured outside something bad happened.
The one time we took a swim in the ocean I was stung by afucking jellyfish.
This wouldn’t have been so horrible, but it stung like amotherfucker and Jameson spent more time trying to convince me he should pisson my leg than helping with the burning.
Again, I wasn’t impressed with his lack of concern for myburn. He seemed more concerned with the fact that he needed to pee on me.
My response, “Listen asshole! This is not the time to bemarking your woman. I need serious help!”
