So I go on and on and on,
Lost in the echoes of a love that’s gone,
and I go on and on and on,
In the shadows of the love we’ve drawn
I can’t let her go.”
I let out a breath as the last of my song melted out of me and I slouched back down into the booth.But then I looked up when the whole place went crazy and erupted with loud applause and shouts ofsing it again.The guys were shoving me and laughing.
“Dude!Where the hell have you been hiding that?”Egin slaps my arm.
“Damn guys, we need to find this chick.”
“Right!?She must be somethin’ special.”
“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone, Lee.”
“I’m not.”I say, “This is… it’s about someone from a long time ago.”
The guys raised their empty beer bottles in a cheers:
“To long lost loves!”and went to grab some more from the bar.
“Here if you wanna talk about it.”Egin tells me.He’s been married for three years but deployed for two of them so he knows the hurt of long-distance love.
“I – I don’t know why … but I’ve really been thinking about her a lot lately.”That’s a lie, I know why – My twenty years is coming up soon and she’s been on my mind every damn day.“This was just something I wrote down one night.Letters were always our thing and I just thought, maybe if I write it all down for her, one day I’ll have the nerve to find her and mail it.”
“Dude.Not to be harsh – but – you’re not getting any younger and if you keep on waiting for therighttime, she’ll have moved on for sure.”Egin was right.But it’s been eighteen years now and she thinks I’m dead; how do I just come back into her life?
Chapter Thirty-Four
ELLIE
Present Day
Dylan texted me earlier from Carrie’s house saying he had something important to tell me and I needed to meet them there at 3:30pm.I’m on my way over and every thought possible is running through my head, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I was about to hear when I arrived.
I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car at exactly 3:30pm.When I rang the doorbell, Carrie opened the door looking worried.
“What’s wrong, what is it?”I asked.
“We have something to tell you, but we need to explain it all first.”She said, walking me into the sunroom where Dylan was sitting with his laptop.
I sat next to him on the whicker sofa and waited for one of them to start talking but they both just sat there staring at each other.
“Will one of you please just tell me what’s going on?”I asked nervously.“Oh God, you’re not pregnant, are you?”I turned to Carrie.
“NO!No, it’s nothing like that.”She laughed and I immediately felt better.I could handle anything else, but a teen pregnancy scared the hell out of me and was not what I wanted for either of them.
Dylan opened the laptop now and turned it so I could see the screen.It was opened to a copy of Lee’s obituary, and I sighed.
“Why are you showing me this, Dylan?”I asked, shoulders slumped.“I’ve read this over a hundred times since your dad died, and there’s nothing new there.”
“That’s not the reason I’m showing you this.”He told me that after our talk on the way home from the beach, he wanted to find out more about his dad; how he was when he was younger and how he died.He was hoping to find information on an investigation or the reason for his death or anything that I couldn’t tell him, and he didn’t want to upset me anymore than he already had.I started to object but he stopped me from saying anything.
He and Carrie had spent the day scouring the internet for details about Lee and his life and death but the only thing they came up with was this obituary.“When Carrie’s mom came in to bring us snacks, she saw my screen and I swear there was a flicker of recognition on her face, but she didn’t say anything.”Dylan said.
