“If I stop moving, I’m going to die,” I whisper in desperation.
“Let’s get you walking then. See you, Paul. Thanks again, Rebecca.”
“You two have fun,” Paul says, head focused down on a few scratchers, his fingers deftly scraping off the coating with a quarter.
“If you have a heart attack from all that caffeine, it’s your fault,” Rebecca adds, her back to us. “I’ve washed my hands clean of the situation.”
I inhale my life source, smiling and blinking in the light as we exit the café. Edison lightbulbs hang across the narrow alley between the Bean Pot and an adjacent brick building. A row of flowers dusts the edge of the sidewall with lavender and magenta hues, bordering a smattering of café chairs and tables.
The entire vibe is perfection.
Black Victorian streetlamps are evenly spaced on the main street among the red and gray brick sidewalk. A green awning hangs overhead, “coffee, paninis, pastries” in gold leaf lettering across it. We keep walking as my head whirls with so many new things to absorb. If Paris is the color of a café au lait, Portsmouth is a vintage pinot noir. Brick buildings rise and fall at random heights, so unlike the uniform row of buildings in Paris, and yet, I have the overwhelming feeling that they all belong. Signs noting the various restaurants, boutiques, art galleries, and cafés swing in the sea breeze, and I breathe in the fresh salt air, letting it cleanse my lungs.
A warm smile beams on my face. I’m deliriously tired, but I also have a sense of calm that hasn’t found me in some time radiating from my chest, and I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with the man next to me.
We come to an intersection, and my lingering gaze freezes on a church across the street. The church’s base is brick, like everything else in this town seems to be. A white steeple points to the heavens, towering above the downtown area. Its ornate features and clock tower steal my breath away.
Liam follows my eyes. “That’s North Church. It’s my favorite too.”
“It’s beautiful. Do you know when it was built?” I ask, itching to uncover the past lives of the buildings around me.
“Some time in the 1800s. Most of the stuff around here was. The town itself was settled in the early 1600s. That’s why there are so many older houses, but I think there were some fires or something, so a lot of the buildings here were built later.”
“It’s gorgeous.” My eyes roam over the multiple narrow streets branching off the main stretch, honestly more like twigging considering their minimal girth. Liam sips his coffee, watching me intensely, and when I’m done studying the area in my spot, he takes me across the street until we turn left down another narrow road with the same aesthetic. More brick, more black lamps, more trees, and I’m absolutely living and vibing all of it.
A green expanse of land sits at the end of the street, abutting the wide mouth of a river Liam told me was called the Piscataqua as we drove along it earlier. The river connects Great Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, making Portsmouth an active seaport.
We walk through a black iron gate toward the patch of blue water along the back of the park.
The fence with the gold locks from Liam’s photographs waits at the end. My heart dances along with the locks winking in the morning sun. I love love locks. The tradition of it all. To me, the permanence is in the moment, not the love. Because a lot of the time we measure success inforever, but with my disease, I’ve had to learn to have success in fleeting moments, or else what was the point of anything? Locks, to me, are a symbol that even if the relationship ends poorly—and it definitely ended poorly for Lainey and Brian if the massive c-word scrawled across their lock is any indication—two people were happy enough in the moment to put a lock on a gate, and in real life, sometimes, isn’t that enough?
In the distance, a gorgeous iron, lattice-worked bridge looms over the river, connecting two land masses together.
“That’s Maine across the way.” Liam points over my shoulder before letting his hand fall to my hip and pulling me against him.
The breeze blows wisps of my hair free, but I don’t bother smoothing them down. Something about the way the light dances off the water in a glittering haze calms my mind. Even though I’m balancing precariously between the realms of tired and dead inside, another part of me oddly feels like I have my toes in the sand, currently relaxing in paradise.
Liam rubs the small of my back.
Maybe this is paradise.
Maybe this is my fleeting perfect moment.
“Thank you for letting me stay with you. I don’t know how I would have done this if I saw my family at security.” I sigh, sipping my coffee. “We’re definitely going to need a Dunks later too.”
“Don’t worry. I plan on having at least twelve coffees today.” He smiles. “How are you feeling about later?”
“Better,” I hum, leaning back into his hand. “I’m fairly certain it’s still going to suck, but at least I have you on my side for once.”
“You want me to distract you?” His fingers brush the hair off the nape of my neck before I feel his warm mouth press against the exposed skin there.
“At the party? How would you do that?”
“I could tell some jokes,” he says against my skin.
“Eh, I’ll be miserable enough already.”
“There she is—the coffee must be kicking in.”
