“I love you both, but will one of you please tell me what the passage says?”
“Right, sorry.” Evangeline clears her throat. “It says, ‘I’d never fully understood what people meant when they talked about defining moments. How could a single blink in time change the trajectory of an entire existence? It didn’t make sense. And then you walked into my life, and all of a sudden, I knew. They were right, and I’ll never be the same again. All of my tomorrows are now and will forever be shaped by that single pinprick in time when you walked through that door and changed my world.’”
A vacuum sucks all the sound out of the atmosphere. No one says anything. It’s complete silence, and when little spots start to dance in my vision, I realize that I’ve even stopped breathing. Slowly I exhale, then refill my lungs. A songbird titters from a branch above me.
“Wow.” Evangeline manages to breathe out the single syllable, the first of us to even be able to coherently assemble a reaction into a word.
“Yeah,” I respond.Wowis right. There’s so much more to think and say, but my brain is stalled onwow, not able to move forward.
“I think it’s safe to say this guy is smitten with you,” Martha chimes in. “In this instance, Evangeline was right.”
“In this instance?” Evangeline sounds affronted. “I’ve been right more than once, I’ll have you know.”
Martha doesn’t respond verbally, but I imagine she’s giving Evangeline a very pointed look.
“So the hidden treasure Levi alluded to...” My mind is finally crawling forward toward deeper implications.
“I’m pretty sure he’s saying that treasure is you, sweetie,” Martha says gently.
Levi had given me that clue even before we’d kissed.“All of my tomorrows are nowand will forever be shaped by that single pinprick intime when you walked through that door and changed myworld.”
Liquid pools along the bottom of my eyelids, and a strangled sound that’s half cry and half laugh tears from my throat. I shake my head and raise a clenched fist to my mouth, biting down on my knuckles.
That man is not fighting fair. How can I attempt to convince either of us of the logical course of action when he goes and says things like this? Claiming his world was changed simply by my walking into it?
Yeah, well, how much worse will it change when I’m forced to walk out forever? When I inevitably Nicholas Sparks him?
A tear slides down my cheek. The truth is, he’s changed my world as well. And as much as I hate to admit it, I know my tomorrows are also shaped by his influence in my life—whether that be for only a few days or an undetermined amount of time.
I sniff and wipe at my dripping nose. I’m happy, I swear it. I know the evidence is proof to the contrary, but what girl wouldn’t feel happy to be wooed by such words? Except, along with the happiness, there’s that pit of concern. That sense of loss that wasn’t invited to the party but crashed the scene anyway.
I really wish it would let me just have this moment without trying to ruin it for me.
“Has he left you any other clues?” Evangeline asks.
I’d forgotten that she and Martha were still on the phone. I sniff again and blink rapidly to dry my eyes and rein my thoughts back in. “Umm.” Seeing the envelope Jack handed me minutes ago lying on the table, I snatch it up and rip theletter out, scanning the handwriting at the bottom for another postscript.
My heart stills, then beats wildly against my sternum at the sight of the curves of thePandS.
“Umm, yeah. Yeah, he did. Just now, in fact.”
Evangeline makes some sort of indiscriminate sound, like she’s choking back a shriek of excitement. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. What does it say?”
My vision is still a little watery, so I have to squint to be able to read Levi’s horrible handwriting. “I think it saysAK,pd.1878,p.25.”
“AK,” Evangeline muses. “So a book with only a two-word title.”
“But what is pd?” Martha asks. “That wasn’t in the first clue.”
Whatwaspd? 1878...
My body stills. “Could pd stand for publication date? A book published in 1878?”
“I think you’re right,” Martha agrees.
“AK 1878? It’sAnna Karenina!” Evangeline practically shouts.
Martha groans. “If that’s the case, how can we know which printing he used to find the quote? The page numbers are likely to be somewhat off in each, don’t you think?”
