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Looking up again I found her staring at me with a deep, burning intensity and while part of me enjoyed the fact that she knew, that she felt it too—how deep and bottomless our hearts were—another part of me couldn’t bare the magnitude of that reality, I wanted to distract her, us, so we could be as we were now, just Malachi and Esther, not centuries old lovers. But she spoke before I could preserve the moment.
“We were never on the Titanic.” She wasn’t asking because it wasn’t a question. She was, whether she wanted to or not, remembering.
“No,” I said softly as I drew her from her feet to her face because every detail was engrained in my mind and…I couldn’t bear to just stare at her.
“So I can still blame James Cameron for making me sob for whenever I hear My Heart Will Go On.”
“And Celine Dion.”
She giggled softly. “Right. I’m kind of shocked you know the movie or the song.”
“Why?” I asked as I traced the curve from her legs to her hips.
“You said you locked yourself away from the world, right?”
“No,” I corrected. “I tried to. It was a constant struggle with myself. Sometimes I couldn’t bear the silence of being alone so I’d go out hoping to find you and just get it over with. I’d listen for your voice and look for your face, in music, art, film, until the fear caught up with me again and I’d lock myself away once more. Sometimes I was determined and yet the world we live in now makes it almost impossible to avoid certain things. Music plays when you get in an elevator or walk down the street. Most times I was torn, wanting more, fearing more.”
“Meanwhile I was…I was oblivious.” She fought back a sob. “Why is it I never remember?”
“Maybe you aren’t supposed to,” I told her honestly, now drawing her shoulders. “Maybe it’s me. I shouldn’t remember either. But I do and it screws everything up.”
“Or maybe it’s me and I’m supposed to remember sooner?”
“Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe into infinity.” I smiled looking up at her collarbone before drawing again. “We could guess and speculate but it doesn’t change the fact that I do remember and you do forget. It’s how it is and how it wi—”
I froze as my grip on the pen tightened.
“How it will be next time?” She finished for me as I started to draw again. “That’s what you were going to say. You don’t believe it might be different this time?”
“You still found me as I tried to hide, and I fell in love with you despite my efforts not to love you. And your memories are coming back. For there to be a difference there must be a change and nothing between us has changed.”
“Malachi.”
I didn’t reply.
“Malachi, look at me.”
Sighing, I looked and she smiled though her eyes were glazed over with tears she wouldn’t let fall.
“I’m never giving up on us. No matter the odds, don’t give up either. Promise me, promise you’ll believe we’ll make it this time.”
I couldn’t make that promise because I didn’t have that belief. I just wanted to enjoy these moments. Our final moments.
“Promise me,” she said again, and when I didn’t say anything she got up and kneeled in front of me. Her cool hand touched my face. “Promise me, Malachi.”
“I promise.”
“Again.” She placed her forehead on mine.
“I promise,” I said as I set the sketchpad down beside me.
“One more time, for luck and so it’s not a double negative.”
Chuckling I put my arm around her back and pulled her until she was in my lap. I nodded. “I promise…I swear on the most precious thing you’ve ever given me, I believe it.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck and with her nose barely touching mine she said, “I knew you were in pain. I even thought you were in love with someone else, and yet I still fell in love with you. I love you, Malachi Lord. Pain or no pain, past or no past, knowing or not knowing, I still love you. I want you.”
“You’re crazy,” I laughed.
