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“No.” I shifted closer to her. “It was far from just an affair, Rainey. I do like you. Hell, I feel a lot more for you than just like, but my life is a mess, and I can’t give you what you deserve right now.”
“Give me what I deserve?” She leaned back. “Zack, there is nothing that I want from you besides your love or your feelings toward me. I didn’t mean to say love—sorry for implying that I meant that.”
I grabbed her face. “I do love you, Rainey. I think I loved you back in high school, but I was afraid of what everyone else would say. I’ve always had feelings for you.”
“Do you care what people say now, Zack?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then don’t push me away. Let me be here for you.”
“Why would you want to? What I’m dealing with is horrible.”
“I want to because I love you, Zack. I’ve been in love with you since seventh grade, and I would do anything for you. That includes being here with you as you go through one of the toughest moments of your life.”
I smiled down at her, and then I leaned forward and kissed her tenderly. “You are incredible. You know that?”
“Not really.”
“No, you are. You always have been.”
Beverly popped her head into the room. “Your father is awake.”
I stood, taking Rainey’s hand in mine. “Do you want to come up and see my father with me?”
She curled her fingers around mine. “Of course I do. I’d love to see your father again.”
Upstairs we stepped in, and my father turned watery eyes our way. “Dad, I’m not sure if you remember Rainey Caldwell, but she was friends with us when we were kids. She stopped by to see you.”
He studied Rainey for a moment, and the hint of a smile touched his lips. “Rainbow,” he said as he held out his hand to her.
“Yes, Rainbow is what they used to call me,” Rainey said as she came around the hospital bed and took my father’s hand without hesitation.
He searched her face. “You’re still a beautiful girl.” He looked at me. “I always thought you should have dated her in high school. She would have been the perfect girl for you.”
I laughed slightly. “You should have told me that. Might have saved me quite a few years of bad relationships.”
He smiled a little bigger. “I did try to tell you that, but—” He paused and closed his eyes, struggling to breathe for a moment. “You wouldn’t listen.”
I sank beside him, putting my hand over the one that held Rainey’s. “Yeah, well, you’ll be happy to know that I’m listening now, Dad.”
My father smiled and looked between us for a moment. “About time.” A tear slipped down his cheek before he closed his eyes and drifted back off to sleep.
* * *
My father never opened his eyes again, and four days later, he passed peacefully when Rainey and I were out of the room eating. It was heartbreaking to know he was gone, but as Rainey hugged me tightly, I realized that the one thing I feared the most about his death wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to be alone.
My father had practically forced me to go on that cruise, and I hadn’t wanted to go, but now as I think about it, maybe he knew that I’d find the love that I’d been searching for on the high seas. It’s too bad I hadn’t listened to him when I was younger, but at least I’d been able to let him know I’d be alright after he was gone. I knew that was all he worried about anyway. Maybe the fact that Rainey had come here and he’d seen us together had given him the peace to move on.
Rainey and I stood at my father’s gravesite two months later when his gravestone was finally delivered. After I’d placed flowers in his vase, I turned on my shaky knee and removed a ring from my pocket.
“Rainey, I honestly think that it was my father that helped me bring you back into my life, and it only seems fitting to do this here for him to bear witness.”
Rainey’s eyes misted as she covered her lips with the tips of her fingers.
“Will you marry me, Rainbow Caldwell, and make all my days sunshine and happiness?”
She laughed, the sound so bright and cheery that I knew my father could not only hear it but feel it in heaven. “Yes, Zack, I’ll marry you, even if you have to use that stupid nickname.”
I slipped the ring on her finger and then stood, taking her face in my hands. “That nickname defines you, the most incredible beauty on this earth.”
“I love you, Zack.”
“I love you, too, Rainey.”
After we kissed, we started back to the car, but Rainey gasped and looked off to the east. I followed her line of vision, and tears filled my eyes as I followed the beautiful lines of the rainbow from one side to the other.
“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered huskily as I tucked her against me, and we stood right there watching it until it faded away.
The End
