Jeffrey closed the door softly, leaning to rest his head against the familiar wood. He couldn't imagine anywhere else on earth he would call home. When he closed his eyes, scenes played in his mind like a slideshow.
Batty dancing around in her wings, Jane chopping off her long curls, Rosalind and Tommy's first kiss, but most of all, Skye.
Skye playing soccer. Skye in her camo hat at Arundel. Skye splashing into the lake.
He felt as though he was floating away while he watched Skye grow up, seconds in place of years. They had always been together. What had changed? Why did she push him away when all he wanted was to be near her?
Sighing, he turned to walk down the well-trodden sidewalk towards his car.
It was a long ride home. At first he tried to focus on driving, but every time Jeffery's mind wandered, Skye grew more beautiful and painfully far away.
When he had decided the struggle was useless, he pulled a picture out of his wallet. It was from the summer when they were fifteen. Skye had been captured mid-laugh, her muddy hands tangled in the hair of a somewhat annoyed, but mostly amused Jeffery. She had jumped on his back during a mud fight and chaos had ensued.
That was one of the last good days.
Whatever song was playing on the radio had just ended, and Jeffery froze as a new one began. The words sliced through his chest, straight to his sore heart like soft deadly arrows.
"Loving can hurt. Loving can hurt sometimes. But it's the only thing that I know."
Skye was what he knew. The only thing he truly knew was that he loved her. And the realization of this was too much. Fingers gripping the picture harder now, he yelled at her in his mind.
Why do you make me feel this? Why you? This is the worst pain I've ever felt and it's your fault! Why do you hate me, Skye Magee Penderwick?
A single tear fell and every wall he'd been building inside himself collapsed.
"We keep this love in a photograph, we made these memories for ourselves.
Where our eyes are never closing, hearts are never broken," -an audible sob- "time's forever frozen still."
All Jeffery wanted was for her to see, to realize that he would never stop loving her.
She was his world, his sun, his Skye. And nothing could change that. Once you love someone as deeply as that, there is no going back.
Someday she would see.
He forced himself to believe that she would, that one day she would run into his arms, and tell him she loved him.
Jeffery's fingers brushed the photo, tracing Skye's beautiful face.
As he pulled into the driveway, he whispered,
"Wait for me to come home."