*This chapter includes a gif and 2 sketches done by myself. You can find them on Ao3, even if you're a guest (when you copy and paste this in your browser bar, remove all spaces and add a period where I've typed "period" before org): archive of our own (period) org /works/27153388/chapters/83621026
Sweetest Readers,
There are 3 song quotes/links included in this chapter (because you expected nothing less from me right? *wink*). Not only do they mean so much to me and had a lot to do with the creation of this chapter, but I believe they're in keeping with the spirit of each scene and lend a lot of intense feeling to the chapter. I know not everyone can or wants to listen to them, and that's ok. But I encourage you to if you can. And if it's not your thing but you're willing to give just one a try, listen to the first song! It's one of my absolute favorite songs on planet earth and really embodies the chapter's opening scene.
Remember that there will be a few more chapters after this!
Readers, readers! There isn't much I can say to prelude this ever-meaningful chapter except to say that it's the product of almost a year of dwelling and is the penultimate culmination of three stories worth of work. And, that it's quite dear to me.
I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
Love to all,
Rosie
"You are the moonlight in the sky that I'm pursuing.
You are the reason for what I'm doing.
You are the crystalline that keeps me from my ruin.
You are the movement.
You're the true north pointing back home.
You are the constant, my constellation.
You're the steady hands
of a ticking clock that I've come to rely on.
.
Oh, it's so clear.
Come a little closer, all of my love is right here.
I just want to hear you whispering you still trust.
You're the only thing that I have ever been sure of.
I just wanna be where you are.
I promise I won't let you down.
Honey, it's so clear now.
.
You are the four winds.
You're the catalyst of high hopes.
You are the beauty, the spark's revival.
You're the oxygen inside these lungs
That's giving life to my bones.
.
Oh, it's so clear.
Come a little closer, all of my love is right here.
I just want to hear you whispering you still trust.
You're the only thing that I have ever been sure of.
I just wanna be where you are.
I promise I… I won't let you down.
Honey, it's so clear now.
.
Feels like heaven is comin' down.
It's right here with me, it's all around.
I once was so lost, but I am found
when I'm with you.
No one's watching the way you move.
Bodies dancing under the moon.
You always know just what to do
when I'm with you.
When I'm with you."
- Needtobreathe, "Clear"
you tu . be/-3u-emDRLh4
.
"Arthur…" the voice whispered again as he spun.
"Arthur…" it beckoned gently, somehow sounding far away and close at the same time.
He turned back around. He didn't see anyone, anyone at all.
"Arthur," he heard a definite voice say. Quiet, but clear as his own heartbeat.
With a jolt, he turned once more and had to snag himself to a halt when he saw her—a handsome young woman with a white daisy in her honey blonde hair that cascaded in silken waves about her shoulders, dressed in a simple pale blue prairie frock. Not a day over twenty-six, not a speck of makeup on her stunning face, and with a soft, hazy, kind smile on her mouth.
Something somehow both deeply painful and ever dear immediately leapt up into his chest and flourished there at the sight of her. Truthfully, it had been a few years since he'd seen that face. And he'd been living expecting never to see it again.
She looked as though she belonged here—like she'd sprung up from the tender soil with the other wildflowers. Maybe she had.
"My sweet Arthur," she smiled.
'My sweet Arthur,' he'd heard. Her own. Had he ever been? Ever let himself be? And to call him sweet. After everything.
If he thought back, one of his final discussions with her on his very last visit before they were taken, was charged with pain, frustration, disappointment, sorrow, and miscommunication. Though he knew it was only because she'd never let go, never stopped hoping—for his life's good, and for his love. And then, for him to have ever walked away from her a single time.
Sweet? He wanted to shake his head. He was anything but.
Those eyes… Pale jade green irises with the tiniest flecks of kelly and amber gold. Eyes that seemed so deep, he could fall into them a ways. And they were trained on his.
It was like she knew something he didn't. Had they always been that way—wise and knowing? He felt certain he remembered that about her eyes. But even so, now, in this moment, there was something altogether different and new there, something he'd never seen before in the eyes of another person.
As he stood there, he had a vague awareness that the two of them were framed by a periphery of fiercely raw and delicately intricate wilderness; but he simply couldn't take his eyes away from Eliza. His Eliza, more radiant than ever. And as he took in the sight of her, he was wholly and thoroughly overcome by disbelief, not just that someone like her could come near someone like him, and not just that she wanted him. He was overwhelmed by the reality of her deep trust, her friendship, her faithfulness. Her love.
He watched her beautiful mouth, still familiar to him, slowly pull up into a pensive and wistful smile.
"This is still the one you like best," she said quietly, foggily, almost as if to herself. "Me too," she smiled. And in the next few moments, the same smile transformed itself into a subtly playful grin. "Though..." she sang in a lilting tone, "that little bit in the sixties was kinda fun, don't you think?" She clasped her hands behind her waist and spun at the hip just a bit. "And I thought you'd like the '56 Cadillac."
His gaze darted back and forth between her eyes as understanding began to clatter around in his head like the disorganized clangs of steel pots and pans.
"Wait. Wait," he willed her to slow down and his understanding to speed itself up. "W-wha..." he stuttered, all the while noticing it was all she could do to bite her lip to keep from erupting into a flight of fluttery giggles.
"All them dreams I been havin'," he lifted his right forearm and vaguely pointed somewhere to his left, "even..." his head quickly darted all around, "even this one, and all that...crazy...hullabaloo it took to get here?" he hurried to say in a slightly risen tone, finally meeting her eyes again. And he couldn't keep from smiling at the silent cackles that racked her shoulders just a bit and tinted her face a blossom shade of pink. "All that was you?"
"Sort of," she said with a steady voice, her smile turning soft and reserved as she offered a couple nods. "When I saw you were dreamin' of us, I helped...just a little bit," she lifted her first finger and thumb pinched closely together in the air, with a quick dip of her head to the side. "With the things you couldn't have known. But you had the reins. Waited 'til you'd given me a full picture of what you wished for, and then I kinda redirected your dreams from there. Like a train on tracks."
"From the start, I…" her voice grew quiet, and she took a single step toward him, letting her gaze wade down over his face and back up into his bright blue-green eyes as her expression smoothed, "I wanted to know...how you felt about us. How you really felt. Without all the fears, without any shame, or...pressures or…worry twistin' you up."
She blinked, and her gaze faltered just a bit. "Took us a while to get there, what with all the pain you've got stuffed away. But we got there…didn't we?" A tiny, huffed laugh escaped her nostrils as a bright grin briefly flashed across her face, and she tucked her chin in to the side towards her chest a moment. "You've got quite a beautiful imagination there, Arthur Morgan." She began to lift her left hand and gently rested it to his cheek. "Nobody would believe it, if they didn't know you. Like I do."
He watched her mouth upturn into the softest of grins as she whispered, "My sweet Arthur."
With his next thought, he was clapped with the full realization: just how real the sensation of the tender pads of her palm and fingers felt against his face. Her hand wasn't falling through him like a fog; she wasn't something he'd made up. There were no façades.
His gaze flashed up to her eyes then; and almost as if reading his thoughts, he could see her answer there.
I really am here with you.
Resting a hand over hers and bringing it to his chest, he leaned in to kiss her.
Before he got close enough, she suddenly yanked away, her smile brightening as she ran from him with a melodious giggle. He watched as she skirted barefoot through the flowers, looking back over her shoulder at him.
When he saw her vivid smile, that thing took flight from within his chest and left him with her. As if yanked himself, he darted after her, and she immediately laughed as she turned back around and picked up speed. He heard her giggle and watched her grin as she looked back at him once again. He watched her golden hair fly loosely behind her in the breeze.
The kind of love that steals you away, body and soul, and you don't mind if you ever really get it back, he heard in his head, spoken in her own voice. The little musing scribbled in the margin of a dog-eared page of Scripture that had inadvertently floated from the bodice of her gown all those years ago, when Isaac was just a babe. That's the way I love him.
Through the silvery blue mist of midday meeting night, they dashed and flitted through the long prairie heather and myriad wildflowers. Lovers, loving each other with the full, unbridled power of children's love. Dancing, trusting, giving in the way it loves so fully. And he felt it. In those moments, he felt it, and he realized it had always been there. Simply clouded by the dingy weights of life, and now magnified and clear.
When he finally caught up to her and slung his arm around her waist, she let out a little squeal and a subsequent cackle as her feet flew forward into the air. Once he let her back down and she secured her footing and slowly turned around in his arms to face him, he let her catch her breath.
She looked up into his eyes, and before another moment passed, he felt her slip her hand into the right pocket of his pants.
He looked down between them to find her coming away with two gold wedding bands, foreign to him, and holding them between her thumb and first finger.
Lifting her gaze up to him from the gleaming rings, she remarked quietly with an easy but faint, burgeoning grin, "Adam and Eve had a perfect officiant, you know."
Briefly looking back and forth between her eyes, his expression filled with understanding and his face smoothed into a small but open smile as he lifted his head and slowly brought it down with a nod.
Taking the rings from her, he was suddenly lost in wonder at this, the moment he'd somehow been given, though he'd never lived it—literally the woman of his dreams, the mother of his child, the bearer of his heart, ripped away and returned to him, now asking him to marry her. Her, in all her steadfast hope and trust and love.
It was more than he could've even known to wish for while he'd been asleep. And he'd never felt so thoroughly loved, and so wanted, in all his life. It trickled through him like a new river, filling every crack in every depth of his soul.
The emotion overcame him as he shifted his feet where he stood and looked down, his face reddening a bit and the vein in his forehead rising in stark relief. He swallowed hard as he slid one of the bands on her left ring finger, and the other on his own.
Though she remained still, Eliza's gaze closely followed his face.
Arthur took a breath and brought his fingers up to gently touch her cheek. She was really here with him. He could feel her. He traced her soft cheek until his fingertips rested at her jaw. He could feel her.
This time, he would not let his chance get away.
"I love you, Eliza."
Squeezing her eyes shut tight, a whimpered, piercing cry ripped from her throat. She sucked in a sharp, squealed intake of air, her breath at war with her crying. And when she next let her quivered breath out again, Arthur was there, leaning close and tipping his head to the right a bit, slowly and gently meeting her lips again and again as she sputtered choked sobs and wept.
Feeling him press his lips to the tops of her cheek to kiss her tears away, she brought both trembling hands up to weakly cup either side of his jaw. Her whimpers grew mumbled as she struggled to focus on kissing him back. And suddenly, she felt a little burst of joyous laughter break through and jostle her shoulders.
"You're a hard man to read, Arthur Morgan," quietly arose through her broken, sniffled chuckles.
"Naw," he whispered, drawing back just enough to look her in the eyes. "You knew. I tried not to be cruel, but I lied outright to you. Lied to myself, mostly. I did love you. I do. As hard as I tried to deny it. The simple truth is, I love you." A smile slowly broadened across his mouth. "God, does it feel good to say that."
She smiled bright at the sound, her eyes quickly filling again as she collapsed onto his shoulder.
"You knew before I did," he drawled with a smile as he held her, softly stroking her back with his big, warm hand. "Couldn't quite tell you when it happened. All I know is it was early, and that I have for a long, long...long time." He grinned at the sound of the chirp that leapt out of her. "And there's just so much of it. It fills me up, all a' me, right to the top."
She choked out another little laugh and threw her arms around his neck. The sobs wouldn't stop coming if she'd tried.
He slowly drew back and gently brought his hands to each side of her face, brushing a tear away with his thumb. "Oh, baby, don't cry. Please," he whispered slowly. "You spent enough of your life cryin'."
She bit her lip as she smiled and shook her head, only managing to whisper as they looked into each other's eyes, "I just... There were times, I...I thought we'd never get here."
As his expression relaxed, he smirked and rested his forehead against hers, and they both closed their eyes and just breathed each other in for several moments.
When they finally glanced down at each other's mouths and up into each other's eyes again, they met for a tender kiss, each movement languid, filled with intention and purpose. There was an absence of any apprehension or rush as hands came to collars and freed buttons from their loops. And only breaking their kiss enough to lift Arthur's shirt up over his head, off the gown, off every stitch on either of them inevitably came, slipping in pools of fabric to the floor of lush prairie grass and wildflowers.
As she slid her hands around to his back and pressed him to her, he let his own roam freely, determined to commit every inch of her, every sight, every breath and every sound, not only to his memory but to whatever it was that made up his soul. When he saw her eyes flash to his shoulder, felt her lips press to the crest of the angle of his jaw, he realized she was doing the very same to him.
Caressing the back of her head, he gently, carefully lowered her into the soft grass so they might have a better hold on each other. Soon they were breathlessly tumbling in the grass amidst the wildflowers, tangled in each other in the garden.
Arthur took his time, his hands and fingers ever so slowly tracing Eliza's every soft curve, every part of her, letting himself remember what it was like to touch his love, and to feel her touch. This, the constellation of beauty marks on her chest, the silken swell of her breasts where they slid slightly to each side; here, the warmth of the smooth, velvet plane of her belly. There, the firm arch of her freckled shoulder. The lush valleys of each muscle as they moved between her shoulder blades, the splendid dip and dimples in the small of her back, and the sumptuous flare of her hip. And everywhere he traced, his mouth followed closely behind, his lips grazing her gently, and pressing at points to her plush skin.
But he found it no simple task to trace her; she was doing the very same to himself. Sliding her palms across the planes of his chest, slipping them over the inclined muscles in his sturdy shoulders, down the slope of his back to his own dimples, and trailing her fingertips along the broad underside of his back. Resting her hands on the bulk of his solid thighs, kissing the natural creases near his hip bone, the soft, subtle ridges in his abdomen, the dips in his throat. She softly traced the veins in his arms and the backs of his hands, letting her fingers dance and intertwine between his.
When Arthur finally found that tender space of hers unseen, she took an inward breath, mirrored by a hitched breath of his own as he buried his face in the goldenrod hair cascading near her neck for just a moment. But the hiding didn't last.
It was slowly heaving chests, rolling with the warm dew of breath on skin. It was the full, aching sweetness of lifetimes of longing finally met and fulfilled to overflowing. Longing to be known well, and to know well; to love well, and to be loved well. To be one. And to draw apart for even an instant felt a thing too much to bear, just too painful to endure.
"Tell me…" he whispered as he kissed the soft space underneath her jaw, "am I makin' love to a bonafide angel right now?"
She drew back just enough to look at him and smiled brightly.
He chuckled against her skin in her crook of her neck. "Look at me now. Who woulda thought."
As he raked his fingers back into her cool silken hair, she closed her eyes and let out a fluttery sigh. "It's me you love, is it? Me? Say it again," she said ever so softly, a downward slope to the pitch of her hopeful plea, an echo of the aching hunger of her heart.
"I love you, Eliza."
As her breath caught, she smiled and bit her lip, tears pricking her eyes. "Oh..." she whimpered weakly. "Again."
"I love you." He'd never hold back from her again. He'd make up for the years of painful loneliness and uncertainty his fear had put her through. He'd speak it as many times as she needed. "I love you. More than those words can carry."
She was filled with a giddy, effervescent joy, and even through her tears, she couldn't hold down the small, squeaked giggles that bubbled up. "I love you too," she was quick to whisper.
"I've always known," he said quietly between kisses as he worked his way up her neck, and golden strands of her hair caught and draped across the top of his head. "And your love is like food to me. No, it…it's like air."
A weak, mumbled croak of a whimper rose through her throat, and her sagging eyes slid to him as she said in an even and cautionary tone, "Don't let yourself go without air in your lungs anymore, Arthur."
After sharing the glowing, euphoric waves of united bliss that flooded them and the beautiful, trembling shudders of vulnerability they were both racked with, they lied side by side with arms and legs tangled, bare feet and toes winding together in the tranquil blades of grass, just looking at each other for a few minutes.
It was when Eliza came and rested her chin on his chest looking down at him that he couldn't help but reach out and trace her face: her cheeks, her lips, her jaw, her chin, her eyes and brows. She indulged him with a gentle smile.
"Memorizin' ya," he said with a small grin.
"Oh?" she smirked.
He nodded. "Memorizin' my Liza…" he almost sang, his sweet grin spreading just a bit more as he looked at her and chuckled, softly tracing the outline of the bow of her top lip, the edge of her plump bottom one. "You ain't aged a day since I last saw ya. Not a day."
Smiling, she slowly looked his face over in return. "Your crows' feet came in nicely." Still resting her chin on his chest, her grin brightened when she saw him chuff a laugh.
Propping herself up on her elbow, she slipped a hand to the base of her head under her hair and grinned down at him with a playful, gleeful smile, though full of rest.
She softly traced his crows' feet with her fingertip, but her gaze was caught by his forehead. Not lifting her fingertip from his skin, she slid it up to trace the lines there and the deep ravines angled towards the center of his brows. Her expression faintly sagged, knowing they signaled years of living in such intense pain, anger, and worry. She finally pressed her thumb into his skin to force further relaxation of the muscles underneath.
Obeying her gesture to release the tension he hadn't even realized he was carrying there, he sighed through his nose and closed his eyes just a moment.
"But such deep lines here," she said softly. "And so many."
Opening his eyes again to look at her, he took in a deep breath, filling his chest, and let it out. "What'd you expect?"
Her eyes slowly drifted down to where she fiddled with the hair at his chest with her free hand, and she imagined the fierce look in his face that such lines could produce. She looked up at him with a knowing gaze. "Losing us. It ripped a ravine in your heart."
He nodded. "Straight down the middle, from the top, right down to the bottom."
She sniffed and nodded. "But I know that heart, Arthur. The rich depths of your soul," she was hasty to add. "You knew pain before us, and you've known pain since. And it doesn't change the heart inside. You've got so much love, and kindness, and compassion in you, just waitin', just achin' for the chance to burst out."
Ruefully, his gaze left hers as he looked down to where a small bunch of her hair fit perfectly between his thumb and first finger, and he gently rolled it with a back-and-forth motion of the pads of his fingers.
It wasn't that he couldn't abide being open and vulnerable with Eliza. It was simply the sheer stringency of the pain of the wounded nerve laid bare that she was expertly inching her way towards.
And now, to have seen their possible life in dreams, to know, as it turned out, what might've been. They'd just barely touched with the tip of a finger, the looking glass of their hopes and longings—like a membrane or the surface of placid water, nothing but atoms separating itself from either the firmament of the heavens or the bustling array of life beneath—unknowing that their life together had been all but waiting on the other side.
The one thought sent him to another, regarding what he'd found out she'd been doing while he was away, and he was glad for the shift in topic.
"I didn't know, all that time. You…" he whispered. "All that money I was givin' you…"
Her small smile faltered slightly.
"You gave so much of it away."
"I'm…" She swallowed. "Oh, Arthur, I hope you don't think I was ever ungrateful."
"No." He quickly shook his head and touched her cheek. "No, I love you all the more for it."
He rose up on his forearm, causing them to lie side by side again, and cradled the back of her head, gently kissing her again.
When he drew back, she opened her eyes and looked into his. "He asked me what love is."
It took him a moment as he looked back and forth into her eyes, his own quickly filling. "Isaac?" came his ragged breath as he watched her nod. "You…you're with him? You—" He watched her nod. "Kid's okay?"
He tried to catch his breath and reached a jittery hand up over his mouth. But both hands ended up completely covering his face when he felt tears spill out of his own eyes, and he fell backwards onto the grass, weeping for the first time in what felt like thirty years.
"He's doin' just fine," Eliza said in a calm but quivering tone as she leaned over him, pressing a hand to his chest to reassure him and quickly beginning to cry herself. In all her time with him, she'd never once seen him shed a single tear. "He's so sweet, so beautiful. So kind and brave and smart. Just as he always was. He's just like you, Arthur. He is. You'd be so proud of him. So proud." She tried to gently pull his hands away from his face. "Arthur, please! Look at me," she cried, her voice quivering with the last words, though she'd managed it loudly and clearly.
He finally relented and looked back at her, pressing the heels of his hands tightly to his forehead and wiping his palms over his face again. "I'm so ashamed, Eliza. So ashamed."
When she saw the state of his face, eyes a bit puffy and red, lashes wet and glistening, Eliza's heart sifted and crumpled like sand. It was a physical state she'd never seen him in, so thoroughly struck to the quick with fear and shame, sorrow and repentance; as tender and timid about it as a little child.
She had to sniff and wipe her own tears away. "He doesn't fault you, Arthur. I want you to know that."
"He was a six-year-old kid, Eliza!" he said, his stuffed nose making his voice sound just a bit pinched. "How much about it can he possibly understand?"
Her eyes crimped. "Things are…different…on the other side." She swallowed. "But what happened… You're just so angry about it, Arthur. With the world, with yourself. It's a fire that's on it's way to eatin' you alive."
"I could hardly stop it. Ain't like anyone could blame me, hun."
"But you even ended up like the men you hate most, the ones who took our l—"
"Don't—" he sighed. "Please," he brought his hands over his face, and when he let them fall again, she saw how wearily he looked away. "I live in constant agony, Eliza. I can't get away from it 'cause it's inside me. Please. Don't even bring them up. Not here. Please."
"Arthur… You're just so furious, it's made you into somethin' you're not; it's brought you borderin' on cold and warped inside. Such that, many times I don't recognize you, and it scares me so I can hardly bear to watch. It's exactly what I didn't want for you—you remember?"
He nodded and lifted a hand to her neck under her splayed hair. "Eliza…" he breathed. "You always did believe in me, even when I gave you cause to despise me. You were more than you thought you were to me. You became a dear friend."
"I do believe in you. And I always will. But you need to believe in yourself, Arthur. That you can do the right, the good thing." But she couldn't get through to him as long as he was revisiting the past.
"You were both very precious to me. Just didn't know how much 'til it was too late. Don't know how I coulda been so blind." He sighed and wagged his head. "It was all wrong, the way it went. You were so young, Eliza—so good and innocent. Most of it was all my fault. And there was a ticking clock put on your life from the moment you met me. I don't think I'll ever get over that, for as long as I live."
Still propping herself up by her forearm, she drew back and shook her head, sniffing as she looked away at nothing. "The story of me… It was short, wasn't it? And I was so afraid…so afraid that it would mean nothing." She looked at him. "But it didn't. It didn't mean nothing, Arthur."
He swallowed hard. "When I think back on it these days…" he said, his eyes growing red as he looked into her face, "I realize…" He scoffed and shook his head. "It's so hard for me to say this, Eliza, but… even with what happened to you both, even with how it ended… God." His face contorted, and he shook his head, trying hard to bite the words out. "I think… I really do think you were both the best thing to ever happen to me. And I know, because…because even though it's the worst pain I've ever known," he watched her face crumple as a reflection of his own, "I'm still grateful beyond words that I knew you. That you were both in my life. That you're both part of me. But I know it makes me selfish," his voice pinched and broke slightly, "'cause I was the worst thing to happen to you."
She shook her head, the tears gathering quickly. "I had a hard life. Some of it happened to me, some of it I chose. But even with everything the way it was…I do not regret choosing you, Arthur. I don't. Understand? You understand me?" she said, brushing her thumb over the beauty mark on his cheek, taking his neck behind his jaw in her hand and jostling him just a bit. "You and Isaac were my whole world. And Isaac loves you with his entire being."
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. "How can you be this way? So kind, so forgivin'."
He drew back to look at her and brushed her hair from her forehead. "I shoulda stayed with you. Think of it, hun," he grinned. "I coulda courted you like a regular dandy," he smiled brightly at the sound of her laugh. "Married ya, settled down, made lots of babies with ya—on purpose," he smirked and nuzzled under her hair to kiss her neck. "And I coulda felt 'em movin' around in your belly like I missed out on with Isaac, and helped name 'em."
"And you coulda been the kind a' mama you were born to be," he continued, "the kind you deserve to be: bright and beaming, smilin' as you drew 'em to you, with a good, lovin' man by your side to help and care for you." He smiled softly. "And you could teach me to be a good daddy, the kind your pa was to you." He watched her eyes fill up with longing and tears at the picture he'd painted. "That was what you wanted, wasn't it, since you were a little girl?"
She didn't have to nod. When he saw a solemn tear slowly stream down her cheek despite her smile, he clenched his jaw and hardened towards himself. "Leavin' you two… It was what I thought'd keep you safe. But it was the very thing that damned me. I shoulda stayed with both a' you." He shook his head. "Still ain't sure how I coulda managed it though."
She slowly frowned and swallowed. "There's only so much I can say to you, Arthur. Only certain things. You have to make your own choices. But the anger and the heavy burden you place on yourself…" she shook her head, fiddling again with the hair on his chest. "There's…someone else…" She finally sighed. "You shouldn't be the one to bear the brunt of that, is all I'll say."
"Liza." He watched her perk up at the sound of his pet name for her, a name that had only made its way out of his mouth when he was feeling affectionate—something in itself that he'd left her craving more of, more often than he should've when she was alive. "I miss that kid somethin' fierce." He looked into her eyes, a light sparking his own as a thought jumped into his mind. "Think you could bring him with you next time?"
Her eyes sagged, and she slowly shook her head. "It won't be happenin' that way, Arthur." Her next words were slow and careful and measured. "He… He won't be comin' to you."
His brows scrunched together, then his eyes shot wide as he pointed to his own chest. "You…you mean…I…?"
She swallowed and took a short breath, quickly letting it out. "You never asked me what I said to him, when he asked me what love is."
Though he took note of the solemnity in her eyes, he smiled gently and felt his body relax in the knowledge that he was about to hear something that without doubt would've been good for him to hear many years ago: the definition of love from his little woman. He lifted a hand and brushed a stray strand from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear the way he had a feeling she'd always liked. "What'd you tell him?"
Keeping her eyes down on her hands where they rested on his chest, she answered, "I said it's the sunshine that fills our hearts when we think about each other; it's forgiveness; it's making sure someone knows they'll always have someone to turn to."
"I said that more than anything," she continued, "it's when you choose to give your life for someone, in life or in death." Her eyes slid up to meet his, a rim of tears at the bottom of them. "I said it's somethin' his pa never knew he had in him."
Her brows drew up as she pressed a hand higher up on his chest and spoke hastily, knowing him well enough to know he may be on the verge of objecting, once again. "You got so much love and compassion in you, Arthur. More than you ever knew. More than I even knew. It's just mixed up in there with a lot of other painful things. And you're bein' made to put it away, in favor of the other things."
She nodded forlornly. "But it'll all come out, all of it—the good and the bad. And you'll have to finish it, before you can come home to us one last time."
He watched her eyes fill full, and he began to feel uneasy. Whatever it was, she could hardly bring herself to think on it. He lifted a hand to her face and watched her tears overflow, watched her eyes draw together so painfully as she pressed her cheek deep into the cushion of his hand.
She took a ragged breath. "It'll be awful hard for you, Arthur. I'm not lookin' forward to watchin' it." She tried to smile and came close to rest her cheek on his chest. "But I know you'll find the strength," she whispered. "You just remember what I told you, those years ago: it's never too late to change."
Looking up at the clear, tranquil sky, he breathed in the sweet scent of her and felt her warm skin beneath his hands. "I don't know if you remember the world I'm livin' in, honey, but…it's harsh, and fierce. It burns up all that love and compassion you're talkin' about. Consumes it, scorches it to ashes. Don't leave room for nothin' to come back."
She shook her head against his chest and propped herself up to look down at him. "I know what you're talkin' about, Arthur, I lived it. And I know it feels that way." She took a breath. "I was once told that… 'only fools hold onto hope'," she said slowly. "Those words are nothin' but a plain ol' lie. A lie. That's all," she said gravely and firmly. "Where ashes once fell, new life grows, quiet but strong, every time. It's resilient by nature. That's part of the mystery. Life and love will always triumph, Arthur. Always."
Looking over her face, he let out a long sigh through his nose. "I'll try to remember."
Her face relaxed into a soft smile. "Good." She leaned forward and softly brushed her lips to his before pressing them there for a clicking kiss.
After a few like that, they mutually deepened the kiss until they were closing their eyes, giving into it, getting lost in it for several moments.
Arthur reached his big hand up the back of her neck into her hair and let himself enjoy it—both the intimacy of the closeness, and the delight of each sensation.
Before long, she was planting soft, quick kisses in a row down his neck like seeds, and he was closing his eyes and listening to her sighs and the sloppy, languid clicks against his skin.
"I'm so proud of you," he suddenly heard her whisper.
He arched a brow. "Wha-ha…" he laughed low and incredulous, blinking his eyes open. "Me?" he squeaked.
"Uh-huh," she sighed agreement in the midst of an open-mouthed kiss, with a burgeoning grin as her cheek brushed against his short scruff.
"Why me?" he drawled, the bright, wry grin audible in the groggy tone of his voice as it tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Because-" she mumbled against his skin, working her way back up to his mouth and pressing a short kiss there before drawing away to hover and look at him. "Because even with all the abuse and trauma and loss, all the heartache, anger, and loneliness," she said quietly, tucking a dangling clump of hair behind her ear, "you still find reasons to smile that beautiful smile. To laugh that contagious laugh."
When understanding filled his face, she watched him silently balk and haw, the way she knew only he did—all bashful half-smirks and the beginnings of heated blushing, finally leading to a dramatically sardonic eye roll.
But when he was finished, he looked back at her with a warm smile and a knowing gaze, and she knew he was thankful for being forced to consider such a thing.
"That spark in your eyes that beams like a lighthouse in the dark," she whispered, looking up and running her fingers through the tawny chestnut hair near his hairline. "And you show kindness, even when you don't realize you're doin' it, Arthur."
He blinked slowly, letting his mouth rise into the relaxed smirk that it wanted to.
"Because of that big, tender heart you got—" she quickly dug her fingers into his side, needing to see his full smile. She laughed outright at the sudden and dramatic, choked huff it produced from him when he played as if he'd been kicked in the midsection and winded. They both knew he wasn't ticklish there, but that he was happy to play along for her.
With a deep, wry grin, he rose up on his forearm and eyed her as she slowly retreated to her side. "You don't wanna play that with me, baby."
Smiling wide, she scrunched her nose and nodded strongly, tucking her chin to her neck with each nod.
"Oh, you do?" he said with lifted brows and mock shock.
Already giggling low and demure, she could only nod again, scrunching up her shoulders and arms and holding her palms up to prepare for the strike of his expert tickles.
"'Cause I could count your ribs for ya, if you needed 'em counted." Hovering over her as she lied back nibbling at her lip, her golden hair splayed in loosely spun ribbons in the grass, he dug two fingertips into the side of her soft waist, right where he knew she was extra sensitive.
When she jolted and sucked in a big gasp with a loud laugh, involuntarily kicking up her knees and cackling, he smiled bright and lost himself in chuckles and wheezes. But he was relentless in gently wiggling his fingers right beneath her ribs and pinching across the tops of the ridges they made beside her breast. "Make sure they're all there," he said warmly, with an adoring grin.
When he stopped and she finally let out several long, weary moans and sighs dotted by truncated giggles, he hovered over her with a wide smile and sighed through his nose. "Never did get tired a' that sound."
Eliza adjusted her head in the grass a bit and looked up at him. His face was just a touch pink, the vein in his forehead risen just a bit. But it wasn't from anger or frustration. As she looked over his face, she easily knew—it was an imprint of elation and glee.
"Oh, how I love you," he whispered, the effects of his grin still written on his face. He leaned forward and only just touched his lips to hers, slowly pressing into her supple skin until their lips quietly clicked. Drawing back, he began gently, earnestly pressing kisses into the corner of her mouth, along her jaw, the side of her neck, and around to the soft front of her throat.
So he knew something was weighing on her mind before she opened her mouth: she'd had to swallow hard.
"Arthur?"
"Hm?" But he had to get a few more kisses in where he was still focused on her neck.
Again, she had to swallow. "There's one more thing...I wanna be sure to say to you."
He finally pulled back just a bit and propped himself on his forearms. And settling himself with his bare belly flush to hers, he tucked one of his forearms underneath her back to fold her in close to him. "What is it, honey? Hm? You tell me. I'm right here. I'm listenin'."
She was quickly becoming flustered and overcome with emotion, finding it difficult to speak. "I know that..." She cleared her throat and tried to start again. "I know that, from the outside..." she said, her gaze flitting down. But she forced herself to look back up into his. "I know that...it might be easy for anyone to think of what we had as nothin' more than just...a moment in time," she continued, though he was already shaking his head, "and an accident. A season in your life. That I'm...just a waitress. Just a girl. And that Isaac and I…we aren't much a part of your story."
He shook his head more emphatically. And keeping his eyes locked with hers, he felt himself slowly sliding into the grass beside her until they were lying face to face. And though they were completely exposed to an endless array of rugged, wild beauty, the two of them were none the wiser to it; they might as well have been scrunched up together into a single-spaced cot, whispering hushed and earnest things to each other under the sheet by the warm amber light of the kerosene lamp that filtered through.
Eliza's breathing was hitching now, as she tried to steady herself. Her words would only come out in strained whispers. "But don't you dare," she sucked in a quiet breath, "don't you dare let yourself believe it was nothing." Her eyes were filling, and she almost hiccupped a breath. "It was everything to me," she squinted, her tears threatening to spill over.
He nodded fervent agreement. "Was everything to me too."
She sniffed, and her brows drew up deeply at the sound. "Don't forget me," she went into a softer whisper for a moment, brushing her thumb across his cheek. "Don't drop us from your hand, and leave us by the wayside, where we can't be remembered." Her lashes grew wet and heavy. "You might forget details," she conceded quietly with a couple weak nods as she tried to lift her voice to normal speaking volume. "But don't erase us from your heart."
He shook his head. "I won't."
"Don't you ever," she said, the last word sharp and fierce in its desperation.
"I won't, Eliza."
"Say it."
"I'll never erase you from my heart. I never will. I swear to you. I never will."
Satisfied as she looked at him, her breathing began to smooth again, though the dew still lingered atop her cheeks. He kissed them away, kissed her closed eyelids as the of them tucked in as close as they could and held each other.
After several minutes of simply breathing each other in and resting in each other's arms, Eliza looked up and past him at the tranquil hues of pale blue and turquoise near the horizon.
She propped herself up a bit and sighed as she looked down at him, her voice quiet and resigned. "We better get goin'."
They rose and dressed, out of nothing more than habit, though their movements were long and drawn out, as if subconsciously hoping they could somehow stay the separation.
Arthur helped Eliza clasp all her loops and stays, and she helped him fasten his long johns and britches. It was while she slipped each button into its hole in the placket of his soft, worn, pale blue striped shirt that he found his gaze adhered to her, lingering on her face.
"You can tell our son that his parents did love each other," he said. "Just that his father is a slow dolt and a blind fool."
She gently smiled and let the breath of a chuckle sift through her nose.
"Here I am havin' to leave you again," he drawled regretfully in his low, gravelly voice. "If I had it to do over, I never would. Not even the first time. Not one single time."
She took a breath and let it out slowly through her nostrils. "You learn the important things just a little late, Arthur. Often only learn 'em the hard way, after a lot of pain." She looked up at him. "But what's so good about you, Arthur, is when you finally do learn 'em, and you see the truth clearly, you really do change. Can't say that about most people."
He brought his finger under her chin and placed a few short kisses on her lips.
She smiled against his mouth as she kissed him back. "You said I was like honey, but what you don't know is, you are too."
He chuckled dryly. "Only you think so."
She slowly shook her head. "No. There's another woman who thinks so too." She watched him swallow as he looked back and forth into her eyes just once, and his face fell smooth. "You're alive, Arthur. You have my permission to make the most of it. Don't live dead on your feet," she slowly shook her head. "Don't give your heart in pieces. Won't you let it heal?"
She watched him struggle to swallow again, and she felt a painful lump rise in her own throat. "Who you gonna let love you, Arthur? Nobody?"
"Nobody."
She felt the tears rush into her eyes, and she knew that vein on her forehead was showing as she took both plackets of his shirt in her fists and forcefully jostled him as her voice broke. "Stop it. I'm serious."
"Me too."
She croaked a weak whimper as she hung her head and could only say airily, "I know you are."
"Ain't nobody worth lovin' but you and Isaac."
"It's not true." Sniffing, she looked back up at him. "I need you to be loved, Arthur. Like you never would let me do. Just give me that. Hm? Maybe that's how you can honor us."
He stroked her hair away from her eyes. "How can I even try when I'm always thinkin' of you two, and the pain's creepin' right behind the memories?"
She hurried to shake her head. "But it can't all be pain, can it?" She let her gaze wade over his face and back up into his eyes. "You never look back on those beautiful drawin's of us, those words you wrote. You never even talk about us, Arthur."
"It's just too much pain, darlin'," he loosely wagged his head. "'Sides, who could possibly...understand?" he mumbled.
She offered a small nod. "Someday…someone will. Someone good. Better than your father. Better than any of 'em." She came close and pressed her cheek to his, closing her eyes. "And I'll hear you say our names again."
After several moments, when she heard him begin to speak, she drew back to look at him.
"See the problem with dreams is..." he drawled, slipping his big hand under her hair beneath her jaw to cup her face, "when you wake up, sometimes you can't quite be sure what was real."
Her face softly contorted with a mix of good-natured humor on her mouth and a twist of concern to her brows.
"Am I even gonna remember this, Eliza?"
Her expression smoothed, and she slowly fell into him, resting her cheek on his chest and wrapping her arms around his midsection. "I hope so. Oh, how I hope so."
Arthur closed his eyes and rested his cheek atop her head, rubbing a tender circle into her back and feeling her hands at his own back pressing him to her.
"I love you." He couldn't be sure which of them had said it, but it might as well have been both.
At that moment, with all the suction of a whirlpool tide going back out to sea, he was suddenly yanked and flung backwards from her, his limbs flopping and flying out before him with the inertia of his propulsion.
He just managed to catch a shrinking glimpse of her as he was swept away, standing in the field of wildflowers, gazing after him with a smile and a concerned yet hopeful look of adoration in her eyes.
I love you, Arthur. I love you, he heard her voice melt softly away. Don't erase us, Arthur. We're waitin' for you…
He woke with a start and sat bolt upright in his cot beside his covered wagon, gasping and sucking loudly for air.
As he caught his breath and leaned to the side to prop himself on his forearm, something caught his attention. He glanced up to see Uncle standing there stock still under the stars, eyeing him with the neck of a bottle in his hand, a deep, inquisitive arch to his brow, and a growing smirk on his mouth.
"Who was it you were dreamin' about this time?" he faintly slurred. "That Mary girl?" he huffed, beginning to bring the bottle up to his mouth. "Some hussy?"
As Uncle chuckled and wagged his head while he stumbled and trudged away, Arthur muttered to himself, "Actually, it was…"
Eliza.
"It's hard to see it, still believe it:
You have always lived deep inside my heart.
I need to know you
Would swim the unknown seas
And follow me
Into the mystery.
.
From my shallow grave, I've prayed to find
The strength to crawl, the strength to climb
Up to the surface, untie my hands.
The sorrow had a purpose,
But it's time to stand.
.
'Cause I just wanna be loved by you.
I cannot resist the need to hear you say it.
Whatever you do, I will be there.
Oh, I will follow you anywhere
Into the mystery.
.
Love is not a cage. Love is not a path.
Love's a steady hand waitin' for the storm to pass.
You loved me then, when you needed me.
Will you still, when it's not so easy?
.
'Cause I just wanna be loved by you.
I cannot resist the need to hear you say it.
Whatever you do, I will be there.
Oh, I will follow you anywhere.
.
We are sons and daughters. We are
Flesh and dust. We are
Pulled from the wreckage. We are
Not alone. We are
Lovers broken. We are
Vicarious dreams. We are
Tumblin' in space out of control
Into the mystery.
.
'Cause I just wanna be loved by you.
I cannot resist the need to hear you say it.
Whatever you do, I will be there.
Oh, I will follow you
Into the mystery.
- Needtobreathe, "Into the Mystery"
you tu . be/KTaVbVv5F_U
Arthur swallowed for a moment. Then with hands outstretched, he frantically rushed off his cot to locate his satchel.
He couldn't remember anything about the dream, not a single thing, except the feeling she'd left him with, resounding and glowing warm in his chest.
Fumbling on his knees in the dark, he finally gripped the leather flap of his satchel and dove inside, fishing around and pulling out his journal. Looking down at it, he slowly sat back on the edge of his cot and took a deep breath. It had been so long, much too long.
Running the fingers of his left hand up and over the top edge, he opened it and flipped back in the pages. His breath utterly caught when he saw them—his sketches of Isaac and Eliza, from years ago. Smudged at the edges and dog-eared near the corners, but no less precious and dear to him than the days he'd first drawn them.
Isaac as a newborn, dozing peacefully, swaddled in his blankets with a knit cap on his head. The first time he'd lain eyes on him, met him, held him in his arms.
Though Arthur's face crumpled at the sight, a smile bloomed on his mouth.
"Isaac is my son's name," the journal entry read. "My son. I have a son. Who would've thought. All I can say is when I held him—I've never felt something so pure. He must not be from our world. He's what I'd call the closet thing I've ever come across to a miracle in ours. Almost can't bring myself to believe I had any part in him. I think Eliza laughed at first. "He's a baby, not a box of dynamite," she'd had to say to me. Well, how the hell am I supposed to know how to hold a baby? Never been around them, much less held one. Never had a reason. Now I've got one of my very own. Seems to me she never should've put him in the arms of a dangerous outlaw in the first place. He's much too precious."
He let his fingertips reverently run over the soft, delicate attributes of Isaac's pudgy, wrinkly face as if he were there with him, though he remained careful not to fade or blur the already aged pencil. He sniffed and sucked in a few quiet breaths, finally forcing himself to turn to the next set of pages.
A depiction of a tranquil moment of Eliza tenderly nursing him at her breast, a gentle, adoring smile resting on her mouth.
He had to choke back his latent sobs.
With the turn of the next page, he almost huffed a laugh through his grief; there was Eliza, dressed in not a stitch head to toe but his own black cowboy hat, tipping it over her eyes as she looked back across her shoulder at him with a vixen smirk.
And on the page right across—one from his memory, while he'd been away. A navel-up likeness of Eliza in the nude on her back, looking up at him with a blissful smile, her waves of hair splayed out all around her on the pillow, her arms up and relaxed near her head.
A smirk rose on the corner of his mouth. She'd been so flustered and frustrated when he'd let her see these.
The next page bore a sketch of her sleeping on her side in her lovely cotton nightgown one morning. He'd taken care to include details as long as she'd slept, like the knobby eyelets in the cotton, the highlights in the haphazardly cascading waves of her blonde hair, the feathery lashes resting against her freckled cheeks.
It had been upon her waking that she'd noticed him sketching and had asked to see his work. Only now did he realize the tug-of-war between hope and dejection that must've stormed inside her, to find him that way, recording her likeness.
Tucked between the next pages was an empty one that had been detached and returned for preservation—it had nothing on it but a tattered hole, seemingly random to anyone else. But Arthur remembered it as Eliza's first successful shot with a rifle. He softly chuckled at the memory. She'd been so excited when she'd seen the mark she'd put on the paper where'd he'd pinned it up on a distant tree that she'd nearly jumped up with a hoot of exuberance. "Put that in your journal," she'd said.
As he turned the pages, he found several sketches from his visits throughout the years. Multiple of Isaac as a toddler, each one unintentionally displaying his growth. One of Isaac looking up at him with adoring dewdrop doe eyes. He'd always looked at him like he was heaven and earth and the sun, moon, and stars to him.
One of Isaac's pudgy toddler hand in his own big, rugged, weather-worn one. Another from the perspective of Arthur's imagination of both of their backs where they stood at the bank of the river fishing together—father and son. Yet another of Isaac's smile up at him on the same day. Six years old and just on the verge of growing into a little young man, but still wise and perfect just exactly the way he was.
Arthur suddenly realized he felt something wet dribbling down his nose and sniffed as he wiped It away with his forearm.
He flipped backwards again to see if there were any he'd missed; and he froze when her eyes met his. There, before any of the other pages, was nineteen-year-old Eliza grinning back at him. Her wispy hair tucked into a bun, her eyes sparkling above her freckled nose.
"For some reason I keep thinking on that pretty little waitress in that dirt hole of a town. Just a kid, but her eyes were sure something. And her skin was soft and warm," his brief caption read. Already so apprehensive to let his heart acknowledge his feelings for her, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.
He was arrested by the lifelikeness of his own work. She might as well have been breathing again before him.
His fingertips traced the edges of her face—the honey-sweet, facetious grin carefully scrawled for safekeeping on the pithy fibers of his journal paper, and what was more, immortally etched in the grooves of his brain.
If he held the page in between up vertically, he could see both sketches at one time—his first sketch of Eliza on the left, and newborn Isaac on the right.
It could've been minutes that had gone by, or hours. He simply sat in the moment and gazed at their faces, soaking them both up. Oh, how he still missed them both. Oh, how he still loved them both.
The sudden guttural shout of "Fire!" From somewhere in camp was what jerked him from his fond, dulcet reverie; and his head snapped up just as the shout was followed by several terrified shrieks and throaty yells.
Smoke was billowing in his view, blurring the orange glow that was steadily rising from the other side of the tent before him. Without a second thought, he dashed from his cot to help put out the fire, dropping his journal in the grass.
He sprinted through the smoke and chaotic commotion, stumbling a couple steps back when he found the flames had already grown above his shoulders and spread from whatever their source had been. The fire was now picking up speed and beginning to reach from tent to tent, its eye on consuming everything in its path.
"Buckets of water!" Pearson shouted. "We need buckets of water!"
"There's no way," Charles shook his head at the flames.
"Ain't got time for that!" Arthur shouted above the din, quickly leaning back and shielding his face with the crook of his arm when the supports for one tent crumbled and the fire suddenly lashed and spat.
"Get everyone to the edge of camp!" Dutch shouted, his voice cracking with urgency and smoke. "Take what you can, but get to the edge of camp!"
"Where's Jack?!" Arthur heard and froze, frantically ducking and rising on his toes and turning to find the boy.
"Get the women, get everyone out of here!" Dutch waved his arms. "Make sure everyone's accounted for!" With that, he bent and disappeared into the burlap of a tent.
"Jack!" Arthur shouted.
"Where's my son?!" Abigail cried.
"Jack! Where are you?!" John hollered.
"I'm here, Pa!" came the sound of Jack's meek little voice.
The three of them peered through the smoke until they saw him waving in the bushes outside camp. His parents quickly rushed to him, his father scooping him up and holding him to his shoulder.
"I had to go in the middle of the night, so I was already out here," Jack said quietly.
Arthur pulled the fabric of his long Johns over his nose and mouth and squinted, turning when he heard another scream. He ran towards the sound, making sure everyone was gathered from their tents and lean-tos.
He found Mary-Beth frantically clamoring and stooping for her belongings and Karen yelling at her that they could steal books anywhere. Tilly was already running towards the edge of camp, pausing and screeching at them to follow her. Arthur brought his arms around the pair and shooed them, demanding they get out.
Ducking with his nose and mouth covered, he continued rushing about the crumbling camp, making sure everyone was pulled from their tents and delivered to safety.
When he heard the panicked squeal of a horse, he turned to see that Susan had hitched one to the wagon beside his cot. She was pulling it out from under its lean-to just as the flames that were licking the cover caused it to burst and tumble into a heap right where he'd been sitting minutes ago.
"No," he said low, coughing through the smoke that choked his breath. "No!" He made it only a few rushed steps before Charles and Bill were on him, blocking his path and pushing him back.
"What, you wanna get yourself killed?"
"Don't be a fool, Morgan!"
"No!" he cried out hoarsely, hardly hearing them, jumping and reaching and doggedly fighting to break through. Despite the bones of stocky shoulders knocking into him in the scuffle and the repeated open-handed blows to his chest, he pushed forward in his panic. He was relentless and vehement in his desperate attempts, but when Javier joined them, he was no match for the three men together. They finally subdued and overbore him.
"No! No! I need it!" Arthur shouted feverishly as they drove him backwards to the edge of camp where the rest of the gang was already standing; and he reached out, watching the fire arrive at the spot where he knew his journal lay in the grass. When the men were satisfied he'd stay put, they left him be, and he finally plopped wearily, his knees hitting the ground with a thud, his shoulders slumping deeply.
"Arthur," Dutch said firmly from behind him, his arms tight around the camp collections box that he held to his chest where he stood among the other gang members. His deep, throaty voice was calm and slow and leveled. "Everything you need is right here, Arthur."
"Goddamn it," Arthur growled, his head wearily and loosely wagging. "Goddamn it!" he bashed his fist into the earth, his voice breaking. "No! NO!" he gritted through clenched teeth. With black smudges still on his face, he stared into the raging fire, forced to imagine his sketched portraits of his loves—the peaceful, precious newborn Isaac; the lovely and vibrant Eliza grinning out past the confines of her page—curling at the ember-chewed corners and smoldering away to ashes.
No one nearby to comfort them as they went.
He took a shuddered breath. "No," he quaveringly breathed.
The very last proof that they'd ever existed, that they'd ever been here, had ever loved and lived on the earth. Gone.
He swallowed hard to manage the pain blown afresh and aflame in his chest, the wound ripped wide. His eyes sagged wet and misty, glistening in their dull, ashen frame as the orange glow flashed and ebbed on his face.
He was the only proof now. The memories he housed, his love for them the only remaining record of their lives.
He ground his jaw tight and struggled to breathe. How thoroughly they had slipped from his fingers, how very thoroughly he had failed them.
All the while, rigid panic was nipping at him, eager to set in. How long would it be before he forgot the expression of wonder, excitement, and adoration in Isaac's face, the shape of his nose, and the shades of each freckle on his cheeks? When would he fail to recall the curve of Eliza's smile, the shape and sparkle and flecks of her eyes? Like the wind from the flap of a dove's wing, when would their memories leave him?
As he sat there in the dirt on his knees, unable to move an inch, it was further yet, an altogether new kind of pain, though mingled with the same old agony. It scraped him hollow and filled him with a gnawing, yawning ache, like the erosive, torrential downpour of rain in the cracks of a canyon.
.
"Gonna tear it down,
All my childhood gates.
Gonna wake up
To a brand new day.
I don't need another love
To make me feel okay.
I just need a lot of time
And a little space.
.
Now I'm shaking in my bones.
It's crazy how my body knows
.
There's nowhere to go.
There's nothing to say.
I'm feeling trapped with no escape.
I wanna be well.
I wish I could change.
There's nowhere to hide where you feel safe
At the bottom of a heartbreak.
.
It's that familiar pain
Staring in my face.
It's a different ghost,
But it haunts the same.
Oh, I can't move on,
No looking back.
I gotta learn to love
Right where I'm at.
.
Now I'm shaking in my bones.
It's crazy how my body knows
.
There's nowhere to go.
There's nothing to say.
I'm feeling trapped with no escape.
I wanna be well.
I wish I could change.
There's nowhere to hide where you feel safe
At the bottom of a heartbreak.
Gonna tear it down,
All my childhood gates.
I'm gonna wake up"
- Needtobreathe, "Bottom of a Heartbreak"
you tu . be/tjn1mE_rfck