Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 142833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
My heart belonged to Tor.
There are so many degrees of silence. It can be comforting. It can be deafening. It can be foreboding. It can be empty. It can be the space between two sounds.
Or between two people.
Tor and my father haven’t spoken at all, and that worries me. I was hoping they would hash the situation out by now. Verbally and not physically. I want them to repair their friendship. I need my father to forgive Tor so we can all move forward with a new slate.
I don’t want to think about where it’s going to leave us all if he doesn’t.
For my nineteenth birthday, a small box came, and I recognized the writing on the address label immediately.
I took it to my room to open it alone, and Aunt Katherine smiled knowingly as I left her after dinner to go spend time with this box. I haven’t received a letter from Tor in a month, and with each day that passed, I grew more and more nervous that he had finally just given up, or that my father had said or did something to push him further away.
I open the box slowly, and inside is an old bottle, with a rolled up piece of paper inside. A small gasp of happiness escapes me, remembering our conversation that day on the beach about messages in a bottle.
Pulling the cork out, I tip the bottle over and the paper falls out, along with a single penny. The note is tied with thin red twine that I slide off, and then gently unroll the parchment paper.
Tears spring to my eyes when I see he has also written with a fountain pen.
Tor...you do everything so right.
Taking a breath, I read his words:
My love,
Walk in the rain with me. Kiss me in the misty fog.
Let me hold you all night under the hush of the wind.
I'm waiting for you. Throwing pennies...making wishes.
I'm wishing only for you. Always for you.
Come back to me.
I'll fight for you. I'll fight for us.
Wish for me, too...and I'll make it come true.
I love you forever and longer.
~ Tor
P.S. My huge bottle had $6,025 in it and this single penny. Make a wish.
P.P.S. I’m sorry it took me so long to write, I hurt my hand at the shop.
The frayed parchment paper is soft in my fingers, perfectly worn and aged, and I'm very aware that he chose this texture of paper, this color of ink, with careful consideration. Because he knows how much it means to me. Because he knows me. Like no else ever has or ever could.
I read his words over and over again; long after I have them memorized and they're burned into my heart and soul, yet I still hold the handwritten note and stare at the words until they blur. I can hear his voice saying them; deep, yet soft and sensual. Raw.
I like touching the paper that I know he held in his hands. The hands that had once held me, caressed me, ignited passion and desire in me so deep that I still can't forget. And I don't ever want to.
The faint scent of his cologne drifts from the paper. Or maybe I've just wished for it so much that I've imagined it. Either way, it's comforting and stirs memories.
So many memories...
Reading his words, all the feelings rush back like acid on a wound that won't heal. He's my other half; the one who makes my heart beat. The man who makes me feel every feeling that could possibly be felt—and then some. The man who held me and loved me through almost every moment of my life. I have no past without him and no future without him. Quite simply, he is my world. There is no way I will ever move on from a love like ours. We belong to each other. I've always known it, and I am utterly exhausted from fighting it, denying it, keeping myself from it, and hiding it - as I'm sure he must be, too.
It’s time for me to go back home to my love and to my heart. Time is precious, and I don’t want to give any more up.
I take the penny and walk down the beach to the edge of the water, and I toss it in.
I wished for Tor.
I wished for us.
I wished for my father to accept us.
I wished for everyone to accept us.
I wished for my Mom.
I wished for happiness.
37
Tor
We all let go.
We followed our hearts.
And we all ended up together again.
Tor
I'm sitting on a bench in my garage polishing some of the chrome on my bike when a motorcycle pulls down my street and into my driveway. I know the sound of that bike as well as I know my own, and I'm wondering what he's doing here.