He skipped to the entry he wrote the day of my high school graduation. He wrote how proud of me he was, and how beautiful I looked in my cap in gown. He spoke of how happy I felt and wondered where my college years would take us. Jared wrote a lot about being worried that once we gained distance between us and Gabe and Jack, that he would introduce himself.

His eyes clouded over as he read to me his fears that I would fall in love with someone at college, and the unknown reaction he would have watching me be with someone in that way. I learned how devastated he was at the prospect that I would never know how much he loved me, and how he dreaded the day I got married and had children with someone else. Jared’s voice broke as he read the words.

When he turned to the entry on the day that my father died, tears welled up in my eyes as he described watching Gabe fade away. Jared’s hand tangled in mine as he spoke of the moment he stood a few feet away from me, watching me sob on the bench. When the bus left the curb, the fight in him to stay away from me was gone. The tone of the pages changed significantly after that.

Jared smiled as he cited the joy he felt every time he ran into me, the expressions and feelings I would have, and how it felt the first time I’d said his name.

“Read what you wrote today,” I smiled.

“I will later. The rain stopped,” he said, shutting the book.

I looked up as I listened for the rain, but the only sounds were the intermittent dripping from the roof and the fronds of the palm trees, and the birds singing brightly just outside the cabin.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, sitting up and stretching.

“Why don’t you show Cynthia around the village?”

I smiled at his selfless suggestion, kissing him before I made my way to my mother’s cabin. She was drying her chair with a towel, a book in her other hand.

“Hello, Dear,” she said. Her sunglasses moved up with her smile.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go to the village with me. It’s really eclectic. I think you’d like it,” I said, resting my arms on the wooden railing.

Cynthia sat in her chair and opened her book. I knew the answer before she’d given it.

She smiled politely as she always did before she diplomatically turned down an offer. “I think I’ll just relax here, Nina. Why don’t you and Jared go exploring?”

“We’ve been almost everywhere,” I shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

Cynthia didn’t look up from her book. “I’m sure. Go have fun.”