“I’m sorry, Harbor. I’m so sorry you went through that.”

Seeing her in her bare feet against the gravel, I stop and scoop her into my arms. “Did you not feel the pain under your feet?”

“How could I when your pain was so much greater?”

Sighing, I’m so torn up that I’m not sure how to feel. She has me feeling like a superhero flying back into her life, into her arms again, but I’m not a fool. This story takes a toll when I relive the words that tell the story. Is she just feeling sorry for me?

I carry her to the car and set her in the seat. Kneeling beside her, I say, “Don’t do that. Don’t compare our pain. Yours matters to me just as much, if not more, than any I’ve experienced.”

She caresses my cheek. “How did you survive?”

“I was there, but my phone had fallen out of my pocket. Lucas didn’t have one on him. So I waited. For hours, I waited. At different points, I was fading in and out of consciousness. I knew that wasn’t a good sign, so I focused all my energy on one thing.”

“What was it?”

I drag the pads of my thumbs over the apples of her eyes and wipe away the tears and makeup that’s run down her face. “A bird.”

“A bird?”

“Yeah. This little bird was perched high in a tree that overhung the cliffs and lake.” I’m glad she smiles. I say, “I listened to that bird, tuned into its melody as it sang. I remember that bird being there, singing to keep me awake, until I was rescued.”

“How did they find you?”

“My car. I’d run so fast to stop Lucas that I’d left my door open. A passerby called it in, and the police and paramedics came.” I smile. “That bird kept me alive.”

She smiles, her hands resting on my knees. “It sounds like it. What kind of bird was it?”

“It was a lark.”

45

Harbor

Her eyes soften at the outside corners as she stares into my eyes. God, I miss lying in bed next to her, talking into the early hours of the morning, sometimes until the sun sneaked in and shined a light on the golden flecks of her eyes.

She still has the most captivating eyes I’ve ever seen in a kaleidoscope of greens and golds.

Angling, she dips her legs out of the car again. Lark leans forward and cups my face. We move closer, so close until her forehead is against mine.

It wasn’t just the late-night talks I missed. I miss her. I miss the smell of her bubble bath still lingering in the bathroom after she got out. I miss the elastics she’d use to twist her hair on top of her head. I’d find them everywhere, from a blue one in the crack of the couch to a pink one in the fridge once, and a handful on her nightstand. I miss her claiming one of the nightstands as her own. I miss her claiming me as her own. I miss her so fucking much.