Page 167 of Cara

Sophie

Xavier.

For a fleeting moment, that name holds all significance.

It could just as well be my own. The darkness is all-encompassing, but there’s no pain.Xavier.

I gravitate toward the distorted sound, finding immense comfort in the syllables.Xavier.

“I'm here. Open your eyes.”

His voice. Oh, it’severything.

His breath warms my cheek. “Baby, please, look at me… Don’t keep me waiting.”

As alluring as that voice is, this void has freed me from my pain, swathing me in comfort.Preciouscomfort.

Memories come like consolation, merely a spectator to the beauty I couldn’t see anymore.

A mother, not even blood, spending half her life trapped to protect me. A sister I could lie beside for hours, laughing about nothing and everything. Friends who brought me back to life when I was sure there was no way to revive me.

A man… Most of all,thatman.

A lifetime by his side in all forms. Childhood friends whoplayed in the dirt together, racing through life without fear of what awaited us. Years of engagement before a separation that forged a wide gap that stretched until our worlds split, turning us into strangers.

The void reveals the moments I’d forgotten.

The lingering gazes he offered when I no longer accepted them. The hands he reached out to me when I’d turn from him. The words I didn’t hear while I ran from him toward another man. The decisions he made for me that altered the entire course of his life.

Tracing it all the way back, he’s been waiting.

Hoping.

Aching.

I see him moving through a room full of spectators, finally finding me in the crowd after so many years. He was still waiting, hardened by the lack of love I swore I’d never give him.

To me, he was a stranger. To him, I was the goodness he had cast from his life to shield his lonely heart—a lost soul seeking another.

“Sophie, come back to me. I'm here.”

I can hear wedding bells, his unwavering voice speaking his vows in a way I couldn’t.

Friends to strangers to lovers.

I never wish to leave, seeing unrushed lips falling into mine on a bed in Santorini. His body speaking to mine, professing his love with a gentleness he had once forsaken, releasing all of the years I kept him waiting. Days, weeks, months escaping darkness only to lose our footing, sinking to depths we’d never reached before.

I see love that grew in distance.

I see himstillwaiting.

An ocean I’d cross to reach him.

A reunion of tears, shattered souls begging to be mended.

“Sophie.”

Let me stay.It doesn’t hurt here.