Page 19

L earn to drive, you lunatic!”

A horn blares loudly as I blow through the stop sign. My head is spinning, and I wipe tears from my eyes. I need to get myself under control. That damn Mack truck nearly hit me. I would have been killed.

As I continue on my way home, something is tugging at me. Something that feels like a memory or a dream or ... I don’t even know what. But I wasn’t asleep, so how could I have been dreaming? It doesn’t make any sense.

It’s another five minutes of driving before I get back to my house. Noel is sitting on the rocking chair on our front porch, reading a book. He puts it down when he sees me and meets me at my car.

“Hey.” He grins at me, and I get this odd sensation of having missed him, but not actually. My God, I can’t believe how close I came to doing something horrible. “The firefighters said the oven was fine; the knob just got stuck somehow. I’m sitting outside while the house airs out.”

I can dimly hear a fire alarm going off within the house, a persistent and grating beeping sound. I clear my throat, which burns when I try to swallow. “Good idea.”

“Are you okay? You look ... off.”

“It’s just been a weird day.” I lean against the car, not quite able to support myself. “While I was driving home, I nearly got hit by a truck.”

He looks alarmed. “Whoa.”

“I’m okay,” I say, “but I had this bizarre ‘life flashing before my eyes’ moment. I imagined that ... that I had been in a terrible accident and I was in a coma. And I kept having these dreams about you, except the dreams would always end before you could kiss me.”

“So ...” Noel tilts his head thoughtfully. “What you’re saying is you want to make out?”

I start to laugh, but then something else grabs my attention. The fire alarm seems to have grown louder, even though we’re not even inside the house. “Why is that alarm so noisy?”

He shakes his head. “What alarm?”

“It’s like a ... a beeping sound.”

Beep, beep, beep, beep . . .

He pauses, listening for a moment. “Nope. I don’t hear it.”

How is it possible he doesn’t hear that alarm? It’s so loud . Has he gone deaf ? Because that’s the only way he wouldn’t hear that awful beeping. I’m about to comment as much when, quite abruptly, the beeping halts.

“The alarm stopped,” I say. And strangely enough, my throat feels better too. It’s like a terrible weight has been pressing on my chest, and now I have finally been ... released .

And I feel lighter—happier—all of a sudden.

“Glad to hear it.” Noel flashes me that same endearing grin that made me fall in love with him all those years ago. “Now let’s see about getting you that kiss you were hoping for.”

As he leans in and presses his lips against mine, I melt into the kiss that I’ve been waiting for and think about how lucky I am. I spent my entire relationship with Noel tormenting myself with whether I was good enough or if he might leave me for another woman, but now it is so crystal clear—he loves me with all his heart. He has always loved me. And as long as I live, he always will.

I can’t believe I came so close to losing everything.