Page 128 of Intermission

I’m not as familiar with this side of the creek.

Finally, we find a less-severe incline with some decent rocks peeking out of the dry clay bank for footholds.

But for a few stagnant pockets, the creek is dry and much easier to travel along than the trail had been. In a wetter season, I would hear the waterfall long before reaching it. Now, I come upon it in silence only broken only by the buzz of insects.

It isn’t really a waterfall, of course. Not in August. Tonight, it’s only a waterfall intheory. It’s probably been weeks since even a drop of water has trickled over this ledge. Tonight, it’s just a precipice. A dark, dry cliff.

An empty stage, awaiting its players.

I sit on the ledge awhile, letting disappointment tighten my throat. Despite the absence of a car at the entry gate, not to mention the earliness of the hour, a small part of me expected Noah to be here, sitting on the ledge, waiting for me. Just as he so often was when we lived on the same continent.

I pull out my phone and check the time. It’s just past six-thirty.

It’s darker in the woods than the hour allows elsewhere. My gaze roves the twilit bank. I stand. Pace.

Yes, to the naked eye, the waterfall looks empty. But for me, this place is filled withhim.

“Noah.”

His name rides the current of my breath, and the sound of it is a punch in the gut. Emotions surge with such force that I’m almost forced to take a step back. In November, it will have been three years since we met here, atop this waterfall. Not a day has gone by in which I’ve not thought of Noah Spencer.

Dreams of him, of us, dangle from this ledge, where they’ve waited two years this side of our goodbyes.

I press my palms to my eyes. I’m not crying, but... I’m wrecked.

To be here, now, back in the place where it all began, where it could end, if he doesn’t come... the memories are sharper. Clearer.

Does he think of me as often as I think of him? Does he think of me... at all? What changes have these years brought to Noah’s life? To Noah’sheart?

My hands tremble. So much can change in two years.

I’ve changed.

I’m sure he has, too.

Will I even recognize him when he comes? And what will he think of me after all this time? I swallow and relieve my pacing legs, setting them dangling again.

When I was sixteen, Noah said I was beautiful. But I’m sure he’s met many more sophisticated beauties in London than the simple Iowa girl he once loved. And we agreed. If one of us fell for someone else, we were under no obligation to return tonight.

What if he . . . ?

“Please, God,” I whisper. “Please, let him come.”

I fight my fear, my disloyal-feeling doubt, but it comes anyway, eking its dulled coldness into my blood. This date, this place—they’re sacred.

Eight, nine. Eight-seventeen.

But will those numbers mean anything to Noah Spencer across the chasm of two discarded calendars and an exciting life abroad?

“Hold on,” I whisper over the ledge.

He said he would come.

A flash of brightness catches my eye and turns my head. What is that? A flashlight?

I suppose itisdark enough on the trail by now to need one.

Hope rises, and so do I. “Noah?”