Page 46 of The Love of Our Lives

Four weeks to live

The sun is starting to set on the road ahead as I approach my final destination, warm yellows and berry pinks blinking through tall pines at me.

The air smells almost sweet with the windows rolled down; the remnants of a hot day in the air around me.

I’m still a bit tired from all the activities I’ve been doing during the last week in Canada – hot air ballooning across tree tops and golden cornfields, white-water rafting down rushing rivers and caving into dark crevices – but as I look out around me at the seemingly endless road, flanked by the alpine larches and incredible mountains beyond, I feel myself come alive again.

I thought about travelling up to Alaska for a bit, or even over to the bustling west coast like most people would.

But most people have more time than me.

Or they think they do at least.

All I knew was, I suddenly wanted to see Adam now. And not over the phone, or on Zoom, or any of these old ways I might have used before in my old life. I wanted to see him in person, and I had the strongest pull to go do it.

I can’t deny that I was incredibly anxious, that there were moments on the plane when I wondered what the hell I was playing at. After all, he asked me to go to Canada with him and I just threw it back in his face.

So why the hell would he want to see me now?

But that feeling won’t budge, and I know instinctively I’ll regret it forever if I don’t at least go and try. And if he isn’t interested in seeing me, then I’ll just go on my way – travel around this beautiful country by myself.

Eventually I see a sign, a turn at an enormous pointy-shaped boulder, which Adam perfectly described to me when we daydreamed once about visiting this place together, and I glance down at the satnav.

Sure enough, I’m almost there, and before I know it, I’m bumping down the track towards where I assume the lake must be.

The lake Adam told me about once as we lay in each other’s arms. The one he said I would love.

A few seconds later, I see it – a shimmering blue through the trees which gets larger and larger as I approach. And right on the water beside it, just as Adam said it would be, is the cabin in all its rustic glory. Lights are on inside and my heart begins to hammer.

A figure appears in the back doorway of the cabin – Adam, in jeans and a black t-shirt. And he’s standing so still, as though he can’t actually believe it’s me.

‘Hello,’ I say, take a breath in. ‘I’m sorry to just appear like this . . . but I was just doing some travelling around the area so . . .’

A moment later, he walks towards me silently, and I can’t help wondering if he’s mad at the intrusion. Doesn’t he come here to be alone, after all? Yet here I am, interrupting the peace. After everything I’ve already put him through.

And then he’s standing right in front of me, and I look up into his eyes, which match the trees by the lake behind us, see his firm chest rising and falling beneath the black material.

‘You’re here,’ he says, like he can still barely believe it.

‘I am,’ I barely whisper.

His eyes flit across mine. We’re so close now, our hands are almost touching, and I find myself reaching for them.

As I do, I see a spark ignite in his eyes, feel it between our fingers too.

And as the blush sun glints over the mountains in the distance and our lips find each other’s, I close my eyes and decide there’s no point overthinking the how or the why.

Because right here, right now, is all that matters.

Later in his bed, we lie tangled together under the covers, my head resting on his warm chest, his hand gently stroking my shoulder.

The first time we had sex, it was hurried and fevered, happening what felt like moments after we got ourselves into the cabin; his arms around me, my hands all over him.

But the second time it was slower, more achingly deliberate.

It was like he was savouring every part of me, every second of me being there, and I let my mind drift away and forget everything else.

Just focus on the now. So, I tell him about all the things I’ve done, all the amazing sights I’ve seen, and he tells me about his fishing trips out on the lake and the climbs up the mountains nearby, and the way he says it tells me he’s been trying hard not to think of me too.

And as his chest rises and falls so peacefully, I realise that, somehow, I might have become the person who finally shows up for him.

Then eventually, as the sun starts to sleepily droop down into its rocky bed outside the window, we drag ourselves from the bed and throw our clothes back on.

‘See what I mean about rustic?’ Adam smiles, as we finally head back into the main part of the cabin again.

‘I totally see,’ I say softly, and look around the place properly now.

It’s not particularly big, all rambling sofas and armchairs set against shabby pine walls and scattered with colourful rugs.

A wood-burning stove sits in the hearth and up in the lakeside corner, there’s a small kitchenette beneath the red curtained windows.

To the back of the room, a big table sits with a patterned cover pulled across it, a teetering bookshelf behind it.

And across everything is this intoxicating scent of pine and wood smoke and something homely too.

It’s so very him, but it also reminds me of the cottage, which makes me love it even more.

‘And you’re just out here alone for months?’ I say, turning to him. It seems so remote.

‘Well,’ he says softly, ‘It doesn’t feel that alone really, with all the memories. It was the one place I actually settled into for a while, in between all the travelling.’ He looks around. ‘It’s not so bad, I’m realising, enjoying one place like this for a bit.’

As Adam heads to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of chilled white wine, I can’t help looking around the room and imagining those family scenes together. A younger Adam playing cards with his grandmother at the table, or heading out to do some fishing with his grandfather.

‘Tomorrow, I’ll show you around the area,’ Adam says, as he pours the wine into two glasses. ‘But tonight,’ he smiles, passing me one, ‘tonight, we chill.’

‘Just chill?’ I tease, moving towards him, and his jaw flinches at my words, his eyes sparkling. I lean in to kiss him softly, then firmly, and he groans into me.

‘Let me show you something great first,’ he says hoarsely, and I laugh.

‘OK,’ I say, looking up at him, ‘I will permit that. But we’re in a cabin in the Rockies – it’s all pretty good.’

He grins, before taking my hand again and leading me back towards the door we came in through. Pressing a second light switch, he opens the door.

In the now twilight evening, I can see the whole porch is actually lit up with string lights, which loop around the entire decking – just like the terrace. With my hand still in his, he leads me around to the front of the cabin, which juts out on to the water.

And even though I didn’t think it could all get any more perfect, it just did.

‘Right here, m’lady,’ he says, and indicates at one of two porch chairs.

With my wine in hand, I sit in one while he fiddles with the little radio on the decking. It crackles for a bit before he eventually hits on lazy guitars and sits down too.

We stay like that for a little while, just staring out at the darkening water, the snow-capped mountains behind, late-night birds swooping across the twilight blue sky. There’s no need to talk, no need to fill a void, because we are completely at ease with each other.

Just here, now.

Together.

I feel odd suddenly though, lightheaded. A tingling begins, then those sensations surge through me – snow-capped mountains, late-night birds.

Oh god, oh god.

I’ve seen all this before. I’ve been in this exact same situation before.

And now my body is flooded with stronger-than-ever memories of the wedding and the grief of the betrayal, of lying depressed in the flat, of getting on a flight somewhere and flying into the unknown, of surfing in a turquoise sea I’ve never seen before and zip lining over the most incredible landscape – of being absolutely dazzled with it all.

And there is happiness and there is sadness and there are tears running down my face now, because everything is coming together – everything is coming full circle.

Emily and I might not be doing the exact same things at the exact same time – but in some way, somehow, we’ve tracked the same story.

Which means—

Emily was here too.

She was here with Adam.

I close my eyes for a moment as the enormity of it all hits me; find that I’m gripping the side of the chair. Because I don’t even know what to do with this all, don’t know what any of it means. Then suddenly, I sense a movement, and he is there above me when I open my eyes.

He looks a little concerned at first but then he extends his hand to me.

‘Will you join me for this dance?’ he says, and the sensations start to ebb away, the memories are fading, and all I can do is let him pull me up from the chair.

Walking out with him on to the decking, I try to just concentrate on the now – on the rippling lake in front of us and the radio behind us.

Because that’s what Adam does – he seizes every special moment like the last and pulls me back into the present.

And as we dance away under the starlit sky, I realise that by eventually following my heart, I have in some way, somehow, followed Emily’s too.