“The day I finally went inside, you looked at me and said Leo’s name before I could speak.”
I remembered.
The rain.
His soaked coat.
The shock on his face.
“I should have corrected you,” he said. “I meant to. But you ran into my arms and started crying.”
“So you let me believe it.”
“For a few seconds.”
“Two years is not a few seconds.”
“I know.”
People in the pews were crying openly now.
I did not care.
“Every story you told me.”
“Some were Leo’s stories.”
“Every memory.”
“He told me most of them.”
“The proposal?”
Jake closed his eyes.
“That was mine.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Was any of it real?”
“My love for you is real.”
“You built it using his name.”
“I know.”
“You let me grieve 20 lost years that never existed between us.”
“I know.”
