“Richard…”
“I’m not asking you to become the girl you were at seventeen. Neither of us can do that. I’m asking whether you would like to spend whatever years we have left together.”
She covered her mouth.
I continued before I lost my courage.
“We’ve both lost people we loved. We’ve both lived entire lives since we last stood beneath that tree. I’m not pretending those years didn’t happen, and I’m not asking you to forget them.”
I reached for her hand.
“But I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life alone if you don’t want to. And I don’t want to spend mine alone either.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I waited so long to hear you say that,” she whispered.
Then she leaned forward and kissed me.
It was not the kiss of two teenagers who believed the world belonged to them.
It was the kiss of two people who understood how much time they had lost—and how precious the time remaining might be.
