Callum & Harper (Sleepless 1)

Epilogue

Believe

Six Years Later...

Harper

“Callum Tate,” the man announced over the loud speaker.

I watched my husband take the stage to receive his diploma and stood to cheer him with the rest of our group of friends.

Freddy and Sam sat a few seats to my right, spinning their noise makers and jumping up and down. I sat between Cherry and Charlie, a husband and wife now themselves. Charlie stood, whooping and hollering with me. I couldn’t really expect poor Cherry to stand since she was seven months pregnant with their second baby. She put up a good show from her chair, though. I smiled down at her. She beamed back up at me, her eyes glassy with hormones but mostly pride. I couldn’t help myself and bent to kiss her cheek, making her outright cry in happiness. Tie-Dye Tom, my closest friend next to Cherry, sat next to her crying like a little baby.

“I feel like a mama bird,” he said through choking sobs, making me laugh out loud. I could only shake my head at him when he smacked my cheek with a tear soaked kiss.

SO sat next to Tom, smooth as ever, though his moist eyes may have betrayed him a little bit, not that I’d say anything. He winked at me. Our secret, I told him without words. Ames sat next to Charlie, yelling at the top of his lungs Callum’s name, telling him how proud he was of him.

“I can’t believe it!” He yelled to me, eyes bright with happiness.

Kelly, Cross, Marty, Aaron, Nat, Jared and Josiah were all there as well, scattered in our row, shouting and dancing around like the goofs we all were. I studied the people around me, knowing they were my family made my heart nearly burst from happiness.

I was complete and very much unafraid. Unafraid because John Bell had been found dead two weeks after Callum and I returned home. He’d thrown himself off the pier, his body turned up on the shore after a two and a half month man hunt. Suicide. He took the coward’s way out. Not that that surprised me. He was an incredible coward. I barely thought of him anymore. Barely.

Callum turned toward the crowd after accepting, searching the sea of faces for mine. I stood on my chair and waved at him. He stopped, smiled and held out the hand sign for ‘I love you’. I sent it back to him along with a kiss. He caught it and pretended to put it in a little folded bag, stuffing it into a non-existent front pocket. “For later,” he’d always say. ‘I love you’, I mouthed, tears streaming down my face. He nodded and threw a fist in the air, making the crowd and our family especially go wild with excitement.

I had graduated with honors, thanks to my amazing Callum, four summers earlier and wrote several columns for a local paper. I worked from home which was nice, though I was forced to visit my editor once a week to catch up and go over whatever I was working on. It was the best job in the entire world but it could get better apparently because I had surprised Callum last night with the news that I earned a monthly featured column in a national magazine with a circulation of over two million.

Callum accepted an internship position the previous week at his first hospital of choice in the city. Yes, our lives were plugging away nicely in the direction of amazing. Nothing could make it better. Nothing. Well, almost nothing...

...If I could just get home to wrap his graduation gift.

m laid me gently on his dark bed before standing to close his bedroom door. “Are you comfortable, Mrs. Tate?”

“Very much, Mr. Tate, thank you,” I told him.

He lowered himself next to me and kissed me like there was no tomorrow. “I’m so unbelievably grateful to be lying next to you, wife. You feel like a dream to me.”

“Maybe it is a dream. Maybe we’re not even awake right now. Maybe you’re a figment of my imagination and this entire ride has been a trip down unconscious lane. Maybe I’m still in my coma,” I contemplated, irrational fear creeping up my healing spine.

Callum kissed me deeply. “Does that feel like a dream?” He asked.

I smiled, inches from his lips. “No, it most certainly does not.” He began to kiss me again but I stopped him. “Help me up,” I told him.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said seductively.

“Yes, I need, uh, to shower.”

“What? No, you don’t.” He buried his face into my neck and inhaled, kicking up the perfume that laid dormant on my skin. His cologne and my own fragrance mixed well, making me feel faint. The two mixed oh so perfectly together. “You smell amazing,” he said.

“Callum, please? This is a big deal for me. I want it to be perfect.”

“Harper Tate, you’re here, it’s already perfect.”

“Please, I want a shower, babe. Just help me up.”

“Can I watch?” He asked in all seriousness, making me laugh. His eyes twinkled lightly.

“If you want.”