Southern Sunrise (Southern 4)

“No.” She doesn’t turn around as her shoulders shake, and I see her head fall forward.

“Sunrise,” I say her name, and then the thunder claps. “Please.” I put my hands on her arms and pull her to me. Her back to my chest and I wrap my arms around the top of her chest, hoping my heat will get her to stop shaking as the rain just pours all around us.

“I was moving on,” she says, sobbing out almost in a wail, and I feel so helpless. There is nothing I can do to make this better, and it’s killing me. “I was doing okay.” She puts her hand on my arms around her chest. When she showed up, I was shocked. I never thought she would come over on her own. When I left her, so many things were going through my mind. I wanted to tell her that I would spend the rest of my life making sure she is okay. I wanted to tell her that from this moment forward, I would never leave her again. But I needed to go slow. At least that is what I thought.

“Sunrise, I love you,” I whisper in her ear, and she stops shaking. “I have loved you my whole life. I will love you in this life, and I’m sure that I loved you in a past life, and I’ll find you in the next life. You are the reason I’m alive today.”

“You left me,” she says the three words that cut me. “You just left me.” She turns in my arms now. “You left me, and I had to learn how to breathe without my chest hurting. I had to learn how to go an hour without wanting to call you. I had to learn how to wake up and pretend I was okay. I had to learn how to live again.” She puts her head down and cries, and I pull her into my arms. “I can’t survive that again.”

“You don’t have to. You won’t ever have to,” I say. “Let me prove it to you,” I beg her. I will spend my whole life begging her. “You deserve so much better than me,” I admit. “You deserve someone who doesn’t make you cry. You deserve a man who lifts you up instead of pulling you down. You deserve a man who has never hurt you. You deserve a man who doesn’t have you doubting your worth because you are worth everything. You deserve all of that.” My heart breaks. “I should let you find it, but I’m not that good of a man. I am going to prove to you that I deserve it.” I put my hand under her chin to lift her face up to see me. “There is nothing more in this life I need to do but prove it to you.”

“What if you realize that you aren’t in love with me?” she asks the question I’ve asked myself over and over again. One of my biggest fears is that she realized she never really loved me.

“How could I not love you?” I say and then take her hand and place it over my heart. “You come into the room, and my heart feels so big it might come out of my chest. I look over at you, and my heart races. Emily, you are my heart.” I put my forehead on hers.

“You are going to have to give me time,” she says. “I just …”

“I will give you all the time you need,” I say softly. Taking her face in my hands, I rub her cheeks with my thumbs. “I love you.”

“Ethan.” She says my name, and the rains starts to slow down. “I beg you.” Her voice goes low. “Don’t do this if you aren’t sure.”

“You are my reason,” I say. “You are the reason that I get up in the morning. You are the reason I fought to live. You. Are. My. Reason.”

Her hands come up to hold my hands on her face, and she whispers the words I’ve heard her say in my dreams for five years. “I love you, Ethan.” She laughs now as she cries at the same time. “I never stopped. I tried, I really did, and it just … A part of me knew I would love you always.”

“Sunrise,” I say as my own tears stream down my face. “I’m about to break a promise to you, and I really don’t want to do it.”

“Kiss me, Ethan.” She doesn’t even finish saying the words before my mouth is on hers, and we are clinging to each other. This right here is the reason I survived what I did. This kiss, this love, this woman is my reason for everything.

She pulls away first. “I have to go and get things ready for tomorrow.” She looks down. “Can we keep this our secret for now?” She must see the hurt on my face. “Not because I’m unsure or anything. I just want it to be ours for a while.”