"Love like that doesn't go away. It's here with us forever."

- The Best of Me, coming to theaters October 17

***

Time, to many, is the enemy, and I should be among those who feel powerless against an ancient, unyielding force.

Tonight though, I understood a crucial difference.

Time isn’t the enemy. 

It is simply an element of existence, a mechanism of a mysterious world.

The good or bad that comes from time isn’t from time itself but from what we do with it and what we allow to happen in those moments, may it be in a fraction of a second or an entire lifetime and anything in between. 

With time, we could let something fade, wither and die. 

Or we could nurture it with patience and passion until it transforms into something incredible.

Like Adam and I.

Like the old barn.

It was exactly where it used to be. The once medium-height evergreen trees that had sparingly outlined the immediate yard around it now nearly reached up to the pitch of the sloped roof, offering some privacy out in the open farmland. The grand Bishop house was about a mile up the hill, just on the other side of the creek where it moved a long time ago after a few years of getting badly flooded in the low-lying area.

The barn was still red but no longer chipped and weather-battered. Even in the low light, the matte paint glowed a deep, russet red. The side sheds now served as a covered and combined sunroom and patio lined with tall planters. The paddock doors were still there but they looked like they were permanently nailed shut, the cedar and black wrought iron frame giving them a modern flair. One side of the barn where the loft doors used to be were now mostly made up of glass windows which glowed with the warm, golden light of a few lamps left on inside.

It retained its country charm but it now looked warm and inviting. It wasn’t just a place for Adam to hole up in anymore whenever he wanted to be alone or spend time with me. It was now very much a home. 

Years ago, he’d said he was going to live here someday and I’d just rolled my eyes and told him that it’d fall apart on his head first before that ever happened. I was wrong about so many things.

“It’s amazing what you’ve done with this place,” I said in an awed voice as I followed him inside. 

My breath caught when more lamps flickered on, bathing the airy space in soft, golden light. The entire interior was lined in the warm, caramel tones of the cedar paneling, the two-story open space showing off its bare bones in full glory with a mix of wooden beams and bulkheads and metal supports. The central living space was very contemporary in its open concept. A huge stone fireplace was the centerpiece on the wall that also featured nearly a dozen, large glass windows. A thick rug defined the sitting area by the fireplace and a large, extra-plump, brown leather couch draped in several layers of wool wraps looked like heaven on a cold day when all you wanted was to read a book and sip a cup of tea. The kitchen was just right behind it, accessorized with high-end, industrial-grade appliances and a massive kitchen island with a dark granite countertop. On a cozy alcove just to the left of the kitchen was the dining area with a long, wooden table that could seat almost a dozen people. Everything exuded the rustic, comfortable feel of the laid-back country life but all its tasteful modern and functional touches added a certain urban signature to it that I did not expect from Adam at all. He was, in his very heart, a farm boy.

“I paid attention when we went out to dinner at all these interesting places when I came to see you in New York,” he said as he kicked off his boots by the door. During my first year in college, Adam took the long drive to and back just to see me at least once a month. It was a rebellious year for the both of us, both stubbornly trying to prove that we could conquer the odds. “I had an idea of what you liked—all these industrial conversions that mixed a lot of old and new.”

After hanging his winter jacket on the coat hook by the entrance hall, he flipped a few switches and walked over to the fireplace where flames leapt to life inside the hearth. He fed it a few logs from a small stack on an iron grate and poked around it until the flames flickered down a little.

When I still haven’t said anything, he turned back to me and caught the ridiculous grin on my face, his cheeks flushing rosy. “What? I thought you shouldn’t have to lose that. I liked it, too. Took about a year to plan it out with this place.”

“It’s beautiful, Adam,” I reassured him. “I never thought you’d actually make this old barn a home for yourself but I’m glad you did.”

He scratched behind his ear almost shyly. “It’s not just my home, Lily. Since I met you, I’ve never made plans that didn’t include you in them. You know that.”

My heart turned and twisted and broke just a little bit more because he was right. 

I knew that. 

I shook the dusting of snow off my hair and slowly slipped off my boots, never once breaking my gaze away from him because the next question was important to me even though it really changed nothing now. “What if I never came back, Adam?”

His brows knitted at that, as if he didn’t particularly enjoy pondering on the thought, but then he seemed to have gotten a good look at my face and sighed. There was a soft smile playing on his lips as he came over to help me out of my coat. “Then I would’ve come for you. I think I would’ve kept coming, Lil, as long as there was a chance that you could still be mine.”

My coat dropped to the floor in a thick heap but it didn’t perturb Adam. His eyes were on me as he slowly circled an arm around my waist, drawing me in until we were pressed up against each other that I couldn’t tell our heartbeats apart.

“There are those things you give up and then those things you fight for until the bitter end,” he continued softly, his thumb brushing the trail of silent tears that trickled down my face. “When I loved you, Lil, it wasn’t just for a summer or a year—it was for the rest of our lives.”

The kiss that followed his tender declaration was almost as reverent as a promise.

Tonight though wasn’t about promises. It was about the past and the present and the scars between them that still needed mending.

“You stayed away for six years and I couldn’t blame you,” I said. “I gave you no reason to hang on to the past. If anything, I gave you every reason to put it behind you and move on because there had been nothing left for you there but pain. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

My voice trailed off to short gasps of breath as I buried my face in Adam’s chest, letting the force of my heartache ebb away, certain for once that the tides won’t take me while I was in his arms.

Not yet anyway. 

“It’s alright, Lil,” he murmured against my hair, his hands rubbing up and down my back in soothing strokes. “Don’t cry, please. We’ve done enough of that in the last six years.”

I dashed my tears back and looked up to him, seeing nothing but the dark pools of his gentle brown eyes. “What have we not done enough of, Adam?”

He smiled and brushed his thumb along my bottom lip. “This.”

And he kissed me again but this time, with the tenderness came the torrent of desperate desires we’d shored up in the last six years, when the one person we ached for was the one too far away.

Time had matured and hardened Adam into a strong, capable man even more powerfully built than he’d been in our youth. He’d lost some of his boyish, clean-cut charm, replaced with a rugged appeal that stirred an even hotter tempest inside of me. He kissed me with the hunger of a man starved, the devotion of a worshiper, and the desperation of the dying. The way he wanted and needed me ripped through my reserve like a sharp, searing blade and everything I held back flowed out into every vein in my body until lust filled my blood.

Clothes were shed along the way, along with much of the past—the fears, the guilt, questions with no good answers—as Adam lifted me into his arms and I clung to his shoulders, never once breaking our kiss. 

Six years was a long time to be apart, to forget how one tasted and felt in your arms, but Adam and I needed to recall very little. 

How could we forget the only real thing we’d ever known?

I knew the rhythm of his heart, the taste of his name on my lips, the heated lines of his body. He knew where to kiss a scar away, how to draw me out of the cold, and when to let me soar. 

Those who love you best know your heart well—it’s the map to their own. They would never find it without you. 

He carried me up the stairs to the loft which he’d kept exactly where it used to be. 

The moment my dress slipped over my head, Adam stilled although I could feel the tremors along his arms.

“You kept the ring.” His whisper sounded a bit choked as he stared at the delicate gold chain around my neck. The engagement ring he’d left in my hand before he stalked out years ago hung from it—a simple white gold band with a solitary diamond on it. It wasn’t an extravagant design but it was what was written on the underside of the band that made me ache.

My first, my last, my forever.

My fingers clasped the ring and brought it to my smiling lips. “As close as I could to my heart where you never left.”

He smiled crookedly. “The same heart where I intend to stay for a good, long while.”

My bare back brushed cool, soft sheets for a second before I was swept back up into Adam’s arms. My hair tumbled down my shoulders with a quick tug of his large hand at my low bun, his fingers wrapping themselves around the thick, honey brown locks. Straddling his hips and bracing my arms on his shoulders, my hands linking behind his head, I kissed him hard, as if every brush of my lips could be memories tattooed on his own where he would always remember the feel and taste of me, so that there may never be a moment for him to wonder ever again if I’d loved him as fiercely as he loved me.

“God, Lily,” Adam murmured when he had a second to catch his breath. “I’ve missed you… It’s too fast but I can’t… I don’t want to…”

“Then don’t,” I told him as I pressed a hot kiss on his lips, then another on the shallow cleft that shadowed his chin. “I’m here with you, Adam, and I don’t want to waste a single moment asking why.”

I had no idea of the consequences but I had carte blanche tonight, even just for a few hours, and I was going to fill every second with the best thing I ever knew in my life.

With the sudden look of determination in Adam’s dark eyes, it would seem that he wanted to do the same exact thing.

There was no more hesitation, no more questions. 

In the old barn where we first made love, in the new home he’d rebuilt it to be for us, Adam unraveled me with his hands, his mouth, his body, stripping me bare body and soul until there wasn’t a single thing I could hide or hold back from him anymore. He claimed what had always been his, and I took what he’d always so unselfishly given to me—a home in his arms, a space in his heart, a part of his life.

Outside this bubble, the winter storm might still be raging, pressing for time to get moving. Between the moments of incredible pleasure and slow-burning passion, I could see the swirl of snowflakes behind closed eyes. I could taste the bittersweet flavor of inevitability. I could feel the frost on the fringes of this beautiful madness at it ascended to a spectacular height and crashed back down to reality.

Only our ragged breaths, fast-beating hearts, and the crackling of the fire filled the silence of the old barn.

I was laid bare, torn asunder, warmed in every inch of my soul.

“I love you,” Adam said quietly, his voice slightly hoarse and tight with emotions. He lifted his head from where it rested on my shoulder and peered at my face. “I’m not telling you anything new, Lil. I’m just telling you what has been the truth my whole life.”

A soft smile on my lips, I reached up to unclasp the necklace around my neck. Adam slipped the ring off the chain, gazing at it for a moment while I clasped the necklace back on. As soon as my hand was free, he reached for it and slipped the ring on my left ring finger. 

The diamond caught a glint of light, reminding me of a blinding flash, but Adam’s warm body as he covered mine and tucked me neatly under it chased away the darker thoughts. 

I smiled up at him and kissed the tip of his nose. “I love you, too, Adam. And I think you’ve known all along that I never stopped.”

Adam wrapped his hand around my own that now wore his ring and brought it to his lips. “I spent the last six years fighting the possibility that you might have. I thought you just needed more time.”

Time. Neither friend nor foe—just an invisible hand of fate. 

I cupped the back of his head and brought his face down close to mine.

“The only time I need is time with you,” I told him just before I branded his mouth with another kiss that grew molten in moments. 

We made love a second time tonight—more slowly but no less intense—filling the seconds with labored breaths, sweet, hushed murmurs of each other’s names, and kisses and touches that scorched deep into our very core until we came apart.

Warm and perfectly safe in Adam’s arms, with his slowing heartbeat lulling me to the first, peaceful rest I’ve had in a long time, I plunged into slumber.

***

I have been here before—amidst the sweeping darkness, kissed by snowflakes falling from the skies, struck with a fierce sense of destiny as inescapable as the wreckage of car that had me pinned down to the rugged bed of snow and ice on the empty country road.

A few stars winked down at me from the heavens, lurking behind the blur of thick clouds. 

A strong blast of arctic wind whistled past, cooling the pile of hot metal that kept me immobile from the waist down. 

The winter storm wouldn’t pass anytime soon. 

By the time it did, the sun would be on its way to the horizon, the blood trickling out of my body a cold puddle underneath me, staining the snow and slowly seeping down into the earth.

My tears have long stopped—or maybe they haven’t—but I could no longer feel their scalding trail down my face. In fact, there was only very little left that I could still feel.

I could no longer tell where my arms were, where the pain hit the hardest.

Most of what I felt now was a numbing cold, claiming my body for this world inch by inch.

Death loomed nearby—I could smell it in the crisp freshness of the snow, in the sharp smell of crushed metal and plastic, in the heady, acrid scent of gasoline, in the smoke wafting from wood-burning fireplaces in the nearby town. 

It wouldn’t be long, just as I’d known it all evening as I mysteriously cheated time. 

I don’t know how it happened—how I came from spiralling off the road and into a tree when I caught the shape of a deer bolting across the road in front of me, to suddenly finding myself at the front door of Old Country Grill, staring at the man I had come a long way to see.

Please give me a second chance with him. 

That had been my last thought just before I’d crashed, Adam’s face the last vision in my mind at what I thought would be the last second of my life—a life I’d wasted many precious years of in search of a happiness that had in fact been right in front of me.

For some reason, I was granted that chance—as short as it was—stealing a few hours at the crossing of this life and the next. 

No matter how fleeting, I would take that chance in a heartbeat over a lifetime of never feeling Adam’s arms around me again. 

If someday you die before me, don’t be afraid that you’ve lost me, or that I’ve lost you. Just wait, Lil. I’ll find you on the other side. I’ll know where you are. My heart will lead me straight to you. I promise.

Those were Adam’s words from a long time ago, after he leapt off his own horse to come down the ditch where I was curled up in pain. I’d been thrown off my horse after it tried to avoid a large rock and I’d lain there screaming in pain, wondering if I’d been broken beyond repair.

The doctor would later diagnose that I only had a bruised rib, a dislocated elbow and several cuts but in that moment as I laid on the ditch, feeling like I was dying from the pain, Adam had cradled my head in his lap, trying to calm me down enough before going to get help. 

He wasn’t here now and in a way, I was grateful for that.

I wouldn’t want him standing back, tearing himself apart at not being able to do anything to save me this time.

It was alright. 

He’d already saved me tonight and honestly, that was enough.

Very few of us ever get a chance to do it all over again, to rectify mistakes that had haunted us for years, to come back to the first love that should have been and would be our last. 

I got that chance and I couldn’t have been any happier having taken it.

And as I’d promised him all those years ago, when I sucked in my breath and bravely blinked back the tears, I wouldn’t be afraid. 

I haven’t lost him and he hasn’t lost me. 

I’d be on the other side, waiting for him, trusting that his heart will lead him straight back to me once again.

***

Adam woke with a smile on his lips.

It remained a bit vague, with sleep still muddling his mind, but he knew in his heart that last night, something had changed. 

His eyes stretched open, catching the bright glare of the sun that had spilled into the barn through the huge windows.

The dreary weather and the slow-rolling winter storm that had plagued the county in the last day or so seemed to have cleared up. He could spy clear blue skies through the windows and while it meant that the well-below freezing temperature would only feel colder without the cover of clouds, he was glad to see the sun.

Waking up this morning, a similar kind of bright, glorious warmth felt contained in his chest. As he waded through the last of the sleepy haze, it started to make sense. The pieces came together until the reason for this cheerful state of his heart found a name he’d breathed and whispered all night, a face he’d kissed and gazed at until he could memorize its every feature, a woman he could never give up in the past, the present and the future.

Lily.

He lifted his head to turn to the side of the bed where she slept, a grin already tugging on his mouth, his hand reaching for her.

Adam froze. 

Lily wasn’t there. 

The dent on the pillow and the wrinkle on the sheets told him she hadn’t been a wild, crazy dream last night. 

He knew she’d come home to Westfall. 

She’d come home to him.

It may have come to him slowly but he did not forget a single detail of their magical night together. He could still taste her on his lips. He could still smell her faint, rosewater scent. He could still feel her warm body, her soft curves, the silky texture of her long, dark hair as it glided over his skin.

His fingers touched the sheets, feeling their cool surface. 

“Lily?” he called out, his voice echoing around the loft bedroom. If she were anywhere in the house, she would hear him. He was practically bellowing the rafters down.

The place remained eerily silent.

Hands clenching, Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He tamped down the surge of frustration at the thought that after everything that had happened last night between them, when the last bitter six years apart had concluded so sweetly and so perfectly last night, here in the home he’d built for them, Lily had hightailed back to New York again. 

She meant everything she’d told and given him last night. She may have changed a lot in the past several years but last night, the Lily he was with, the Lily he’d made love to, was the one he’d grown up with and loved resolutely all his life. 

He knew, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary, that she’d come home last night for good.

So where was she?

He threw the covers off and grabbed what clothes he could find on the floor. He couldn’t find a single trace of hers. He walked into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, studying himself on the mirror for possible signs that he might have just imagined everything last night, that he’d gone over the edge waiting for her. His dark hair was all mussed from where she’d grabbed on to it, his mouth was still a bit swollen from her fiery kisses. She’d been real, alright.

Then he heard the chime of his door bell.

He threw a shirt and a sweater on and headed downstairs.

Whoever was outside was getting pretty angsty, following every chime with an insistent rapping on the door.

The moment Adam opened the door, cold air swept in, chilling him down from his bare toes to the tips of his ears. He squinted against the high morning sun behind the man standing there, outlining a bulky jacket and a cowboy hat. As soon as his vision adjusted, the emblems and patches on the man’s dark uniform peeking from under the jacket came to focus.

“Morning, Bryce,” he greeted the man he’d gone to high school with an affable smile. “What brings you over so early in this blasted cold?”

The man didn’t lighten up as he looked at Adam. In fact, the hardened expression on his face looked like it had been frozen in place, which didn’t make sense considering what a gruff but jolly fellow Bryce was.

“Hey, Adam. Can I come in for a second?” the sheriff asked.

Ice started to form in the pit of Adam’s stomach. He hasn’t heard it yet but he already didn’t like the reason for Bryce’s visit.

Saying nothing, he stepped back to let him in. 

Bryce closed the door behind him but made no further move into the house. He took off his hat and pressed it to his stomach. 

“I know that officially, this has nothing to do with you,” the man started, his voice a bit gravelly, as if he didn’t quite want to speak but had to. “You’re not next of kin or anything like that but rules aside, I thought you should know.”

Adam could feel the ice in his gut spreading but he held it together. This was a small town where many people worked for him. Bryce could be here for any of them. It didn’t have to be her. 

“I got called just before sunrise to a car crash just south of town,” Bryce explained, wincing despite his efforts not to. “Just at the crossing of the highway and the beginning of main street. Looks like the car skidded to its side and hit a tree. It was a pretty bad snow storm last night.”

Adam nearly collapsed, his legs drained of any strength, and he staggered back against the wall, his arm braced on it for support. Bryce stepped forward, as if to help him, but Adam held a hand up. “Where is she? Did they take her to the hospital? I’m gonna go right now.”

His old friend’s face was sad and Adam didn’t like it one bit. 

He had no call to be sad. Lily was going to be okay. He still had to yell at her for running out in an ungodly hour when she could’ve stayed here with him, safe. 

“Lily’s gone, Adam,” Bryce said in a rough whisper. “The crash must’ve been just right around midnight. She’d been there a while before anyone passing by saw her. She was pinned under. I’m so sorry, man. She lost a lot of blood and with how cold it was last night…”

“That is bullshit!” Adam roared, so furious all of a sudden, even as hot tears cascaded down his face. “How could she have been there all night? She was with me! She was at the Grill and we went to West Heights and she came home with me… Ask Anna-Lynne! Ask the people at the Grill! She was here and she looked perfectly fine! And she…”

Adam’s voice trailed off into heavy but quiet sobs as he turned around to press his forehead against the wall, his palms flat on the wooden panel, memories of last night jumbling in his brain, trying to fit together and make sense.

How could she have been with him—beautiful, happy, perfectly well on a quiet, lightly snowing night—when she was supposed to be trapped under the wreckage of her car at the crossing, dying all alone in the middle of a winter storm?

He sharply looked over his shoulder at Bryce who swam in his tear-filled vision. “Was she wearing a green coat? A light gray dress?”

Bryce furrowed his brows in confusion but he took out a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it to a page. “Yes, a green coat. And a gray dress.”

“Was she wearing a diamond ring on her ring finger? Or was she wearing it on a chain around her neck?” Adam pressed. “She had a small gold chain around her neck without a pendant and she had these small pearl earrings. But she had a diamond ring on her finger. It was the one I gave her when I asked her to marry me.”

Bryce studied his notes with an even deeper frown this time. “I’m not sure I got details… Jewelry, hmm. Plain gold chain, pearl earrings… a diamond ring.” Bryce looked up at him, looking perplexed. “How the hell did you know all that?”

Adam ran a hand down his face and shook his head because all of a sudden, things made sense even when there were more questions than answers. 

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

Adam didn’t remember Bryce leaving. 

He sat on the floor with his back to the wall for a while, trying to understand what happened. 

Lily had been dying a few miles away, at the border of town, at the crossing of her life in New York and the one she’d left behind in Westfall, but she managed to spend the last few hours of her life with him.

How?

And most importantly, why?

If I’m about to die before you one day, I want you to be there beside me. That way, I won’t be afraid. And I won’t be. I promise.

Those were Lily’s words to him a long time ago, when he held her as she lay injured on the ditch after she fell off her horse. She’d been out of her mind in pain, only subsiding when he stayed by her side for a little while, soothing her with words and his touch. 

Lily cheated death to keep a promise.

She did come home to him at last, even if she couldn’t stay for very long. 

It would hurt. The anguish would stay with him for a very long time, but there was some comfort in knowing that she came back, braving death and fate and time, to be with him in her final hours.

She was his first love, and he was hers. 

Even if it would take decades before he could ever be with her again as he’d promised, he would be alright because he knew, deep down, that because of the odds she’d fought to come back, they would also be each other’s last.

***

A/N: So, this part is tough. Some of you are going to get what happened in the end, some of you are going to be teary-eyed and say that it was bittersweet, some of you are going to pull your hair out and hate me a little, or a lot. 

Most of my stories have happy endings and I'd like to think that Lily and Adam got one. Who's to define the technicalities of a happy ending, right? They found their way back to each other after thinking all was lost. They got a chance, no matter how fleeting, to put some of the pieces back and be with the one they love, even only for a few hours.

I think a piece of the lesson here is that we're sometimes going to get what we ask for. Even if it's not everything we dreamed it to be, or if we can only get a fraction of it, would we still do it, even knowing it won't last?

Lily and Adam's story is a short one because it only captures a night they've spent together after years of fighting a love that both hurt them and made them happy. I'd like to think that we all got a pretty good idea of just intense and powerful that love was. Lily was in the wrong for a long time but in the end, given a second chance she thought she'd lost forever, she somewhat fought the odds to keep an old promise.

This story is pretty special to me because it shows a rare, almost magical side of love and its mysterious ways and I think we should never forget that.

If you want to be pulled in deeper into the complexities of a long, enduring love, head to the theaters on October 17 and The Best of Me. 

Thanks!

P.S. Listen to the song. It's the one I had on an endless loop as I was writing this story.

- - - Shattered by Trading Yesterday - - -

Yesterday I died, tomorrow's bleeding. 
Fall into your sunlight. 
The future's open wide, beyond believing. 
To know why, hope dies. 
Losing what was found, a world so hollow. 
Suspended in a compromise. 
The silence of this sound, is soon to follow. 
Somehow, sundown. 

And finding answers. 
Is forgetting all of the questions we called home. 
Passing the graves of the unknown. 

As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading. 
Illusions of the sunlight. 
And a reflection of a lie, will keep me waiting. 
With love gone, for so long. 

And this day's ending. 
Is the proof of time killing, all the faith I know. 
Knowing that faith, is all I hold.