THE sky hung dark grey clouds that day.

     The wind slightly picked up its pace, and wafting in between broken branches, the breeze rustled any dried leaves that remained on trees. A storm brewed somewhere far off in the horizon. The sky shuddered with a loud rumble of distant thunder, and a crack of lightning shot across the skyline for the briefest of seconds.

      The faintest dull flash of lightning, illuminated Chris' blue eyes as he intensely watched, in the far off distance of the cemetery, Adeline's black coffin and a Baptist pastor speaking. He didn't hear much of what the man was saying, for his heart and mind were in a different place. A much darker, and lonely place. He vaguely made out red roses atop the casket as his eyes stared blankly out at Adeline's friends and family.

     The news of Adeline's death had reached the actor's ears a tad too late. Chris had called Adeline's cell after his text message wasn't answered in a few weeks, presuming she was busy with work, but only to have Adeline's mother pick up her daughter's cell and inform him of the tragic news.

     Even when the journalist was dead, her phone proceeded to ring alive with people who assumed she were still around. Seems as though the news hadn't quite reached those individuals either.

     Christopher's sapphire eyes drifted to Adeline's parents and eldest sister, and contemplated them both. He could only imagine what her parent's thoughts must be, that one of them should have been in that coffin, not their youngest daughter. The Canadian still had the whole world ahead of her, and in an instant that was all taken from her.

     The actor saw how precious ones life was, really. So much so, that in a blink of an eye, the one person he discovered and grew fond of as a good friend, and perhaps something more as he realized standing at Adeline's funeral from afar, merely died.

     As every solemn and tearful face mourned the loss of a loved one and a friend that day, Adeline's family was filled with hope and assurance of where she truly was now. Therefore, that certainty created more joy in their hearts and minds, rather than grieving their daughter in spirit and body.

     For what is there to grieve about in a born again Christian's life?

    They knew the hope that lived within them, and consequently have the greatest confidence in knowing where they are headed for eternity. God's Word has said the wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ had defeated death at the cross and now Christians can be assured, if they repent and put their faith in Christ, that they too, can pass from death to life—ultimately defeating death as well.

    Chris slunk out of the cemetery before the service had ended, and made his way back to his rental car. He walked with a bitterness in his steps, and an unthinkable anger towards this so called God, Adeline believed in. He didn't quite understand why this had to happen, or why such a mighty, powerful, and sovereign God would allow this tragedy to fall on her.  

    Reaching his car, he stopped a few feet from the vehicle to look up into the darkening sky filling with rain clouds. In the same moment, a harsh gust of wind rushed past his face, displacing a strip of his short brown hair combed neatly in gel atop his head. The strand swept across his forehead. 

    Rain gradually started to trickle from the sky as he took one fleeting glance back on the one person he grew to love, then left without a word. One could say Chris' heart began to harden towards God, but this was only the end of her story and the beginning to his.

____

ONE YEAR LATER

    Chris dragged a boot through the dirt in the grassy ground. Hesitation was dressed in every form on the actor, but he still managed to pull through to get here. He drew the navy ball cap further down the line of his face, a face stricken with sadness, yet conflicting with peace. 

    The actor practically dressed in mourning clothes. He wore a tight-fitted black t-shirt, dark blue chinos jeans, and dark brown bushacre boots. Today however, the man decided his days of mourning were over, that in fact he shouldn't have mourned but rejoiced that another Christian went home to see their Bridegroom: Jesus Christ. 

     His soft blue eyes shifted from the ground to a tombstone. "I know you're not here, I mean," he said, and swallowed. "Your body is still in the ground, but your soul is in heaven, and I understand that it's pointless to be here—let alone speak right now." He knew he was simply talking to thin air and a stone. "Hopefully the big Guy up there is letting you see this," Chris said, cranking his head back and looking up into the sky, as if he were searching for something: heaven.

    The movie star breathed heavily when his eyes fell on her grave. Two things were clasped in either of his hands, two very important items, which his fingers absentmindedly curled tighter around. One was a Bible, the other was a letter scrawled in his handwriting.

    "There's a lot I need to tell you," he simply stated out loud. "Firstly, I need to confess that—thanks to you, I repented and have put my faith in Jesus. I was skeptical at first, probably why it's taken a year, but now I'm b-born again, A-Addy," Chris told as his voice began to crack, and eyes shine. 

    He soon drifted his eyes, full of fresh tears springing up, to the letter in his right hand. "I also wrote you something, just something that's meaningless, but something I wrote when," when I was in pain. Chris cut himself off, finishing the rest of the thought in his head. 

    A solemn pause mingled around him, as he fiddled with the letter. During the first year after Adeline's accident, he wrote a love letter, a simple piece of literature through the grief that captivated him and made those sweet, but miserable words and syllables, gush forth upon ink and paper. 

    In a whisk, in a blink of an eye, a memory floated to the surface, one that had him strangely frozen in his spot, staring into oblivion at her headstone.

F L A S H   B A C K

    He carefully watched her with not an eye for examining, but with intrigue. He couldn't wrap his finger around this gal, not like the others from his past which seemed like most of them he could predict. This one was...different. Albeit, that word hadn't agreed with him, no, it sure wasn't different, but something else – something more. Perhaps she was unreadable?

    "Excuse my bluntness, but tell me," began Chris, casually laying an arm across the back of the couch, "why an attractive woman like you is still single?"

    His sapphire eyes remained on her, noting how she had to turn her head in the other direction to think for an answer. The corner of his lip amusingly twisted upward as his eyes drifted to her lips, when she bit on her bottom one. "I guess," she started, and looked back at him. "I guess I'm waiting for the man of my story to come."

    His smirk faltered, and he had to ask seriously, "Really?"

    She held the straight face for as long as she could, then suddenly, the woman giggled and drew up a mischievous side smile. "You're too easy to tease, Mr. Evans."

F L A S H  B A C K  O V E R

    He finally sat down, setting his Bible next to him, and seated himself with crossed legs in front of her tombstone. For a moment Chris stared at her tombstone and what was written on it. A light summer's breeze tumbled by, brushing over his black t-shirt. He propped a leg up, and once again dug the tip of his boot into the soil.

    He wanted to move on and read the letter, he truly did, but he was beginning to find his letter silly. Silly in the sense that he felt nervous to read it. Which was a ridiculous feeling and thought towards a dead person. How's he going to know if she found it weird, or even awkward? She was dead for heaven's sake.

    He shook his head, sniffled, and glanced up at the former journalist and friend now in six feet of dirt. "I guess I better get on with it." A ghost of a smirk fluttered across his plump lips, but just as fast as it came, it vanished merely the same. 

    Chris came to Adeline's grave for one reason. He needed closure, and he imagined this was the only way to do so. And the only way to say goodbye to her. Unfolding the letter, he read.

"White paper,

White spaces,

Red line,

Blue lines.

But no words. Blank spaces waiting to be filled—used by ink, loved by the author. But all I see is white. No words, no ink, just empty spaces.

Line after line, they're all dead. Words. That's all the paper needs to live. It hungers for use, it thirst for syllables and verbs, it feeds off memories, dreams, nightmares, and loss in the inky print.

Hopefully these words should suffice.

When I came to see her, she looked absolutely beautiful as the last time I saw her. Even in her work clothes. But that wasn't what caught my eyes.

I saw her for not her outward beauty, but for the graceful charm that was from within her fair heart. When I asked her that night, how such an attractive woman such as herself could still be single, and she told me that she was waiting "for the man of my story to come," I was utterly stricken up with the fever of astonishment, and coming up with the symptoms of a common cold others call, love.

I didn't know it then, but I know it now. I didn't know I was falling for an ordinary woman, but now I have, and it's too late.

Too late to have laughed one more time with her, too late to hear her laugh, too late to hold, to kiss and to say, "I love you." It's far too late to even tell her how I feel.

Now I only have these words to tell someone my story. The story of a broken man meeting a struggling angel, in the stunning mystery of Christianity. I thought I knew what I believed in, I thought I knew who I was. But now I look back and foolishly shake my head, for I didn't know who I was nor what I believed in.

That is till she bumped into my life, literally, and her light shinned upon my dead beast of darkness. She was the physical sense of walking life, while I was the other physical sense of walking death.

And her name was Adeline Banks. A true woman of mystery. 

And forever will you be engraved in my memory."

     Another long pause hit Chris, then slowly, with gentle care, he folded up his letter. A long shaky breath left him after he put the letter away in the back pocket of his pants. His eyes lingered on the head of her tombstone, lost in thought. 

     "Looks like we can't start the first chapter of our friendship," he whispered. "You had to leave, and without a goodbye." He lowly laughed at his own joke, flickered his eyes to the sky as a tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. "Why did you have to take her God? Why?"

     He relished in the sun's warmth on his skin. "Please allow me to understand why You've done this," he said, eyes now closed. "Please allow me to get past this sorrow, allow me to move on and find contentment if I never know why this had to happen." Panic seized him at the very thought of him never knowing why God had to take her, then suddenly a peace washed over him as he breathed out his last, "Please."

     The second the word left his lips, he tipped his head down and poured out everything he ignored, abandoned, or thought he could do without. All his pain, suffering, confusion, turmoil and more. He let the tears fall, and cried till relief flooded the long suffering that ate at his heart, and the weight on his shoulders lifted.

     Indeed Adeline and Chris never got to start the first chapter in their unexpected friendship that seemed to blossom at first coffee spill, but Chris had begun the first chapter in his new life. Being a new creature in Christ.

     In chapter one of Chris' journey, he merely came to realize that the Lord gives us the time to breathe, until it is a Christian's time to come home with Him.

     And the second thing, in the second chapter—which will begin soon for Mr. Evans, is that he will come to understand another majestically incredible piece about his Lord and Saviour.

     He takes a life, but saves another in the process.

    You see dear ones, it is not us who call ourselves home, but it is When He Calls Us Home, then we go. 

a.n

Hello lovelies! So glad you made it thus far : )

I am. Never. Ever. Going to write stories that are non-fantasy based, or like this one again. It booored me. Yes there was a few times where I had fun writing in this kind of fiction style, your every day modern and realistic style, but I missed writing my fantasy stuff. I want to call this genre contemporary, but I don't think it qualifies, am I right? Someones bound to correct me haha. I think I'd write in this style once in a blue moon, lol.

It's funny, not really actually, how writers take hours and hours to write and come up with so-called 'perfect' chapters – even then we still find flaws in our writing, and dislike it but still post it anyways, and yet, it only takes but less than an hour for someone to read said chapter, or the entire book. Why do I write again?  

36,975 thousand words later...I think my story would qualify as a novella, since someone told me that under 30 thousand words, it's considered a short novel, but anything 50 thousand or more, is considered not? I dunno, can't remember if they said 30 thousand, but then again, someone's bound to correct me ; )

So peeps, or bookworms if you like that name better, this is the part where I self advertise and direct you to read my other stories if you enjoyed this one.

I reeeally want to write this super long author's note to make up for no author notes in the book, not that any reader cares – I frankly like when authors say things near the end, or don't, doesn't bother me. Do you like hearing us blabber near the end of chapters? I used to do that (write notes, and perhaps blabber in them), but stopped because I simply had no idea what to say in them, and here I am not knowing how I can stop my fingers from typing this up. 

Anyway.

Right now, since I finally got this book finished, I'll probably either start my Fantastic Four fan fic, or my Winter Soldier one. Most likely I'll finish the FF one because I had originally started that one before WS, plus I ain't got a story line/ plot yet for the WS one lol. The only thing I have is my main character, and even then I'm still working the kinks in her.

One more thing before this shenanigans ends, I was going through my original chapters in WHCUH, and stumbled across the chapter where Adeline goes to see Chris at comic-con to tell him she's sorry, and forgives him from their argument. Do you guys remember that? Well I  reread it and reeeally loved how I wrote it, so as a bonus chapter, I'm going to tweak a few things, edit more things, and change around words and...if you want, I can have a bonus chapter. Would you like that near the end?

It won't be connected to this story line considering I changed it from the original, but the bonus chapter would be named something like, hmm, "Adeline's and Chris' Argument," mmm no. Maybe I'll just name it "Bonus Chapter," and explain what is happening – hey it could be like a short story starring Adeline and Chris! Ya! I think I'll do that. 

Alrighty, now that that is out of the way, time to wrap this note up. I do hope you guys check out my other stories and give them a vote or comment. Thanks for sticking with this one, and now it's time for me to say, goodbye bookworms, and until the next book :)

-Kristy xo