Page 94 of A Wish for Us

Cromwell stopped dead. His eyes closed for a moment. Then he leaned down and kissed me again. Butterfly wings fluttered in my chest. When he pulled back, I slipped my hand from around his neck and placed it on his cheek. Telling him without words how I felt.

After all, love was beyond words.

Cromwell stepped into the boat. It rocked slightly as he lowered me onto the seat. I leaned back and took a deep breath. Cromwell laid a blanket around me then took the oars in his hands. “Do…do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

His wide smile took away the small amount of breath I had in my lungs. “Just thought I’d wing it.” We pulled off onto the lake, and Cromwell quickly got the hang of using the oars. I smiled as we glided along the still water, the oars rippling the water around us. Cromwell met my eyes and winked. I couldn’t help but laugh. The sound came out as a wheeze, but even that didn’t stop me from cherishing the moment.

I decided I liked this side of Cromwell best. The one where he was free. Where he was funny, no walls guarding his heart. He looked off to the side of the lake, where the trees were thicker, as if they were cocooning us into a private world just for us. And I was struck. Struck that this boy from England, the prince of EDM, was here with me right now. The boy who was born with a melody in his heart and a symphony in his soul was on this, my favorite lake, rowing us along the water like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I hadn’t wanted anyone else in my life for fear of what would happen if I lost this fight. But now that I was here, with Cromwell, him becomingmyoar, helping me sail across this lake, I knew it could never have been any other way.

We moved in silence, just the singing birds and the rustling leaves as our soundtrack. As a bird sang, I looked up and then at Cromwell. “Mustard yellow,” he said. I smiled, then looked at the leaves almost touching the lake from an overhanging branch. “Bronze.”

I pulled the blanket higher over me when a chill started building at my toes. I closed my eyes and listened to the mustard-yellow and bronze notes.

I opened my eyes when I heard the sound of Mozart’s Fourth Symphony. Cromwell had stopped rowing and had placed his cell next to him.

I was transported back to our first meeting. When I’d left the club and walked down to the beach in Brighton. I’d always loved the water, and there was something so majestic about the thrashing waves of the sea in Britain. Even in summer it was turbulent and cold.

The calm of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major had been playing beside me, a stark contrast to what I’d been watching. Then, as turbulent as the waves, Cromwell Dean had staggered down to the beach, Jack Daniels in hand. His troubled eyes had snapped to mine as he heard the music from my phone.

And now, “Mozart?” I asked and smiled. He must have remembered that meeting too.

“Amadeus and I have reached an understanding.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “We’re friends again.”

“Good,” I said in response. But there was more to that word. Because Cromwell was in love with classical music again. He was playing again. I tipped my head to the side as he sat back in his seat. I waited until there was a dip in the symphony to ask, “What do you want to do with your life, Crom?”

Cromwell sat forward and took my hand. It was as if it gave him strength. A man in a vintage canoe paddled past. Cromwell watched him. “I always see him here,” he said absently. He shrugged. “I want it all.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “I want to create music. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” He smirked. “I don’t have any other talent.”

I wished I had the ability to speak more than a few breathless words.Because I would have told him that he needed no other talent. Because how he created music, his ability, was like nothing I’d ever seen or heard. It was above sheer talent. It was divine. And it was exactly what he was meant to do.

“I like EDM, but I need to compose classical too.” He rubbed his lips together. “I just want to play. Create. For whoever, wherever, as long as I have music in my life. I love EDM, but I suppose nothing quite gives me the same feeling as classical.” He nodded his head in my direction. “You were right. Through classical, you tell a story without words. Move people. Inspire them.” He sighed like he had found a glimmer of peace in his tortured soul. “When I play classical, when I compose…it means something. It gives meaning to my life.” He looked at me and paused, as if stopping himself from saying something.

“What?” I tugged on his hand.

He searched my eyes, then said, “Lewis has offered me his place in the show that’s coming to Charleston soon. To compose and show my work.” My eyes widened. If my heart could have raced, it would have kicked into a sprint. Cromwell ducked his head, like he was embarrassed. “A symphony.” He inhaled, and I saw the weight of what he had carried for three years, with his father, shine in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have long. To compose. But…” He could do it. I was sure he already had a symphony in his heart just waiting to burst out.

“You need to do it.” I thought back on all the videos I had seen of him playing as a child. The music that had come to him as naturally as breathing then. What was an even stronger need now. “You must do it.” I used the little energy I had to lean forward and cup his cheek.

Cromwell looked at me. “I don’t want to leave you.”In case this is all the time we’ll ever have.I saw the words in his head as vibrantly as he saw color when he heard a simple noise. I thought of the gala—to me, so far away. And I knew that if a heart didn’t come, I wouldn’t be there to see it.

It was funny. My heart was dying, yet I never felt any pain from it alone. But in that moment, I was sure it was crying at the fact that it might not see Cromwell Dean in his element, on the stage he was born to stand on.

“You…you must do it.” Because if I didn’t make it, then I would belooking down from the heavens, beside his father, watching as the boy we loved captivated the hearts and minds of everyone in the room.

Cromwell looked at the canoeist. The man nodded his head and silently passed us by. Cromwell watched him go. “And you?” he asked. “What do you want to do with your life?”

Cromwell moved my hair from my face. I thought it was just an excuse to touch me, and that brought warmth to my chilly bones. “Writing is my passion…I always thought I would perhaps do something with that.” I exhaled a difficult breath. “Hear my words sung back to me.” It wasn’t an overly complex dream. And it had already come true. I held his hands tighter. “You have already given me that.”

But I had a greater dream in my mind, and it was only now I understood just how unreachable it was. Some might think it simple, or nothing of great importance, but to me, it was the world.

“Bonnie?”

“To be…married,” I said. “To have children.” My bottom lip wavered. Because even if a heart came, it could be difficult to have a family. Carrying babies post-surgery brought even more risks, but I knew I would chance it. I felt my lashes grow wet. “To be forever in love…and to be forever loved.” I gave a watery smile. “That is now my dream.” When the threat of death hangs over you, you realize that your true dreams aren’t so grand. And they all come down to one thing—love. Material possessions and idealistic goals fade away like a dying star. Love is what remains. Life’s purpose is to love.