Until We Meet Again (20 page)

Each step feels like scaling a mountain. Lawrence takes the
first step onto the path.
“Wait.”
He looks back at me. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not ready.”
He smiles a little. “Why not? This is everything we’ve been
working for. Don’t you want to be together?”
“Of course I do, but…what if it doesn’t happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this beach, being able to see each other, really is
just a freak accident? An anomaly. A random crack in the timespace continuum. There’s no fate. No destiny. It just…is what
it is. Nothing more. What if saving you changes nothing?”
“There’s only one way to test that,” Lawrence says. He holds
out his hand.
The train of what-ifs roar through me again.
“Suppose it does work. What if we only get one free pass to
move through time?” My throat feels tight. “I never really said
good-bye to my mom.”
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Lawrence says, but I can tell he’s
trying to sound more confident than he feels.
“You don’t know anything for sure.” I stare at the pathway,.
“What if saving you actually closes the portal or the gateway or
whatever crazy thing has been letting us see each other? What
if fate allowed me to see you only so I could save you? And now
that I have…it will be over. What if when we leave this beach,
we fade into our own times and never see each other again?”
The questions are enough to make Lawrence step back. He
stares at the pathway, thoughts racing behind his dark eyes. I
throw my arms around his neck. He holds me tightly.
“I can’t lose you, Lawrence. I can’t take the risk.”
After a long pause, his words come. “But what other choice
to do we have?”
I break from his grip. Lawrence touches my face.
“We can’t stay on this beach forever.”
“Yes, we can.”
“Cassandra.”
The lump in my throat burns. “I’m so afraid.”
“And so am I. But the chance to spend forever with you is
worth the risk. And the only way we can know is by trying.”
He presses his lips to mine. I kiss him back, hungrily. He
starts to pull away, but I don’t let him. He returns the passion.
And deep inside, I know that it is worth the risk. To have him
forever. To have this kiss for the rest of my life.
I set my forehead to his. “If we don’t see each other on the
other
side—”
He puts his fingers to my lips. “Don’t even speak it. We will.”
I release a trembling breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Hand pressed to hand, we turn to the path.
One step. Then another. Lawrence keeps his face turned to
me. He gives me a little smile. Pulling my hand, he runs into
the path.
“Lawrence!”
For a blurred, breathless moment, we’re flying hand in hand.
And then…the definition of Lawrence’s features start to fade.
The strength of his grip seems to melt away. His colors fade,
and like a ghost, he vanishes into the night air.

I stagger back to the beach. It’s empty. Only dark sand and
whitetipped
surf.
“Lawrence?” I call out.
Nothing.
I scream as loud as I can. “LAWRENCE?”
Gasping, I fall to my knees on the sand. “No. No, no, no.”
It can’t be over. It can’t. I’ll never forgive myself for letting
Lawrence leave my arms. I’ll never forgive the universe for not
getting a chance to say good-bye.
He bursts from the bushes.
His face is ashen, his eyes wide. I draw in a sharp breath, and
we collide in a fierce embrace. There are no words. We just hold
each other.
Lawrence finally steps back. Taking my hand, he leads me to
our spot on the sand, overlooking the waves. The place we first
met. Side by side, we stare out at the sea.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“I do.” The words hurt to say. “This beach is just an anomaly.
A crack in time. Always has been, always will be.”
Lawrence frowns. “But how could that be? Don’t you think
someone would have noticed in the nearly hundred years this
house has been standing?”
I shake my head. “Maybe they didn’t.” But even as I say it, I
realize how implausible that would be. Surely someone would
have noticed.
“There has to be another explanation,” Lawrence says. “Some
sense to it all.”
“Or maybe there’s not.”
Despondent, I lie on my back, wincing at the pain that still
hangs over my body. My eyes are drawn to the moon. It’s especially big and bright, hanging over the beach. Beautiful. Almost
full, by the looks of it.
A sharp snap of realization clicks into place. The moon. The
full moon. The full moon tomorrow night. I sit up.
“What is it?” Lawrence asks.
I set my hand on his knee. I need a minute of silence to put
together the wild thoughts in my mind. That first night. The full
moon rising out of the ocean. The pulse of light. Lawrence suddenly standing down by the water. The painting in the library.
The full moon. It has to mean something.
“What’s going on, Cassandra? You’re making me jumpy.”
I turn to him. “I have an idea. A theory, really.”
“Okay. So, tell me.”
“First, I have to ask a question. On the night we met, did you
watch the moon rise?”
He frowns. “I think so, yes.”
“And did you notice anything…strange?”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, shock
spreads over his face. “The flash of light. You saw it too?”
I release a shaky breath. “Yes.”
“I thought it was a trick of the eye. What was it then?”
“All I know is, I was alone on the beach, and right after that
pulse of light, you were suddenly standing down by the shore.”
His eyes widen. “That’s exactly how it happened for me. That
has to be significant!”
“Lawrence. The next full moon is tomorrow night.”
Lawrence perks up at the revelation. “Are you sure? Well, this
could be our answer, Cassandra! This will be what allows us to
travel into each other’s worlds. Another full moon will open
the portal.”
“Or it could close forever.” My words bring his enthusiasm
to a halt. “Maybe this anomaly will only last through one
cycle of the moon. And at the rise of the new full moon…it
will be over.”
Lawrence shakes his head, processing what I’ve said. “No.”
“Think about it. If we were going to be able to move through
time, it would have happened when we tried it. It’s not going
to last forever.”
Lawrence’s lips part to reply, but no words come. We’re silent
for a while, digesting the awful, sad truth of it. I glance over at
Lawrence, my heart still raw from everything I’ve gone through
in the last twenty-four hours.
“They’re probably all wondering what’s taking you so long,”
I say.
Lawrence sighs. “You were supposed to come with me.”
“I know.”
He grips me by the shoulders. “We’ll figure this out,
Cassandra. There has to be a way. We will be together.”
“You should go,” I say. “The police have probably made it to
the house by now. You’ll need to tell them about your uncle.”
His expression drops. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I…can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
He only shakes his head. I touch his face.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” he says, his voice choked.
“You’re alive. That didn’t go wrong. And that’s the most important thing. We changed the past. And probably the future.”
A shiver passes through me. The old fear about messing with
the time prick at me, but I shake them away.
“Will you meet me here tomorrow?” Lawrence asks. “Will
you spend the day with me, if it…”
His voice drops off, but I know what he was going to say. If
it is our last day together.
“Of course,” I say.
He rises, brushing the sand from his pants. His steps to the
bushes are slow, conflicted. He turns just before going back
to his own world. His beautiful brown eyes are flush with
sadness.
“I need you, Cassandra. Now more than ever.”

he telegram from my father arrived early this morning.
It lies flat on the desk. Like a wound. I try to ignore
the neatly printed message and pour my pain onto the page.
I pause in writing for a moment, brushing my finger lightly
over one of my wounds. The place where Ned’s fists split my
skin is hot to the touch. Overnight, an angry bruise has spread
over the skin.

The police took Ned in last night. As it turns out, the Feds
had been monitoring him from a distance, aware of his dealings
with the Cartelli family. They were waiting for the announcement of the merger with Cooper Enterprises—another company they’d had their eye on—and they would have closed in.

After a restless night of sleep, it all feels like a bad dream or
some sensational story I heard at a party. But then, many things
have felt that way this summer.

I look back down at my writing. I’ve amassed several pages
since I started. It’s as if I’m searching for the answer to how to
keep Cassandra in my own words. Nothing has come. Instead,
I flail in the deluge of sadness and anger and despair. The only
way to breathe is to keep writing.

Bad business, this situation with your uncle.
Your Aunt Eloise is quite beside herself. She’s
purchased you a ticket home on the afternoon train
this Tuesday, 7th of August. Don’t be late.

They’re the first words I’ve had from my father all summer.
I close my eyes and set the telegram down. It’s just as well. If
Cassandra is right, if tonight truly is the last time I’ll be able to
see her, then I might as well be on a train back to Connecticut.
If I can’t see Cassandra on that beach, then I never want to set
foot on it again.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful after escaping the grasp of
death, but at this moment, all I can feel is pain.
Tomorrow. I leave for home tomorrow afternoon. And
tonight I say good-bye to my Cassandra.

the lawn to the beach. A warm wind curls through
the air, and the blue of twilight almost sparkles. Hearing the
familiar sound of the ocean as I draw near, I’m overcome by
how beautiful the place really is.

Lawrence and I spent most of the day together and agreed to
meet just after sunset. I’m a little early, despite the fact that I
spent a good amount of time getting ready. I brushed my hair
in long waves, perfumed my skin, and put on the green silk
dress that’s hung unused in my closet all summer. It’s childish,
perhaps, but I want his final image of me to be beautiful.

I find myself lingering on the path. I have the strangest
desire to see if I can feel Lawrence pass through me as he
comes to the beach. Will I be able to sense him? Even separated by a hundred years?

But then movement on the shoreline draws my attention. It’s
Lawrence. He’s already there. He’s wearing his best suit. Dark
gray with elegant pinstripes, and a deep crimson tie. He dressed
for me too. For some reason, this makes me want to cry.

Lawrence looks up. At first, his eyes widen with awe, and
then a sad smile brightens his face.
“Come here,” he says, holding out his arms.
I run to him. As his arms close around me, the threat of tears
returns. This isn’t going to be a cry-fest. I swore to myself.
We break apart, and Lawrence gazes at me. “You look…
sublime.”
He cups my face in his hands, resting his forehead on mine,
and sighs. There’s a hitch in his voice.
“I don’t want to speak,” he says softly. “I know anything I
say will just be the beginning of good-bye.”
“That’s all there is left to say, Lawrence.” I can’t meet his
eyes or I’ll lose the tenuous grip I have on my emotions. “We
know we have to say it. Why prolong the inevitable?”
“No,” he says resolutely. “No, there’s so much more I have
to say to you before good-bye.”
He pulls what looks like a large envelope from his inside
jacket pocket. The pale gold paper is tied with a brown string.
I can see the shadow of words pressed through from the other
side. Lawrence puts the envelope in my palm and closes my
fingers over it with both of his hands.
“For you,” he says. “My very soul is on these pages. You can
have something to remember me by.”
Not going to cry.
Two rogue tears escape and splash on the
envelope.
“And there’s something else,” he says softly. He reaches into
his pocket. When he opens his hand, a glint of light flickers
off the object in his palm. I draw a sharp breath.
It’s a sapphire ring. Blue and bright as the moon.
Wide-eyed, I look up at him. His expression is sweet and sad.
“It was my mother’s. Father gave it to her when he went to
Vienna for a summer, as a promise that he wouldn’t forget
her. She passed it on to me to give to the love of my life. I
was planning to give this to you once we…once we were truly
together. But last night I realized that no matter what, you are
the love of my life. I want you to have it. And I make the same
promise my father did to my mother. Whenever you look at
this ring, you can know that I will be thinking of you.”
I try to keep the swell of tears from spilling over, but it’s
no use. Setting my hand over his, I feel the ring between our
palms. It cuts into me deeper than any blade ever could.
“I can’t take it. It will break my heart.”
“Please,” he says, stroking my cheek. “It will break my heart
to keep it. It belongs to you, Cassandra.”
He lifts my hand and slides the ring onto my finger. It hangs
loose, a few sizes too big. He twists his lips to the side and
places it on my pointer finger. “I guess now you know where
I get my fat fingers from.”
We both laugh. I wipe a few more tears and kiss his hands
fiercely. “I love your fat fingers.”
He smiles and then holds my hand out to examine it. “This
ring belongs here. It’s perfect. Nearly as beautiful as you are.”
“I wish I’d brought something for you,” I say softly.
Lawrence strokes the skin on the back of my hand. “You don’t
have to. You’ve given me the greatest gift anyone ever could.”
“I want to give you more than just my love.”
“Cassandra, you gave me my life. And I don’t only mean by
saving me from Ned. It’s more. So much more.” He touches
the envelope in my hand. “You’ve given me a voice.”
I stare at the words on the page.
“Don’t you see?” Lawrence says. “Loving you has given me
the courage to do what I should have done long ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to law school. I’m going to write. I’m going
to go home tomorrow and say good-bye to my father. Then it’s
on to New York or Paris or anywhere my writing takes me.”
His beautiful eyes shine, even in the fading light. His happiness fills me with a bursting, soaring joy.
“I’m so happy for you. You’ll be an amazing writer, Lawrence.
I know it.”
“I may be a lousy writer. But I’ll be a writer. And I have you
to thank for it.”
Meeting Lawrence may not have been some grand plan
devised by fate, but it doesn’t matter. Knowing him, loving him,
that is enough. Even if I can’t be with Lawrence forever, he’s still
made a difference in my life. I’m a different person, a better
person for having known him, however brief that time was.
Love is its own reason.
I set my hand to Lawrence’s face. We don’t kiss. We just
look into each other’s eyes. Everything that’s passed between
us, every moment, every feeling of agony and bliss, surges
from his soul to mine and from mine to his.
“I love you,” Lawrence says, his voice heavy with emotion.
“I wish there were better, more meaningful words to express
how much.”
“A kiss could be a good start,” I say, smiling.
He obliges me. As the warm night envelops around us, we
push away every other thought but our kiss.
We take our place at our favorite spot. It seems only fitting.
Lawrence keeps his arms around me as we walk, as if he can’t
bear the thought of being apart even one second before we
have to. We’re quiet, but then he asks the dreaded question:
“When does the moon rise?”
“In about fifteen minutes.”
“So soon?”
I rest my cheek to his shoulder. “Try not to think about it.”
“How can I not?” He sighs deeply. “This is agony, Cassandra.
I’d almost rather we just say good-bye and part ways.”
“Would you really?”
He closes his eyes. “No. Of course not. I want to spend
every moment I can with you.”
“Then just hold me.”
The minutes pass without mercy. Each moment fills me
with deeper and deeper sorrow. And then we notice the
first gleam of light on the horizon of the ocean. The moon.
It’s here.
“I’m not ready,” he says. “I can’t let you go.”
I can tell from the way his voice shakes that he’s crying, but
I don’t dare look at him. The sight of his tears will break my
heart forever.
“We have to let go, Lawrence.”
He pulls away from me. His eyes glisten, and tears spill
down his cheeks. I wipe them away, kissing the wet trail as I
do. He takes my face in his hands and kisses me. Even as I try
to just enjoy the moment, I can’t help but think that I’ll never
again find a kiss as beautiful as this
The glow from the rising moon grows brighter.
Lawrence draws a shaking breath, trying to compose himself.
I know the words he’s going to say. “Good-bye, Cassandra.”
I can’t breathe. Part of me wants to collapse right here. Even
if we die here on this beach, it has to be better than watching
him disappear forever.
“Goodbye,
Lawrence.”
“Know this. We may never be together again, but I will love
you for the rest of my life.”
I hold him with all of my strength. I press my face into
his chest, willing him to stay a minute longer. Just a minute
more. But as he holds me, the pressure from his grip softens.
The colors of his body become muted. A glowing line of light
rises from the dark water.
It’s happening.
Lawrence pulls back from our embrace. He’s fading into the
sand around me, as I know I am for him. Our eyes meet—his
so beautiful and sad. As I stare back at him, an unexpected
wave of happiness rushes over me. I don’t know what I did
to deserve a love this beautiful, but for the rest of my life, I’ll
give everything I have to do it justice.
I set my hand to Lawrence’s vanishing face. With tears spilling from my eyes, I press my lips to his in a final kiss. We
stay that way, locked in a kiss that will endure forever, even if
just in our memories. We stay together until Lawrence Foster
disappears back into 1925.