I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that in Harley I’d finally found “the one” person in this world who Chris had anticipated for me.   As I lay in bed, I’d thought back to the time when I was recovering from my suicide attempt, wondering how I could make it all the way back. And last night I realized whatever this was with Harley was what Chris had been setting up, even as she knew she would soon be leaving me. For a year I’d periodically asked Chris to marry me, while she battled her cancer, and she’d turned me down every time. I didn’t know then, but realized the full import of what she was saying now, about why she didn’t want to get married just so that I could imagine and be open to a long future with someone else after she passed. Could Harley be the reason why she’d asked me to keep faith with Love? I think so, I’d thought to myself. I hope so.  

I’d searched myself last night for any hesitation but found none. How was it possible that this feeling had driven itself into me so deeply, so quickly? I had no answers so I called to memory the meditation techniques I’d learned, and searched again.

After that, exhausted in body, mind, and spirit, I finally fell asleep. It was the sleep of peace that I’d been searching for ever since Jules and all our friends had helped to pull me back from the edge of darkness, and forced me to rejoin the land of the living.

I asked the heavens to teach me more things about everything I’d thought about as I slept, because this had all been so impossible to express with words. In exchange, I swore that from the moment I woke I would work as hard as I’d ever had to be the person who’d been deemed worthy of finding this precious second chance at love.

“I’m the one you deserve, Harley,” I said quietly. “I am going to work hard to be worthy of your promise to me. The one you made with your kiss last night. I, too, promise I’ll be worthy of your journey. Of your love.”