Sitting across from me is the man I have thought dead for the past year. I thought he was fish food in the bay of our hometown, the ferry he rode daily from the mainland to the island was in an accident. Most of the cars aboard slid off into the ocean, everyone still inside them. His Mercedes had been on that ferry, he had been in that car. How the hell was he sitting across from me now?

He must have thought I looked like a fish the way my mouth kept opening and closing. I could only make sporadic syllables, no full words. My heart couldn’t seem to keep pace with my breathing. Tears filled my green eyes again.

“Samantha, honey, look at me. I need you to focus.” He gently placed his hand on my cheek, and turned me to face him fully. “Babe, I need you to breathe in slowly, come on Sweetie, listen to my voice, breathe. That’s it. In through the nose and out through your mouth. There you go.” His voice at first seemed far off. Then it became clearer, I began to listen and do what he suggested. I started slowing my breathing, in through my nose…out through my mouth. My eyes began to focus, and I actually looked at all of him. His dark hair, those sky blue eyes, and his lips, oh how I missed those lips.

“Lucas, it really is you. But how? Why? What?” Then I reached up and slapped him. The anger rushed in. All the hurt, pain, anguish, the months of crying, the house I lost, and my sanity. I brought my hands to my mouth, when I realized what I had done. Horrified with myself, I got up off the couch, and walked into the kitchen. I started making myself busy around the kitchen, cleaning up imaginary dirt. Wiping off the spotless counters. Lucas came into the kitchen, hesitantly. He reached for me, and I pulled away. He backed up and leaned against the counter opposite me. “Sam, let me tell you the story. Can you give me that chance?” his tone soft, his eyes pleading, he asked me.

I looked at those eyes, so bright, so full of happiness and wonder. My heart gave in. It always gave into him when he looked at me like that. “Lucas, all I have to say, is that this had better be a damn good story, and it had better make a whole hell of a lot of sense, or I may bury you in the empty grave back home.”

Lucas looked me in the eye, took my hand, and led me back to the couch. He grabbed two sodas from the fridge, and then came to sit beside me. “Well it all started one night in July. I was on my way home from work and I saw a car on the side of the road. Being the good citizen that I am, I stopped to help out. Well this guy stepped out, and changed my life forever.”

(to be continued)