“I know. I have the same feeling,” Elijah replied.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Elijah
I opened my eyes and looked over the bed. I could see Kendall laid at the side of Bo and me had found his spot over the bottom of the bed. He laid there and looked at me and wagged his tale. I sensed he knew the situation now, and he was quite content with the result.
“Morning Bo,” I whispered. “You want to go for a run?” Bo jumped from the bed and headed toward the door.
I grabbed a robe and headed downstairs. I opened the kitchen door and the fresh smell of the morning flooded inside the house. I thought to myself that the warmth and presence of Kendall had returned and the house had once again it became a warm and inviting place to be.
I started to cook breakfast and waited for Kendall to wake. I had just finished cooking when I heard her footsteps as she crossed the floor toward the stairs.
“Good morning,” I said as she made her way down the stairs and rubbed her eyes.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Eight or thereabouts,” I replied as I placed the breakfast on the table.
“Wow, scrambled eggs and toast, a meal fit for a king,” she said with a giggle.
“We have a big day today, there is something I have to do,” I said as I sat at the table.
“I have someone who I want you to meet later, but first, I want to show you the scene of my accident,” I said.
“You don’t look overly excited about going,” Kendall said.
“You are right, I’m not excited about going, but I need to do it for some sort of closure, that chapter is finished in my life, and now I want to look forward,” I replied.
“It will be fine, it’s just a place at the end of the day, there are no demons there, or anything that can hurt you now, what’s done is done,” Kendall said.
She was right. It was just a location. There was nothing there that could harm me. I had no recollection of the accident, so it would be just a space, a space in time where an event happened. It was this event which had changed my life. I could have so easily died, but I recovered and came back as if I had been reborn, and reborn as a much-improved version of myself.
“I’m happy you will be with me today, I’m not sure I could have done it without you, even if it’s just a place. Maybe I would have too much emotion and would be overwhelmed by it all,” I said as I finished my breakfast.
We readied ourselves and headed toward the scene of the accident. We drove the same route I would have taken, and we passed the bar where I would introduce her to Gates later
in the day. We climbed the hill, and we approached the road that led to the scene of the accident. I could picture what had happened as the expanse of the road was just too tempting not to hit the gas and drive like a bat out of hell, but not today, today I had Kendall with me, and for once I found, I had nothing to prove.
I drove down the long straight, and as we neared the trees, I could see marks on the road where I first crashed. We parked the car and walked around and looked at the signs of the crash that remained.
As we crossed the highway and looked at all the marks in the asphalt, I held Kendall’s hand, and I could feel her squeeze my fingers as she supported me in my difficult ordeal. The marks from the bike stretched way on before us, and I could tell I had been going at some speed.
We walked along the grass and finally ended up close to the sign which I had come to rest, the mound of dirt which I had hit that broke my shoulder showed signs of new grass growth and within time would only have a distant memory of what happened.
“Well, this is where it happened,” I said.
We stood and turned to where we had parked the car and could see it was a couple of hundred yards away from us.
“Damn, Elijah, how fast were you going?” Kendall asked.
“I have no idea, but I have seen motorcycle crashes on the sports channel, and for this sort of distance, I must have been doing well over one hundred,” I replied as I tried to imagine what had possessed me to do it.
“It’s beyond belief that you came out of it alright,” she said.
“At least the accident led me to you. For that, I’m eternally happy and grateful. So what came from one bad day has led to what could be a lifetime of happiness,” I said as I wrapped my arm around Kendall’s shoulders.
Kendall snuggled toward me as I held her and looked into my eyes, “It’s hard to believe how much things have changed in such a short time. You couldn’t write this sort of story any better,” she said with a smile.