12. Montana

Ididn’t mean to, but I was so spent, so utterly exhausted I must have fallen asleep.

When I woke up I was in darkness, but I didn’t need time to acclimatize. I knew exactly where I was and who I was lying next to. Slowly, I turned my head and I saw that he was lying on his side facing me.

My God! He was heartbreakingly beautiful when he slept. With that strange tension and hidden brokenness gone, he looked like an angel. A sleeping angel.

I wanted to touch his skin, I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t want to wake him up.

Instead, I took a mental photograph. Forever, I would remember him like this. Without cares, without sadness. Just an angelic being sleeping next to me.

I knew I had to go. My friends were waiting for me.

Very carefully, without disturbing him, I slipped out of bed. I found my phone. Wow! It was already 3.00 in the morning. Quickly, I sent a text to Natalie to tell her I was done. After I got dressed, I found the hotel notepaper, wrote my number on it, drew a little love heart next to it, and left the note on the bedside table.

The truth was I didn’t want to leave.

I wanted to text Natalie and tell her to leave without me, I’d find my own way back home, but I knew Natalie would die first before she left without me. Anyway, I had a Church date with my dad.

I took one last look at him before I picked up my shoes and crept out of the room. There was no one about in the corridor. I hurried down the stairs. There was a middle-aged man sitting at the reception desk and I should have felt shame, but I felt none. No one and nothing could ever make me regret what I did last night. It was beautiful. Totally, absolutely, and wonderfully so.

He nodded at me and I waved at him. Then I pushed open the front door and walked out into the street just as Pearl’s car turned out of the car park and came towards me.

Natalie was driving. “Jesus, girl. Did a hurricane hit you?” she asked with a big grin.

“Yeah, tore me right up,” I replied, grinning back.

Both Pearl and Kelly laughed.

They would be looking for details, and I would give them enough to keep them happy, but what happened between me and Cole was too private to share.

It was almost sacred.