Reunion

She smiled weakly and shrugged as she answered. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

-I guess I still look for the kind of love we had that summer.

Noah thought about what she had said for a long while, thinking about the relationships he'd had since he'd last seen her.

-How about you?-she asked- Did you ever think about us?

-All the time. I still do.

-Are you seeing anyone?

-No-he answered, shaking his head.

Both of them seemed to think about that, trying to finding impossible to displace from their minds. Noah finished his beer, surprised that he had emptied it so quickly.

-I'm going yo go start the water. Can I get you anything?

She shook her head, and Noah went to he kitchen and put up the crabs in the streamer and the bread in the oven. He found some flourand cornmeal for the vegetables, coated them, and put some grease into the frying pan. After turning the heat on low, he set a timer and pulled another beer from the icebox befora heading back to the porch. And while he was doing those things, he tought about Allie and the love that was missing from both their lives.

Allie, too, was thinking. About Noah, about herself, about a lot of things. For a moment she wished she weren't engaged but then quickly cursed herself. It wasn't Noah she loved; she loved what they once had been. Besides, it was normel to feel this way. Her first real love, the only man she'd ever been with-how could she expect to forget him?

Yet was normal for her insides to twitch whenver he came near? Was it normal to confess things she could never tell anyone else? Was it normal to come here three weeks from her wedding day?

"No, it's not", she finally whispered to herself as she looked to the evening sky. "There's nothing normal about any of this"

Noah came out at the moment ans she smiled at him, glad he'd come backs so she didn't have to think about it anymore.