"You are my dearest friend, my deepest love. You are the very best of me."

- The Best of Me, in theaters October 17

Part 4

Life after Cathers, after the meadow, after Sam and Rosemary was good, if not a little lonesome at times. She supposed they had mutually yet silently agreed to find their own path in life. Elara Song spent a good part of her early twenties drifting through this post-Cathers buzz. Everything was new and fresh and scary. But it was the best kind of scary. It was like the first gust of summer air after a long and bitter winter. She did not see or hear from Sam or Rosemary since they had finished school.

All was well for a while. By the beginning of 1967, Elara Song had left her librarian position and was training to become a primary school teacher. The library was only meant to be a yearlong job but somehow it had turned into three years. By the middle of 1968, Elara was working as a fully qualified teacher at a local primary school in North London. By the end of 1968, Elara was able to afford her own home. She still shared with Nancy Shepard, a beautiful Scottish girl she had befriended at university. It was mainly because she did not like idea of living along and also because Nancy was the closest friend she had. Elara had finally gotten the hang of this little thing called life and for once she was truly happy. Of course that did not last long.

Wednesday, July 16th 1969. Two things happened on this date. The first was historical, Apollo 11 had successfully launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida in the first mission to land a man on the moon. The second was devastating, Elara Song’s world did not shift, it collapsed and collided into a past she thought she had left behind. On that Wednesday evening, Elara returned home from a day out in central London with Nancy to find a couple of letters addressed to her.

Walking into the kitchen, she set her keys on the counter and shuffled through them automatically.

Bill.

Bill.

A postcard from her parents and little sister who were currently holidaying in the south of France.

Junk mail.

Bank statement.

Bill.

She paused when she came across a purple envelope. It was a wedding invitation. Elara racked her mind trying to think of who might be getting married. She opened it up and her eyes widened.

The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage uniting Rosemary Devereux and Samson Bishop.
Saturday, August 11th 1969 at 3:05 P.M.

St. Joan’s Cathedral

Cunliffe Road

Bellmoor, Hampshire

And her heart sank into her stomach.

Elara dropped the invitation and turned to the cupboard. She pulled out a bottle of wine and quickly unscrewed the cork. She did not bother to find a glass, she merely brought the bottle to her drips and gulped it down for a good five seconds before she gasped and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She glanced at the wedding invitation lying on the linoleum floor and took another gulp.

It took Elara Song exactly three days and forty-two minutes to come to grasps with the fact Sam and Rosemary were getting married.

Sam.

Her Sam was marrying Rosemary. She had not heard from either of them for nine bloody years and this was the first piece of news she received?

Elara spent the week leading up to the wedding nervous and panicky and by the time Saturday rolled around, she was ready to throw up. It was the August 11th. The day of the wedding. A wedding she had at the last minute decided not to attend but Nancy had nagged her enough to make her go. Elara put on her favourite dress, a slim creamy gown she bought last week in a frenzied haze to find an outfit for the wedding. Nancy transformed her straight black hair into bouncing ringlets that framed her face, she pushed the rest up into a bun so it sat elegantly atop her head. Nancy assured her she looked beautiful and before she left, she gave her an encouraging smile and told her she could do this.

She could do this.

She could do this.

Elara repeated it to herself as she hopped into the car and began the two hour drive to Bellmoor. She had done this for so many years at Cathers, she could do it one last time. The thought of seeing Sam after almost ten years made it hard to breathe. Elara would wonder why they had chosen to have their wedding in Bellmoor of all places, but she knew why. It was where Sam and Rosemary had their first date. It was where they had their first kiss. It was where Sam had asked Rosemary to be his girlfriend.

God, why had she let Nancy talk her into coming? No good would come of this day. In all honesty, she should have skipped the service all together and gone to the reception instead, because watching Sam marry Rosemary, marry someone who was not her would push her over the edge and into a fathomless pit of madness. As she passed St. Joan’s Cathedral, she saw dozens of people either milling about outside or heading into the building. Elara’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. She turned onto the next street and her parked car by the gates of a primary school.

Elara walked to the church, taking long deep breaths and clutching tightly onto the purse in her hand. She could do this. Of course she could do this. She looked for familiar faces in the crowd hanging out by the stone steps of St. Joan’s Cathedral but she saw none. There was an unmistakable buzz of excitement as she entered the regal church. It was beautiful with grand arches and rows upon rows of golden pews. A cream white carpet ran down the aisle up to the adorned alter.

“Jesus,” she breathed as she looked around in awe. She wondered how many souls Rosemary had to sell to get this cathedral. The grandiosity of it all came as no surprise to Elara. Rosemary Devereux always had a knack for extravagance.

“Excuse me.”

She turned around. A girl who looked to be in her late teens stood before her, wearing a flowing blue dress and a big bouffant that bordered on ridiculous.

“Yes?” said Elara.

She popped the gum she was chewing, “You’re Elara Song right?”

She nodded.

“I’m Louisa, Rosemary’s sister,” she turned and gestured for Elara to follow her, “c’mon, she wants to meet you.”

“What?” Elara said as she hurried behind her. “What for?”

Louisa shrugged, “I don’t know, something about not seeing you for ten years and wanting to talk to you before the wedding.”

Louisa took her through a small wooden door near the confessionals and up a long winding staircase that had her faintly dizzy by the time they reached the top. She knocked on one of the four doors in the narrow hallway until it swung open and a harried bridesmaid quickly ushered them in. Elara immediately spotted Rosemary. She had her back to everyone as she examined herself in the elongated mirror before her.

“Rosemary,” Louisa said to her sister. “She’s here.”

She turned at the mention of her name and all Elara could do was stare. After nine years, Rosemary did not like she had aged a day over eighteen but she seemed to have become more beautiful. She had grown out her sharp bob and now wore her hair down in long, wavy dark locks covered by a glittering veil.

Rosemary broke out into a blinding grin, “Elara!”

“Rosemary,” Elara forced a smile.

Her wedding gown was so big and puffy, Rosemary had to awkwardly shuffle forward to Elara to give her a hug. They pulled back and grinned at each other. Old friends reunited.

“How are you?” Elara asked and she felt wanted to kick herself for asking such a stupid question.

Rosemary just laughed and hugged her again, “I’m getting married! Can you believe that?”

No.

“Yes!” she said, “I can, I mean you’re quite the catch.”

If it was possible, Rosemary’s grin widened. She flicked her hair behind her shoulder and waved her hand around, “you guys go, I just want a second with Elara.”

One of the bridesmaid reminded her she had just under ten minutes until the wedding was due to start, before they all turned and shuffled out of the room in their flowing dresses. Once they were gone and the door was securely shut, Rosemary turned back to her. Elara tried to remember the last time she had spoken to Rosemary. It must have been nine years ago. It was on the last day of school as they stood outside the main hall waiting for their parents, flanked by their suitcases. She could not remember much about their conversation, but she knew they had hugged and exchanged words about missing Cathers and most of all each other.

“It really is good to see you again,” Rosemary said, “you know, you were the first person I thought of when Sam proposed –” Elara grit her teeth. “–I just thought, Elara has to come. It wouldn’t feel right without Elara.”

“Well,” she said, her chest getting tight and her smile getting tighter. “I’m glad to be here.”

Rosemary walked over to the desk topped with various make-up products. She picked up a lipstick and turning back to the mirror, she applied a fresh gloss of red across her lips. Elara watched her, a mixture of jealousy and longing for something she could never have heaving into her chest.

“You’re so stupid,” Rosemary said out of nowhere. Her voice was brash and tinged with bitterness.

Elara blinked, “I’m sorry?”

“You had him,” she said as she added another dab of lipstick before she smacked her lips together.

“Who?” Elara said with furrowed eyebrows.

Rosemary looked at her, “Sam.”

“W-what?”

Rosemary smiled, but it was a pitying smile, one you gave to a wounded animal just before killing it to end its suffering.

“Sam,” she said, “You always had him, all you had to say was one word and he would have come running to you.”

Elara’s heart was starting to beat erratically in her chest. “I don’t –”

Rosemary frowned, “What? You didn’t think I noticed?” she said, “all those years, the way you pathetically pined after him? You weren’t subtle.”

Elara gaped, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. She did not like the way Rosemary’s face was darkening.

“You had your chance Elara, you had it for so long but you were too bloody scared to do anything. You know that’s always been your problem, you could never fight for what you wanted.” She was glaring now, her hands clenched into tight fists. Her tone had long lost its cheerfuless, everything had turned sour, “He was probably the best thing that ever happened to you and you let him go.”

She took a step back, “Rosemary–”

“I would never do that,” she said, stepping forward, “I will never do that, you know why? Because he’s mine.”

Elara blinked. Rosemary would never do that not because she loved him, but because Sam was hers. Her possession. No one else’s.

“Wait,” she said, her initial shock snapping away as rising fury crowded into place, “is...is that why you invited me?”

Rosemary’s just stared at her. She wanted to snap at her, tell her Sam was not some prize pig at the fair. And it was then as stared back at her old childhood friend, her eyes wide and mouth agape that Elara truly, finally understood. Rosemary Devereux did not fall in love, she was already in love with herself. No, Rosemary Devereux collected people like the trophies she won as a child and Sam Bishop was merely another trophy to add to her teeming collection.

Elara could have punched her in that moment, square in the face but she would not bloody her hands for Rosemary. Elara stared at her for a long moment, lost for words before she turned on her heels and left the room, slamming the door behind her. She had enough. That was it. She was washing her hands of this whole thing, of Rosemary and Sam and anything connected to them. She had known coming here would be a terrible mistake. Tears blurred her vision as she hurried down the corridor. She could not bear to be here a moment longer.

“What the bloody hell do you mean he’s gone?”

“Do you want me to say it in Spanish?”

Elara froze at the sound of bickering voices in the bathroom to her left.

“Well, where the hell could he have gone?” said an unfamiliar woman, perhaps one of the bridesmaids. “

It was Louisa who replied, “I don’t know, Rachel said he went to the toilet and that he’d been in there for over forty minutes, so Adam went in there to, you know, ask if everything was okay but the cubicle was empty and the window inside was wide open.”

“So he’s done a runner?” another voice hissed, “Jesus Christ! Someone find him! The wedding starts in five minutes and we’re missing the bloody groom!”

“Yes, we would Travis if we knew where he’d gone.”

Louisa sighed, “Bellmoor is literally in the middle of nowhere, where’s he going to hide? The bushes?”

Elara gasped, an idea flashing like a light bulb in her head. She turned and ran down the winding staircase, her heart slamming almost painfully in her ribcage. She only had one thought in her mind. Sam. Sam, who had jilted Rosemary and escaped through the window in the toilets and she knew exactly where he had run to.

Perhaps it was not too late, she thought to herself, perhaps it was never too late to fight for what you wanted. And what Elara Song wanted was Sam Bishop but she had let him slip into the claws of someone as heartless as Rosemary Devereux.

Not today, she thought, never again.

Elara Song dashed out of St. Joan’s Cathedral. She clutched onto her dress, pulling it above her ankles so it would not drag on the concrete steps she so quickly sped down. Her black hair fluttered in the billowing wind, her breaths coming short and fast. Behind her, she heard the church bells chime, a strong startling crescendo that almost made her trip. Elara did not look back, she did not dare in fear of what she would see, who she would see standing in the arched doorway. She thought she heard a voice cry out her name, she should have stopped and gone back, or at least paused to see who it was but her feet were moving of their own accord and she found she could not stop, or care for whoever called her.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs but it was only for a second before she turned and started running down the street. These heels were not made for running, neither was this dress and she was twenty-seven, far too old to be running like this.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, harder and louder than the church bells blaring behind her. She glanced up at the afternoon sky and saw only blinding blue and the bright glaring sun. Elara turned a corner, the branch of a tree smacked her hip and left a dirty streak on her dress. She spotted her car, a green Austin Mini she had purchased two years prior. Elara fumbled to retrieve the car keys from her purse for a few seconds, she yanked the door open and hopped into the car. The engine roared to life, Elara harshly stepped on the pedal and quickly drove off, away from the cathedral and the prying eyes and the source of her guilt.

As she sped down the streets of Hampshire on that late August afternoon, paying little mind to the speed limit or her own safety, Elara Song found herself thinking of her younger years. Her mind drifted to St. Catherine’s, to Ravensworth, to the meadow in between the two and to all that had transpired there. She thought of Rosemary, of the way she treated the world like a stage, of her bright eyes and sharp mind. Most of all, she thought of him. The first true friend she ever made. The first and only boy she had ever loved and her fierce grip on the steering wheel tightened enough to turn her knuckles white. When she thought about it, about her time at St. Catherine’s, about him, something close to sorrow and longing flooded into her chest and it took her breath away.

Elara knew where he would be. It was where they had met all those years ago. The meadow. The meadow, where everything began, where she was speeding towards at that very moment, and where, she realised with a hammering heart, where everything would end. She drove resolutely, her stricken expression had turned blank and her dark eyes glassy and vacant. Time seemed to stretch and what felt like four decades was in fact a little over thirty minutes. She came to a bushy hedge she knew went on for miles, and she parked her car in the shadow of an oak tree she had once attempted to climb many years ago. Elara got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. She clutched onto her dress once more and crept into the forest she had spent a good portion of her adolescence exploring. It had not changed since her last visit, still the same earthy smell, the same leaves rustling and the same birds singing in the distance. Elara could walk through these woods blind, for she knew them better than she knew herself.

She swallowed as she quickened her pace. She was close.

Elara pushed past thick bushes and protruding branches, leaves fell into her hair and dirt peppered her dress until she felt the sun on her face and smelt the overpowering scent of lavender and heard the sound of a river rushing nearby. She was here. The great expanse of the meadow lay before her, the same as it always was, a small strip of land time seemed to have forgotten.

She inhaled sharply as she spotted the familiar figure. And there he was, tall and lean, standing in the middle, dressed in a crisp black tuxedo with his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets and his head tilted up to the summer sky.

“Sam,” she said, his name falling out of her mouth like a falling star and in that moment it felt as if her heart did not belong to her. It belonged to him.

He stiffened just as her heart stopped and slowly, ever slowly he turned around. She realised then, everything that had happened washed up here and she knew it would all collide like never before. This was it. The beginning of the end and the end of the beginning and she merely hoped she would survive to see the moonlight once again.

She stepped closer, unable to tear her eyes away from his. They were green, greener than she remembered and still the same shade of the fresh grass in spring. He stared at her, his slightly lips parted. She could see a thousand or more emotions flickering through his handsome features.

“Elara.”

She sucked in a sharp breath at the sound of her name. It sounded different on his tongue. Exquisite, like a painting translated into an orchestra. His was voice a deep, rumbling tone. Something she had not heard in years. He had long lost some of his youthful features, his jaw was stronger now and cheeks sharper than she last saw him. He was taller too, she guessed he stood close to six foot now.

“W-what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” she said, praying that her heart would calm down soon or she would fall into cardiac arrest. “You’re supposed to be getting married, Sam, so, what are you doing here?”

He glanced away, that head of curly blond hair falling over his forehead. He looked so impossibly young in that moment she wanted to kiss all his worry. “I don’t know,” he said, “I went to the bathroom to wash up, just clear my head and then I caught my reflection in the mirror and I looked lost. And I thought it’s supposed to be the best day of my life, I’m not supposed to look lost, I’m supposed to look, to feel…found.” He grunted and ran both his hands through his hair, the curls flopped back down the moment he released them. He stared at her, looking so distraught her heart was breaking for him. “I don’t think I can do it…I can’t…I can’t do it. All I’ve ever felt with her was lost, and I don’t want that.”

He looked like he was drowning and she was the only one who could save him.

“Sam,” she breathed, walking towards him until they were inches apart and she could smell his cologne, soft and welcoming. It made her stomach knot. She noticed his eyes widened just a fraction at the way she said his name. “Then, what do you want?”

He brushed dark locks of hair away and slowly tucked them behind her eye. “Guess,” he said, before he surged forward and closed the small distance between them. The world faded away and suddenly she was transported to the first time he kissed her. All those years ago as they sat in the shadow of an evergreen, awkwardly bumping lips and clinging to each other as if the world would collapse into oblivion at any moment. His mouth was warm and sweet like honeyed wine and she loved the silky feeling of her fingers running through the curls of his hair. All she could think was Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam.

“I don’t want to marry her,” he whispered against her mouth, lightly panting as he spoke.

“Of course not,” she whispered back, “stay with me.”

He kissed her then. Just as slow and just as heart stopping. Nothing had been solved by far because Rosemary was most definitely going to track them and they would have to run for their lives. But that was later, it did not matter because she was young and irrevocably in love with Sam Bishop and as long as she had him, everything would be okay. They were laughing in between kisses, drunk and delirious on life, on the way his fingers pressed into the back of her neck and on the way he whispered sweet nothings in her mouth.

This kiss was different from their first, from any kiss she ever had.

This kiss tasted of infinite beginnings and forever afters.