I’ve searched for years, checking in with the people they knew, the places they lived, the places they spoke about, the places they wrote about.

I’ve been hunting for them for so long because my time has come. I’ve done everything, I’ve seen everything, I’ve felt everything. But without them it was all hollow. It was all meaningless. The only thing I crave in this life, the only thing I haven’t felt in years.

I wish to be held in their arms one last time. To feel their antennae again. To hear their voice again.

When we were given the offer we knew it was an opportunity like no other. We took it without a second thought. ‘Immortality as long as we didn’t meet in person.’ It was too good of a deal.

I saw the world, they saw the world. We did everything we could think of. We talked first through letters for a time. Then through the phone. Then just through post cards. And then, nothing. We lost contact for so many many years. It didn’t dawn on me at first but when it finally did I tried to reach out again to find that I couldn’t, I didn’t know how. Perhaps they were still living their best life all over the world.

Without me.

So I started my search, and it’s been fruitless for so long that I’ve stopped counting the days. All the counting was doing was making my heart hurt more.

But I’ve got one last place to check. And if they’re not there, then I’ll wait for them there.

The cove where we met all those years ago. The cove where our love blossomed. The cove where we made the deal.

I made sure to get here right after a storm had blown through as I remembered how much they loved the moisture in the air. How the air felt new. How beautiful the sunrises and sunsets were.

I could feel my heart thundering in my chest like the first time we met. As I neared the water it thundered even harder. This place had changed so much since I was here last I didn’t recognize anything anymore other than the cove’s outline, but I knew if I let my feet guide me I’d find the rock where we shared our first kiss.

And I was right to trust my feet, to trust my heart, because they were here.

Framed in the sunrise down by the water I could see their shell. They were sitting on that same rock where we sealed our deal with a kiss.

Their rough and silky voice rumbled, “I knew you’d come eventually.”

“I-” I was choking back tears, my heart pounding in my chest, “I thought I lost you.”

As I approached the rock they reached a hand out helping me up.

“I’d feared the same thing. So I came here.” There were tears in their eyes. “I was thinking ‘if there’s any place he’d go to look for me, it’d be here’,” the tears flowed freely now, “and here you are.”

We pulled each other into a hug, tighter than we’d ever done before, our hearts pounding ferociously in sync with each other. A dance of passion that we hadn’t shared in so many years.

We wept, we shared stories of our time apart, we laughed, and we wept some more. All the while still on the rock as the day slipped by.

The sunrise had turned into sunset. We leaned against each other watching the light fade over the horizon.

For awhile we sat in silence.

“What happens now?” I whispered, my heart furiously pounding in my throat, “We’re together again.”

The sun was kissing the horizon now.

They pulled me in closer, I could feel their heart still pounding like a drum. “I don’t know, but we’re together again and that’s all I would ever ask for.”

The sun disappeared behind the waves.

Only silence remained.