CHAPTER 30
751 Words
CHAPTER 30
“Ok, so what’s the big surprise?” Kennedy asked. “Are we going to shop for books at Common Treasures?”
As hard as he tried, Reuben couldn’t hide his smile. “Nope. Well, maybe, but we don’t have time for that yet.”
Kennedy glanced around at the lazy Sunday afternoon traffic, searching for clues. She and Reuben had always joked about riding the swan boats in Boston Common, but that was expensive. After her dad paid for Reuben’s lawyer fees, Kennedy wasn’t going to ask for anything extra for at least another month. And Reuben wasn’t the type to have extra cash on hand. So where was he taking her?
Last night after his release, they’d been so tired they ate dinner together in the student union and then returned to their dorms where Kennedy slept for eleven hours straight. Today he’d told her to meet him at the library after lunch, but when she showed up with her calculus text and lab notebook, he made her take it back to her room. That’s when he said he had a surprise for her off campus.
They still hadn’t talked about much else besides school since his release. In some ways, they were like two kids at the end of summer vacation, not willing to acknowledge the obvious signs of autumn in the air.
They would have to talk. Soon. But neither of them was ready yet.
Once she heard about his diagnosis, Kennedy had been so terrified. So worried that even if Reuben was released from jail, things could never be the same between them. There would be long periods of awkwardness. Painful silences.
She had been wrong.
Delightfully wrong.
Reuben held her hand as they sprinted across the street. Would she ever forget the way his fingers felt interlaced with hers? Somewhere in the back of her head, she felt she was growing to understand Sandy’s story about the little baby Spencer they cared for. She wasn’t willing to admit it, wasn’t willing to use terms like dying yet, but the story implanted itself to a safe spot in her memory banks, ready for her to pull out and examine when the time was right.
They sped by Common Treasures, the antique bookstore where they could lose themselves for hours wandering through old volumes and early editions of their favorite stories. Kennedy was laughing even though she didn’t know what was so funny.
Reuben stopped in front of the Boston Opera House. “Here we are.”
“What’s this?” she asked.
Reuben slipped in line for call waiting. “Mr. Jefferson said your dad overpaid him. Said the case wasn’t as hard as he’d originally planned once you found that video. So he gave me a check, said your dad would want us to do something fun together.” He stepped up to the counter. “Two tickets for Aida. It’s under the name Reuben Murunga.”
“Really?” Kennedy squealed but wasn’t embarrassed.
Reuben grinned and passed her a ticket. “I have a feeling we’ve earned this.”
Kennedy had grown up seeing musicals in Manhattan — Phantom, Les Mis, Cats. Even after her family moved to Yanji, her mom would buy the DVD versions of the most popular shows and watch them with Kennedy on nights when her dad was working late. Kennedy knew musical theater had the power to impact your emotions, take you on a ride of thrills or excitement or joy. But she never knew it could do something like this.
She hadn’t known much about Aida before the show came to Boston. She knew it was a love story set in ancient Egypt and that was about it. What she hadn’t counted on was the sacrificial love shown between the two main characters — Aida, the Nubian princess who was willing to give up her relationship with her Egyptian captor in order to lead her people, and Radames, heir to Pharaoh’s throne who forsook his birthright to help his beloved find freedom.
She assumed it would be a story of love fulfilled, but in reality it was the story of impossible relationships. In the final scene, both Aida and Radames were buried alive for their treason against Egypt. Was dying in the arms of your beloved more bearable than facing life without him?
As the curtain closed, she sat beside Reuben, acutely aware of his gentle expression and the tears on her own cheeks. It was stupid to cry. It was just a musical after all. Just a musical ...
She didn’t talk on their way out of the theater. She didn’t know what to say. She felt like a leaf, floating down a merciless current. The river forked just ahead, but she wouldn’t know which route she’d take until it would be too late to ever go back.
- Writer
