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Elliott sits alone in his cabin, the culmination of a life built through his own choices and actions, now scattered chaotically around him in half-filled boxes and duffel bags… and he couldn’t be happier.
He’s taking a break from packing to sink back into the couch and reflect on where his heart currently resides.
If you had asked him upon first moving to Pelican Town what he thought his life would look like almost two years in, he more than likely would have been humble about it.
A finished manuscript, a few good acquaintances, the freedom to do what he wanted…
All of his original fantasies had been imagined alone. Because he never thought – never dared dream – that love would find him. He had arrived in Pelican Town with the intention of living the life of a hermit.
Only now, sitting in his cabin in this moment, he finds being humble is no longer the appropriate response. That everything is so much more than he ever could have hoped for, and he just wants to climb up to the roof of his cabin and shout it for all the town to hear. Elliott wants to find some way for people to understand how irrevocably, undeniably, astoundingly happy he is.
…and how he never thought he’d get to experience that.
Elliott pulls out the mermaid’s pendant tucked within his shirt, holds it up by its chain, and watches as the fire catches on the pearlescent markings dancing across its surface. He stares in awe at the way one simple item is such a perfect representation of how much his life has changed for the better. How much better you have made it since he met you.
…and how tomorrow he will be able to properly express that love to you in front of a town full of friends and neighbours.
He doesn’t know what he did to deserve you, only that he somehow, miraculously, feels whole with the weight of that pendant pressed up against his chest. It’s like some missing piece has finally been slotted into place; a constant reminder that he is loved, he is wanted, he is cherished.
Standing, Elliott makes his way to the almost empty writing desk where his journal and a single pen still reside. He removes the pendant, curling the cord around the fingers of his right hand, palming the shell, before flipping open the journal to a blank page.
Year 2, Fall 7
When I first embarked on this journey all those years ago, never did I think that the culmination of all my actions would lead me to this moment. To the eve of my own wedding, my life packed neatly away in boxes, ready for that next great chapter with you, my muse at my side.
As I hold this mermaid’s pendant in my hand, I still have a hard time reconciling the fact that it is real and that I am worthy of such a symbol of love. I must admit that until I met you, I was fully prepared to be distant, but friendly. Knowing, but not known. A friend to those who needed it, but never letting anyone close enough to see the real me.
Yoba blast it, I don’t think even I was aware of how much I was masking. Not until we met and you pulled the joy from wells deep inside of me that I thought had long since dried up. I will never know the magic of how you saw through it all, until you had me standing before you wanting nothing more than to be myself; hoping beyond measure, that you’d see that man and still want him.
It is no exaggeration when I say that you saved me in every sense of the word. You quieted the thoughts in my head; the ones that kept telling me I wasn't good enough, that I should move back home, call the whole writer thing off. You silently (and then quite vocally) believed in me from day one. You gave me the inspiration I needed to turn my manuscript into an actual novel, and didn’t once ever make me feel less than for the days (and sometimes weeks) where I was unable to produce.
You never got frustrated with me for running late to dinner when my pen and my mind would not be silent. You knew when I was giving too much, when the words weren’t coming and I refused to quit, how I needed to be drawn away. Loved. Recharged. You made me want to start taking better care of myself in the kindest, gentlest way imaginable: by simply sharing your free time with me. By not letting me sink into that quiet, desolate hermitage I so often surrendered to in the past.
I wanted to be better for you, because you kept showing up for me.
And tomorrow when we’re finally joined by marriage – when our lives are irrevocably entwined with each other’s forever – I want you to know that you have me, in every sense of the word.
You have my heart… though you already know that.
You have my mind… for you are the muse of my dreams. The fire that remains a constant burn. A hearth I will seek warmth from, again and again.
And you have my soul… the very culmination of my being.
Years from now, when you inevitably stumble upon these pages, I want you to know that you have tempered me in the fires of your love and that I am made me stronger for it.
I delight at a future with you in it, and consider it a privilege to grow old with you by my side.
Yours always,
Elliott
Squeezing the mermaid’s pendant in his hand, Elliott slips it back around his neck and begins dousing the lights. This is the last night he’ll have to spend alone in his cabin.
When hear hears the low, quiet knock, he’s not surprised.
Of course, you would know the exact rhythm of his heart – his life – already. He’s at the door before you finish rapping, knuckle held up as if to knock once more. All you manage is a soft, “hello my bard,” before he’s pulling you into his home, into his arms, into the haphazard remnants of his bachelor life as the door closes behind you.
“Is it not bad luck to see the groom before the wedding, my heart?”
You hum softly against his lips. “We make our own luck, Ell. Besides. I can’t sleep without you by my side any more… and you want me to be well rested for our wedding, don’t you?”
“Well… when you put it that way, what kind of husband would I be if I denied my wife this one simple request?”
He thrills inside, trying on the role like a new suit and finding it fits perfectly.
Leaning down, he captures her lips in a kiss, a soft sigh escaping her lips before leading her through the living room maze of boxes and bags to the only thing that remains unpacked and in use – his bed.
“After you, Mrs. March,” he whispers, helping her shimmy out of her jacket, pyjamas already donned underneath as his fingers skim down the length of her.
She chuckles, slipping under the sheets, waiting for him to join her before snuggling close.
“And you’re… happy to be joining me on the farm? I know how much you love the seaside.”
He silences her worries with another kiss. Stars, he thinks, I shall never tire of this.
“You are my home. The sea was only keeping me company until you arrived in my life.”
With another content sigh, she curls up in the crook of his arm; fits so perfectly, he swears the space was meant for her and her alone. He traces patterns down the delicate line of her spine as she drifts off to sleep; her hand coming to rest over the mermaid’s pendant at his heart. Elliott knows this is exactly where he was always meant to be. She is exactly who he was always meant to find; his happily ever after.