Lost at Sea

“We were best friends for seventeen years, four of which we were married,” Jasper told her, sitting cross-legged in the shallow water with Eleanor’s head in his lap. He twisted the fiery strands around his fingers while he spoke. “That was a very long time to learn everything there was to know about one another. You were the daughter of a wealthy landowner, and I was the son of a blacksmith. Our fathers were close friends, but our mothers couldn’t stand each other.

“You were fearless,” Jasper recalled. He knew that his voice was beginning to take on a dreamy quality, but Eleanor didn’t seem to mind and so neither did he. “You would do anything it took to take care of the people you loved, even if it meant endangering yourself. I used to have to rescue you out of trees you’d climb into to save a trouble making kitten.” He chuckled.

“I’d never known anyone as giving as you, Eleanor. Nor as smart. You weren’t keen on holding your tongue and it caused you a lot of trouble as a woman.”

“Are women not treated equally on land?” Eleanor inquired. Jasper smiled sadly.

“Unfortunately, no.” He tugged on a lock of hair. “But I never saw you as anything less than my equal. Maybe even my better half.”

“I must have been lucky to have you,” she murmured, opening her jade eyes briefly convey her statement more sincerely. He stared, enraptured, until her lips quirked to the side in a smirk and she closed them yet again.

“You would say that every day, you know.”

They talked for hours about their past, stalling the inevitable. Neither of them wanted to go, but time was not their friend. Any moment, Eleanor’s sisters would track them to this cove and then they both would die. Jasper might have been okay with his own death, but he refused to let her die, even in a twisted way of living like this one.

When finally they forced themselves to leave, his heart was already aching. All those years of trudging through life without her and now, he had found her only to leave her again so soon. He held onto her powerful neck tightly and held his breath as she dove down through the hole in the bottom.