The Light We Lost: The International Bestseller everyone is talking about!. Jill Santopolo
Читать онлайн.| Название | The Light We Lost: The International Bestseller everyone is talking about! |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | Jill Santopolo |
| Жанр | Современные любовные романы |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Современные любовные романы |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 9780008224585 |
WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR ALMOST HALF OUR lives.
I’ve seen you smiling, confident, blissfully happy.
I’ve seen you broken, wounded, lost.
But I’ve never seen you like this.
You taught me to look for beauty. In darkness, in destruction, you always found light.
I don’t know what beauty I’ll find here, what light. But I’ll try. I’ll do it for you. Because I know you would do it for me.
There was so much beauty in our life together.
Maybe that’s where I should start.
SOMETIMES OBJECTS SEEM LIKE THEY’VE WITNESSED history. I used to imagine that the wooden table we sat around during Kramer’s Shakespeare seminar our senior year was as old as Columbia—that it had been in that room since 1754, edges worn smooth by centuries of students like us, which of course couldn’t be true. But that’s how I pictured it. Students sitting there through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf.
It’s funny, if you asked me who else was with us that day, I don’t think I could tell you. I used to be able to see all their faces so clearly, but thirteen years later I remember only you and Professor Kramer. I can’t even recall the name of the TA who came running, late, into the classroom. Later, even, than you.
Kramer had just finished calling roll when you pushed open the door. You smiled at me, your dimple making a brief appearance as you slipped off your Diamondbacks cap and stuck it into your back pocket. Your eyes landed quickly on the empty seat next to mine, and then you did too.
“And you are?” Kramer asked, as you reached into your backpack for a notebook and a pen.
“Gabe,” you said. “Gabriel Samson.”
Kramer checked the paper in front of him. “Let’s aim for ‘on time’ for the rest of the semester, Mr. Samson,” he said. “Class starts at nine. In fact, let’s aim for ‘early.’”
You nodded, and Kramer started talking about themes in Julius Caesar.
“‘We at the height are ready to decline,’” he read. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries. / On such a full sea are we now afloat, / And we must take the current when it serves, / Or lose our ventures.’ I trust you all did the reading. Who can tell me what Brutus is saying about fate and free will here?”
I’ll always remember that passage because I’ve wondered so many times since that day whether you and I were fated to meet in Kramer’s Shakespeare seminar. Whether it’s destiny or decision that has kept us connected all these years. Or a combination of both, taking the current when it serves.
After Kramer spoke, a few people flipped through the text in front of them. You ran your fingers through your curls, and they sprang back into