Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2022 22:23:31 +0000 (UTC) From: Samuel Stefanik Subject: From Whence I Came. Chapter 29 Why is it easier to have a heart to heart in the dark than it is in the light? Why does nature encourage honesty? Why does a forrest path seem so private even if you're in a public park? Or do you find none of these things are true? If not in the dark, or in nature, where do you expose yourself...AHEM...where do you bare your soul? Or do you keep it all inside? Or is it none of my business? Let's see what Church and Shawn have to say on the matter. I hope you enjoy this installment! Drop me a line if you want. I'd be happy to hear from you. If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you. Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips 29 Deep Thoughts and Garden Confessions Longwood Gardens is a four-hundred-acre botanical garden in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It was once the property of the DuPont family but was later donated to the city or the state and transformed into an attraction open to the general public. The Gardens boasted flower gardens, water features, a forest of deciduous trees, a big greenhouse packed with plants from all over the world, and a huge fountain that gave regular `performances.' It was a weekday, and it was hot, so Longwood wasn't crowded. Shawn and I came through the visitor's center lobby, paid the admission fee plus a donation, got a map and a short, enthusiastic speech from a volunteer, and strolled into the gardens. We were immediately surrounded by natural beauty. Even in the August heat, the flowers and plants kept their glow. The manicured beds, hedges, shrubs, trees, and plants of every kind framed walkways of brick and stone, and an occasional fountain. Shawn seemed to relax as he and I toured around. We read the little labels on the plants and commented on the attractive layout of features. About half-way around the main path that rings the gardens, there was a detour into some woods. By the time we reached it, we'd already spent a couple hours in the afternoon sun, so the detour looked very inviting. We stepped into the tree-canopied path and felt as if we'd been transported to another place. The trees muffled the sound of the other visitors and gave the illusion of privacy while the heavy canopy above provided welcome shade. "I've been thinking...I've been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff." I announced when we were about a hundred yards down the wooded path. "About this morning?" Shawn asked. I rubbed the back of my neck with the heel of my left hand. I dropped the hand into the left pocket of my shorts and closed it around my watch. Shawn's eyes tracked my hand to my pocket and returned to my face. "I mean, yeah...but I was thinking about what you said yesterday, at 1890. I've been thinking about what you said about finding my passion." Shawn shuffled his feet on the path. He kicked at some fallen leaves and bent down to pick one up. The one he selected was an oak leaf. It was broad and flat and still-green, but had holes chewed into it by some insect. Shawn held the leaf into a shaft of sunlight and turned it between his fingers. "Did you come up with anything?" He asked the leaf as he watched it dance in the sunshine. I didn't answer my husband right away. The beauty of him in that moment seized my attention and I had to preserve it. I abandoned my watch in my front pocket and used my hand to snatch my phone from the back one. I opened the phone and used it to capture Shawn's image as a photograph. He looked so peaceful, the diffused sunlight dappled on his smooth face and the leaf in his hand. He could have been a statue of a forest fawn or some other mythical creature. The digital snap of the camera phone stole Shawn's attention from the leaf. It fell from his fingers and floated to the forest path, forgotten, but special for having been held by him. Shawn grinned self-consciously at me. "See something you like?" He asked. "You." Shawn drew a breath and sighed it out. "It still feels good when you admire me." "I'm glad." "So," Shawn said to return to the subject we'd left hanging, "finding your passion?" I considered teasing Shawn by telling him that he was my passion, but I didn't want to sound overly solicitous. Instead, I told Shawn what I'd actually been thinking. "I think I want to go to school. Maybe not for a degree, but I'd like to take some college level classes in history, social science, maybe some physical sciences." I shook my head in preemptive revulsion at the courses I didn't want to take. "Not chemistry or physics, and no math above algebra. I'm thinking classes in world or natural science, stuff like that. I might even try some non-military magic training. I should be able to do something constructive with all this power." "What's the goal?" Shawn asked. He started to walk again as we talked, and he guided us along a section of the path that was carpeted with pine-needles. "Exposure. I don't know what I like but I also don't really understand my new environment. I mean, I can function in the world, but I don't know the nuances. I thought about trying school a few times when I lived here, but I always felt too old. On Solum, I might live another two-hundred-years...or even more. Spending four years or so in school is such a small investment when stacked against all that time. We live in the capital. There must be secondary education institutions that would accept me, provided your uncle can falsify a primary education transcript. What do you think?" "I think it sounds great." Shawn caught hold of my hand and squeezed his approval. "You may want to spend some time with a tutor first, to learn the basics." "That's an idea." I agreed and warmed to the concept. "I'd want someone who I could go see. I don't want them coming to the apartment. That way, I'd have a place to go when you go to your practice. I'd feel like a shut-in if I had the classes at home. It would be perfect if we could find someone discreet, someone I could level with about where I come from. Then I wouldn't need a cover story claiming amnesia or brain damage." Shawn squeezed my hand again and pleased approval drifted across our link. "I'm sure Uncle can help us find a tutor. He probably has someone already bound to a non-disclosure agreement. The Hall maintains contacts with instructors for the military arts. I assume they'd have resources for all levels of education." I smiled because I felt that Shawn was enjoying the discussion and I was enjoying his enjoyment. We continued our stroll on the path as it wound its way to a wooden tower with a set of steps up to a look-out balcony. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves alone in the balcony. The privacy was nice, but the view was disappointing. It was of a shorn field. It was a nice field, as fields go, but that's all it was. We laughed about it. I joked that the builder put the tower in the wrong place. I turned around and leaned the backs of my thighs against the railing and rested my hands on the rough surface of the unfinished wood. Looking in, instead of out, treated me to far better scenery than the field. It faced me toward Shawn. He and I returned to the original discussion. "I think understanding my new home will help me figure out where I fit in it. I could find my passion. I don't want to be an Earthling on Solum anymore. I should try to be a good citizen and learn what makes the world work and how to participate in it. What do you think?" I asked again. Shawn was pleased with me. I felt it. It felt like he patted my head with a soft hand of approval. "I love it." Shawn praised the idea. "I love that it's all for you and I love that you're looking ahead and planning for a change." "What do you mean? I'm a planner." I objected and felt a bit attacked by his comment. Shawn tried to smooth my ruffled feathers, but he didn't water down the message. "You are a planner. You plan our trips, pack our bags, find the hotels; things like that. Typically, where we're going is already decided, then you work out logistics. It's not the same thing. When was the last time you looked at the future and had a plan or a goal that belonged just to you? When was the last time you had something to achieve over the next year, or even the next month?" Shawn had shocked me into silence, but when I thought about it, I realized that he was right. I hadn't looked forward to anything specific in years, probably decades. I never looked ahead; I just rode the current of the present. Even on Solum, I drifted around the world with Shawn and relied on him to dictate the next city, town, or attraction. I'd told myself it was because I didn't know anything about the world but that was just a rationalization for not making decisions or having input. It was always safer to carry out someone else's plan than to come up with one of my own. Even the way Ars pushed us into mission after mission had become somewhat comfortable. It was intolerable, but it had the comfort of the familiar...a rut to ride in as opposed to picking our own path. Ars called, and we came running. Shawn did it because he felt a debt to his uncle. I did it, because I always went along with Shawn, like the back wheel on a bicycle always follows the front. "How much do you know about me?" I asked as the insightfulness of my husband's observations settled on my mind. "What do you mean?" "I found out, just a day or so ago, that you knew how I really feel deep inside. Just now, you told me something about myself that I didn't even know. I guess if I would have thought about it, I would have come to the same conclusion that you did, but I never thought about it. You knew I had gold flecks in my eyes. I didn't know that and they're my eyes. This morning, you looked inside me and saw..." I stopped. I'd planned to say that Shawn had seen `even more,' but I didn't know what he'd seen. I decided to ask. "What did you see? What made you cry?" Shawn's emotions went haywire for a second. I felt a spike of anxiety from him, then fear, then firm resolve. I wondered what that meant. Shawn looked around the bare dimensional-wood-framing of the shell of the look-out balcony we stood in. He leaned over the railing to check the path below us. Whatever he saw satisfied him. He guided me off the railing to a wood bench built into the back wall of the structure. Shawn had me sit on the bench while he remained standing. His left hand balled into a fist, he closed his right over it, like paper covers rock, and squeezed. He collected his thoughts and spoke. The tone he used was close to his clinical tone, but there was more caring in his voice than normally accompanied that tone. What Shawn told me seemed to be a mix of stuff he'd been thinking about for a while and other stuff he'd come up with more recently. I sat back to listen as dispassionately as I could, even though the subject was me and my emotional...stuff. "I've been trying to figure out how to deal with this for a while, but I was afraid of hurting you, maybe of driving you away from me." Shawn said to premise what he wanted to say. "The other night, when you heard me talking to Joe, I'd made up my mind to try to deal with...not deal with, to help you with your doubt...your pain. I've known about it, about how deep it goes, for a while, almost for as long as we've been together. When we were in my uncle's office your first day on Solum, do you remember what you said?" I shook my head in the negative because I didn't know exactly what Shawn was referring to. He quoted me to jog my memory. "You were talking about why you stood up to Cy and his group. You said, `nobody needs me, nobody loves me, and if they killed me, no one would care, not even me.' Do you remember saying that?" I nodded. I remembered the words. They were as honest as I ever got when I talked about my feelings. Shawn nodded with me to acknowledge my nod. "Uncle had just told us that the world was going to end if we...if YOU didn't save it, so I didn't think much about what you said then. I've thought a lot about it since then. You still feel that way, don't you?" There was a touch of accusation in Shawn's voice when he said the words of the question. I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I couldn't do either of those things. I admitted that he was right, and I was ashamed. "I'm sorry, Shawn." I said miserably and hung my head down. "My mind knows you love me. I've felt it. My mind knows I have friends who love me. I know Bem loves me, but when I was talking to Mary before, I said that he didn't. I just feel so...so worthless all the time." I buried my face in my hands and wished I could disappear. "I know you do." Shawn sat on the bench next to me but made no moves to hold my hand or offer any physical support. "I saw it this morning." "What did you see?" I asked my palms. Shawn thought for a second before he answered. "You remember that dot?" Shawn asked me. "That little white dot at the bottom of your brother's painting. That's what I saw, or that's what I think I saw, when you let me into your deepest self this morning." The guilt flared inside me again. Shawn was talking love and acceptance for the little white dot that was the real me, except I hadn't let him see the dot, only the storm. Shawn didn't seem to realize that, and I didn't expose his mistake. I let him continue to make it. "That's why I cried for you." Shawn went on. "I sensed that little white dot all alone in that storm of black. He can't even fight it anymore. He just accepts that he'll always drown in it, but it's worse than drowning because he won't die from it. The black smothers the poor dot, but he has to endure it, because he has no other choice. No matter how much love everyone on the outside tries to show him, he can't see it through all the black." I scrubbed my face with my hands and lowered them from my face. I put my hands on my knees and watched them tighten until the knuckles were white. I forced my hands open and slapped my legs with them to flex the white away. I set my hands on my knees again and watched them tighten until the knuckles went white. "You think...AHEM," I tried to swallow the lump of guilt and shame in my throat, but it wouldn't swallow, "you think you can save that dot from the storm?" "No, I don't." Shawn said with a verbal shake of his head. He may have also shaken it physically, but I didn't look at him to see. "I think we need to calm the storm. And I believe that we can, but to do that, the dot...he has to stop listening to the past. The dot has to stop believing the voices of yesterday. The dot has to put his faith in me. If he does that, if he takes my hand and holds on tight, he and I can ride out the storm together, like we promised we would." I didn't know what to say to that. Shawn's words reflected everything I wanted, everything I ever hoped to have. I was so afraid to hope though, especially as I hadn't been honest. I was so afraid, afraid to tell him and afraid to fail. Shawn held his hand open with his palm up next to mine. He waited for me to release my knee and accept the offer of his hand. I pried my hand loose from my kneecap and gripped his hand. I watched my knuckles go white again as I held onto my husband. "Church." "Yeah." I whispered because I didn't trust myself to speak. "You don't have to hold onto me that tight, but you can if it helps. I'm not going anywhere, not ever. I know you don't believe that now, but you will." "OK." I said because I didn't know what else to say. "Will you do something for me? Will you try something with me when we get home...back to Solum I mean?" "Anything." Shawn gathered my hand into his lap and held it. His perfect hands kneaded and stroked my mangled paw. His surgical instrument fingers traced the rubbery scars and battered knuckles that defined my hand from his. I watched as he held my hand. I wondered how he could stand to touch it. I wondered how he could stand to feel the mutilation with his perfection. The metaphor of my hand held in his was as obvious as the moral in a children's movie. He was purity and light while I was a lying, festering sore. Shawn held my hand and pressed it to his chest. "When we get home, go with me to therapy. They have people like psychologists on Solum. We'll go together. That way you'll feel safe. We don't have any secrets from each other, so there's nothing to hide. Will you do that for me?" "Yes." I agreed. I was overwhelmed with the generosity of my husband. I was overwhelmed that he would be willing to subject himself to my darkness over and over again to try to help me banish it. My heart ached that I needed the help at all. "I'm glad." Shawn crawled into my lap facing me and wrapped me in his arms tightly enough to split my seams. His love poured forth and wrapped me as tightly as his embrace. I felt warm and safe. I held him as he held me. I breathed him in. I tried to set my shame aside with the fresh promise that I'd make it right with him. I swore to myself that I'd make it right, that I'd let him see the deepest me, as soon as we were home. "We'll deal with it together." Shawn promised. "We can do anything as long as we're together." I heard the words and felt the truth in Shawn's intentions, but my shame and my ever-present doubt reared up like a startled horse to leave its mark on even that tender moment. "I'm sorry for being this way." I apologized to Shawn as tears that I tried to keep inside streamed down my face. "I'm sorry I'm broken." "Church!" Shawn pulled us apart. His face scowled into mine. My words had made him angry. Our eyes met and his face softened. "I'm sorry that I snapped at you. I know how hard this is for you. I only thought I did until this morning, but now I know. I know you can't believe me yet, but I promise that you're not a burden. I promise that I want to help you. This is what we do. If we're not making each other better, we have no right to be together. Right?" "You're right." I whispered and leaned my forehead against his. "My God, I love you." "I love you to," Shawn breathed over my face, "and that will never change." Shawn tilted his head to bring his mouth to mine. He kissed me once, a gentle chase kiss. His lips were full, soft, salty, and sweet. I kissed him back with my mouth closed to match his, but I let my lips linger in the kiss. I leaned away, to break the kiss. Shawn leaned into me. He sealed his mouth to mine and his tongue probed for me to open for it. Passion flared between us and drove away everything else. We made out and groped. I'd just decided to pull Shawn's shirt off and was trying to get it untucked from his pants when a throat that didn't belong to either of us cleared loudly. "AHEM...A-HEM," the throat insisted, it's disapproval very apparent. Shawn and I separated, red-faced and breathing hard. We turned to see a ramrod straight, elderly woman with a book under her arm. She looked at Shawn and me over a pair of frameless reading glasses that were perched on a bony, hawk nose. Her lips were pursed, and her free hand was propped on her slim hip. She leaned toward us like she was about to tick off an impudent child. "Perhaps this," she waved the hand from her hip around the small wooden tower, "is not the appropriate place for...um," the hand waved vaguely toward us, "whatever you were getting ready to do." Shawn climbed out of my lap and stood, head down and eyes up in a sheepish posture. I got up from the bench and felt very much the same. "Sorry, ma'am." I apologized. "We got carried away." The woman raked us both with a head-to-toe appraisal. "Yes, well, carry it away from here." Her hip-hand waved some more, this time toward the stairs. Shawn and I moved to where she'd waved and started down the steps. The woman sat on the bench, crossed her legs with one knee over the other, and opened her book. I had to bite my tongue when the shiny cover of the dog-eared paper-back caught the sunlight. It was a romance novel with a ripped, shirtless guy on the cover. The subject matter of the old woman's reading material made me wonder how long she might have waited before she'd interrupted our grope fest. I wondered if maybe she'd watched for a while. Shawn and I laughed about getting caught when we were back on the path. Well, I laughed, Shawn remained embarrassed. He checked the time on his phone. I think he did it just so he could do something other than think about the incident. "We should move on." He said and stepped up the pace of his walk. "I'll never forgive myself if we miss the fountain show that volunteer was so excited about." I set my pace to match Shawn's and played his words over in my head. From anyone else, I would have thought what he said was sarcastic, but Shawn still didn't grasp sarcasm when he heard it, let alone use it. I accepted his words as genuine and followed where he led. He and I exited the woods and returned to the main path which would bring us to the fountain by way of the greenhouse. As we strolled, I mulled over everything Shawn had said to me in the tower and everything that had happened since we'd arrived on Earth. I found myself with a question that I thought Shawn could answer. "Why does my magic...uh...do what it does? I mean, when I share with you, it kind of makes sense that it tunes us into each other, but...but Bem said when I share with him, it feels like a hug on the inside. When we were on the swing the other morning, I felt a lot of him, more than I thought was possible. Why is that?" Shawn pondered that, but he didn't seem to get anywhere. "Your magic does things that I can't explain. I was taught to see magic as energy, almost like electricity. Electricity can't carry intention or emotion. Your magic seems to carry both. With what you've shown me recently...I've actually been wondering how much of our sympathetic link was due to my mistake and how much was due to your power." I didn't get what Shawn was saying and voiced my confusion. "What do you mean?" "I mean that, Preacanto said that our link was from me not guarding myself from your feelings. That's the explanation I've accepted, but I've never heard of a link like ours happening before. Physicians across the world do tens of thousands of examinations a day. At least some of those examinations must be on people the physicians are attracted to, and who are attracted to them. Why is it that we haven't heard of links like ours forming before?" Shawn let me know that his question was rhetorical when he went on without pausing. "Usually, when a physician fails to protect themselves from someone who they have strong feelings for, they wind up reading each other's minds, or feeling emotions, but only as long as they're physically near each other. When they separate, everything goes back to normal." Shawn shook his head to indicate that our situation was unique. "We said that the amount of power that you have was the difference..." "Wait," I interrupted to raise an objection that I'd raised when our link was first established, "my magic wasn't active when our link happened." Shawn considered that for a second but dismissed it. "Your power wasn't active, but whatever magic potential you had would have been present no matter what. Maybe your magic was protecting you from yourself for all the years you smoked and drank. We've said that your magic is a performance enhancer with no negative side effects. Maybe your magic potential is the only reason you survived all the abuse." I shrugged because I didn't know what to say to that. Shawn's logic made sense, but like everything else about magic and Solum, it remained batshit crazy if I thought about it from the context of someone from Earth. Shawn went back to what he'd been saying before I interrupted him. "I wonder if there's something special about your magic. I wonder if the fact that your magic comes from your mass, I wonder if somehow when your matter is converted to magic, if it somehow retains your...personality maybe. That's not exactly what I mean, but...maybe `essence' is a better word. Maybe when you share your power, and the recipient is emotionally close to you, then your magic conveys your feelings and allows you to see the feelings of the other person." Shawn paused his explanation as we arrived at the warehouse-sized-greenhouse...a conservatory really. We entered through the vestibule and were amazed at the display. We felt like we'd walked into a jungle or a tropical rainforest. The array of plants, trees, and flowers in the massive glass and steel frame structure was spectacular. Some of the plants were everyday things, and some were strange, exotic plants from faraway lands. After the initial `ohs and ahs' were out of the way, Shawn returned to the topic at hand. "The idea that your magic carries part of you with it, but only effects those people who have a close emotional bond with you...it's the only thing that makes sense to me. You shared with Joe, but that didn't open you to his feelings, or his to you. You passively share with everyone around you, but that doesn't offer them insights to you, or you to them. It's only the intentional sharing that does that. It's almost like your magic is an extension of your will. I think your power is more special than we thought." "What does that mean?" I asked. "I don't know that it MEANS anything." Shawn shrugged both verbally and physically. "Except that, with people you love, sharing your magic will let you share their emotions. It's interesting. It's something we could look into when we get home, but I don't think it's anything to worry about." "OK." I said because I didn't know what else to say. I'd just had another bizarre discussion with my husband about my magic power, this weird power that was unique and exclusively mine. I consoled myself with the idea that if Shawn wasn't worried, that I shouldn't be either, but it didn't stop me from wondering why I was the one to be granted world changing magic. `The universe could have picked almost anyone else.' I thought. Shawn pointed my attention to an indoor pond with lily pads the size of round cafeteria tables, and that was enough to distract my thoughts away from my magic musings. I focused on the plants, and my husband's fascination, and tried to enjoy the day. We looked around for quite a while and could have spent much more time wandering around in the humid air and diffused light that filtered through the dense greenery of the conservatory, but Shawn observed that it was getting close to fountain-show-time. We cut the greenhouse tour short and went outside to see the show. To call the main water feature at Longwood Gardens a `fountain' would have been a gross understatement. The fountain was actually a football-field-sized pool with hundreds of individual jets and sprayers. The ten minute `show' was actually a piece of liquid choreography set to orchestral music. The jets and sprayers seemed to represent the instruments and groups of instruments with a liquid conductor at the fore. Water shot in tall streams or sprayed as rainbow-forming cascades in perfect time to the music. It was truly a breathtaking display. The fountain show seemed a good cap-off to the visit and Shawn and I decided to leave when it ended. As we headed toward the exit, I marveled at the expansiveness of what we had just seen. "Isn't it amazing how all this belonged to one man? Could you imagine being wealthy enough to build and maintain a place this impressive?" Shawn shook his head at me like he couldn't believe what I'd just said. "Uh, Church...we are that wealthy, remember?" I'd completely forgotten. "That's right! I keep forgetting because we still live in a studio apartment. Even the traveling we do seems like a mission for your uncle, so it doesn't feel like an extravagance. Weird to think that we could have something like this if we wanted." "Do you want that?" He asked. "Would you want to live lavishly?" "Not really. I think maintaining that would become a career in itself. I don't need anything but a place to lay my head next to yours. Besides, do you realize how long it would take us to christen a whole mansion? It took us less than a month to fuck on every flat surface in your apartment, and some that weren't so flat. A mansion would take years of constant effort. Of course, we would have room for the harem I always wanted. It would be great! Every evening, after dinner, we'd call a line up to select eight to pleasure us for the night. We'd have to be careful to use them all at least once a week, can't have hurt feelings." "Eight?" Shawn cried, shocked by the number. "What are you going to do with eight?" "Four for me and four for you, silly." I bumped my hip into his as we crossed the parking lot. "I don't think even I could find a use for eight at once...but maybe Bem and I could brainstorm." I trailed off to pretend I was considering the mechanics of a nine-man dogpile with me on the bottom. Shawn grinned. The grin hinted that he'd decided to play along with my fantasy. He wasn't often silly on his own, but he usually went along for the ride if I set off. "It sounds like you've really thought this through. How many people should we have in the harem, and should they all be men, or do you want a little variety?" I dove into the deep end of the silly pool and paddled around. After the heavy discussion we'd had in the tower, and the magic talk on the path, I needed some silly. "Fifty would be a good start. We could advertise and have a casting call; hold auditions. I'd want all men, adding women would only complicate the sleeping arrangements. We'll get variety with age, experience level, and body types." I glared down at Shawn like I wanted to head off an objection he hadn't made. "Obviously, we wouldn't have anyone younger than eighteen, and I think no one older than one hundred and eighteen. Once we got through the first fifty a few times, we could start to add to fill in the experience gaps, specialty fetishes, and stuff. Eventually we'd build the group to one-hundred and twelve, that's eight per night for two weeks. It might help to put ads in college newsletters, attract the younger set to a life of depravity. No experience but tons of energy." Shawn bumped his hip into mine like he had his own thoughts on the matter. "I think you have enough energy to go around. The way we went at it this morning..." I cut him off with a huff that was only half serious. "I love the way you always lay all that on me, like I'm the only lusty one around here. Who was that man who pounded my ass like he was tenderizing steak?" I felt a little spike of lust along our emotional link, and Shawn shuddered. I guessed he was reliving the memory. "Yes well...you certainly encouraged me." "Far be it for me to ruin your fun." I teased. Shawn chuckled, then his face drew down into a serious frown. "I just remembered your poor butt. I never fixed it." I patted the still-raw ass cheek through my shorts and felt a fresh sting. "No, you didn't. You leave it alone." Shawn shrugged. "Anything you say." We closed the discussion about my stinging ass, and I used the rest of our walk to the car, and the drive to Joe's, to flesh out my harem fantasy. I had almost convinced Shawn I was completely serious by the time we got to the house. I parked in front and rolled the windows up. I got out. Shawn got out and waited for me to come around the car. He wrapped an arm around my waist as we strolled up the walk. "I love you, Church." He said. I didn't understand where the declaration came from, but guessed it was a continuation of our talk from the tower. I leaned into him to answer. "I know." "You don't yet," he said, "but you will. Trust me, you will."