"JC, in 12 years have you EVER gotten me onto the ferris wheel?"
"No, but I'm still hopeful. You never know, this could be the year." JC smiled at her, pulling her through the crowd of people as she shook her head in response.
"Nope. Sorry." Crossing her arms defiantly, Kaitlin tilted her head back to gaze up at the ride.
JC turned his head to look at her, the neon lights dancing across her face. "You never cease to amaze me Kait. You allow a 95 lb woman to throw you 200 feet in the air in the expectation that she'll catch you. But you won't ride the Ferris Wheel?"
"Those 95 lb girls know how it feels to fall. Four tons of man made steel and fiberglass don't have that same empathy." Kaitlin backed away from the line, pulling JC with her.
Hand in hand, Kaitlin and JC made their way through the crowds of people which gathered every year for the Bowie town fair. For as long as they could remember, it had been their tradition to attend together, and now these occassions were even more precious to them both. No matter where his life seemed to take him, he always managed to slip away for these few precious hours. Since his career had skyrocketed, JC had been forced to spend more and more time away from home, leaving behind his family and friends. Kaitlin had always tried to understand how much this all meant to him, and tried to be� content with the time she was allowed.� Absence truely did make the heart grow fonder, for when he returned to her, she cherished each and every moment they shared.
"Come on, let's have some REAL fun..." A coy smiled formed on his beautiful lips.
"What do you have in mind?" Kaitlin's eyebrows raised in question. That smile had gotten her into enough trouble as a child to realize the looming danger.
JC laughed at her knowing expession. "It's not bad. Come on..I have always wanted to do this."
Kaitlin allowed him to pull her into a small darkened tent. "JC, what is this?"
Suddenly the a light flashed, and the canvas was illuminated by a dozen burning candles. Kaitlin jumped in surprise, grabbing JC's arm tightly. JC laughed as his eyes adjusted to the light and focused on the woman who sat behind the table awaiting them.
"Come forward young man..Madame Zelda knows all...sees all...tells all.."
"Come on, Jace. This is silly. Let's go."
Kaitlin tugged on his shirt lightly, urging him to leave, but he stood firm.
"No, hold on a second." JC and Kaitlin sat down across the table from the mystic and waited.
"There is of course a fee..."
"Of course." JC pulled the money from his pocket and held it toward her.
She shook her head. "NO. On the table. Madame Zelda must never touch the money...Now give me your hand..."
JC rubbed his hand down his thigh and lay it on the table, watching as Madame Zelda clasped it in her own. She ran her finger down his palm and nodded. "This is your lifeline. Very strong...You will live a long healthy life."
"Well that's good to know."
Madame Zelda narrowed her eyes and peered closer. " I see that you are very musically inclined. You show much promise...I see marriage in your future..."� The old woman looked up and her gaze passed knowingly between the young people which sat before her. "The two of you share a great love affair...."
JC and Kaitlin looked at one another in surprise as she continued. "Yours is an endless love, a love for time and all eternity..."
JC shook his head and looked down at his hand. "Maybe you should look again....We aren't lovers. We're only friends."
Madame Zelda shook her head and released his hand.
"Madame Zelda is never wrong.� Another lifetime perhaps... When we leave each realm of contiousness and enter the next, we make a promise to our love ones we leave behind. A promise of continuing love.. A promise that in the next life, we will return to them....It's God's greatest gift...to never be truely parted. It just takes some of us a little longer to find one another......."
*************************************
"Make yourself at home. I'll be right back."
Kaitlin disappeared into her bedroom as JC examined the photographs that adorned her walls. He smiled at the photo of the two of them on a Halloween years before. "I had fun tonight."
"What?"
JC turned toward the hallway and raised his voice. "I said I had fun tonight!"
Kaitlin emerged, a smile covering her face. "So did I. We always do. Want something to drink?"
JC froze seeing her in a new light for the first time...viewing the woman she had become when he didn't seem to be paying attention. Her delicate face, full bosom, the intricate curves of her perfect body....
"JC?"
JC snapped back into reality. "Huh?"
Kaitlin laughed. "I asked if you're thirsty."
"Ohhh. Yeah sure."
JC followed her into the kitchen and watched as she poured their beverages.
"That gypsy woman was wild wasn't she? I always thought that kind of thing was a rip off...IMAGINE! Her thinking we were a couple!" Kaitlin laughed, handing JC his beverage..
He nodded in agreement, accepting the frosted glass. "Yeah. That's crazy. After all, I have a girlfriend."
"Yeah.....I know....."�
JC and Kaitlin stood inches apart, their eyes searching one another intently. Reasoning gave way to impulse and their lips joined in a long awaited kiss.Confused and overwhelmed by the emotions which engulfed him, JC tore himself away, attempting to regain a sense of himself.
"Damn it Kaitlin! I have a girlfriend!"
Her lip quivered as she watched him pace the floor. "I know."
"We are FRIENDS Kaitlin! NOTHING more!"
"I know, JC."
"There IS NOT anything between us and there NEVER will be!"
JC's body trembled in the outpour of his frustrated indecision. His eyes glazed with tears that threatened to spill forth at any given moment.
A tear slid slowly down Kaitlin's cheek as she struggled to speak. "Who are you trying to convince Jacey? Me?....Or yourself?"
JC stood unmoving, his fists clenched at his side. "I gotta get out of here...I have to go..."
Kaitlin folded her arms, hugging herself tightly. "Then go."
JC shook his head, helplessly as the tears began to fall.� "I......can't......"
He turned his back to her, taking a deep breath, willing himself to say the words he'd held inside for so long. "I've loved you forever Kaitie and I don't know what scares me the most. The possibility that if a stranger saw that then so did you, and you just don't� feel the same...Or that somehow I failed to show you how much you truely mean to me."
Kaitlin approached and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her head against his back. "I've loved you for as long as I can remember. I've seen women come and go, wondering what they had that I lacked...Waiting for the day when you'd see me...love me..Waiting to hear you say the words."
JC turned, wrapping his arms around here. "I love you Kaitlin."
She buried her face in his shirt, pulling him closer. "Say that again."
"I love you Kaitlin."
JC kissed her tenderly, another promise fulfilled.