Page 37 of Finding My Forever

“Hi, Liam.” Something about this place took away my nerves. Maybe it was the immensity, the gravity, that put our situation into perspective.

Elijah walked up behind him, wearing all black again. “Ladies.” He greeted then walked up to the pool. “I haven’t been here since I first moved in.”

“Wasn’t that only two months ago?” Sophia asked, without the bite I was expecting.

“Yeah, but this place deserves to be visited more often.”

With that one statement, I could see Sophia’s feelings about him change. Heck, I was starting to like him.

“Do you want to walk around?” I blinked up at Liam and agreed.

He turned away and I followed him. He took me to the opposite side of the pool and ran his hand over the dark stone. I watched his hand for a moment before freezing.

“Oh, no.”

Liam’s hand shot to my shoulder, and he gently turned me. “What?”

I blinked away tears again. “I just noticed the names.”

His eyes changed from concern to understanding to sadness. “I forgot you haven’t seen this before.” The hand on my shoulder slid until he pulled me in under his arm.

“These are families?”

“Yeah, they sorted the victims and put families’ names together.”

There was no holding back the tears as I looked down at the names representing each person that was killed in the attacks. Not only were there couples, but it looked like a few had children as well. It was breaking my heart.

“It puts everything into perspective.” His words echoed what I’d been thinking just moments before.

I nodded and looked into the pool, watching the water fall over the edge. The bottom wasn’t visible. It looked endless. Just as the pain and misery were endless.

“Hey.” He squeezed me tighter to him. “I don’t think any of these victims would want you to focus on the sadness. I think they’d want you to focus on the good in the world and help spread it.”

I nodded and wiped away the tears.

We wandered around the pool and headed to the second one in comfortable silence. It was a lot to take in and I appreciated him keeping his arm around me. It helped me feel grounded.

“Do you want to go into the memorial?” He dropped his arm and stood facing me.

Sophia and Elijah caught up to us as I considered it. “Have you guys all been in?”

They all nodded.

“Then we can skip it. I honestly don’t know if I would make it through.”

Sophia smiled gently. “It’s really, really sad. But we can go if you want.”

I shook my head. “Maybe next time.”

Luckily, they seemed to understand.

“Where to now?” Sophia directed the question at Elijah.

He looked to Liam and shrugged. “The Statue of Liberty is only a few blocks away.”

“We did that yesterday,” Sophia spoke up while I waited.

“Why don’t we walk around for a little while then head back up toward midtown and we can go to the museums up there.”