As the summer passed, I heard bits and pieces of Nathan's condition from Bonnie. Her calls became more and more sporadic, and then one day, they stopped.

Weeks passed by in the heat. A lonely, cavernous stretch of boredom filled up by what I needed the most: rest. I kept working at the shelter and with the kids at church, and slowly I started to feel alive again. Something inside me started to wake up.

After Labor Day, I went back to work with Lily. Adam Finn had proposed to her, officially, at the end of August. All she could think of after that was her wedding. It was the same way I'd been after Nathan proposed to me, talking about dresses and churches and honeymoons, trying to make everyone feel as excited as I did.

I took the ring off, finally. My finger felt light and naked without it, and there was a red place where it had sat. The scar of the Celtic knot was deep in my skin. For the first few days I would feel its absence, a shot of fear jolting through me, thinking it had slipped off.

I didn't think of Nathan as often as I used to. Sometimes, an image of him flashed across my eyes so suddenly it was like a bird. A certain smell would take me back to the apartment on a Saturday morning. A certain song would take me back to his car, metal clanking in the heat as we drove to somewhere. I remembered the texture and taste of his skin. I remembered the sound of his voice when he sang me to sleep. I remembered his hands, soft, on my face as he leaned in to kiss me. And I remembered his hands, grabbing my arms, shaking me, rough. Glass breaking. Tears. Sudden shots of pain.

I was living at home, helping out around the house while my father was at work. I was bringing in and saving enough money to move out on my own, but I didn't want to be by myself. At least, not yet.

Aaron, Lily, and I were friends again. We saw each other everyday, sitting on Lily's front porch drinking Cokes, going to the mall and meeting at the fountain, lying under the summer sky at night and making out the faint constellations. It was the last summer we had together, and the bittersweet knowledge of that made us want to spend as much time as possible with one another.

Lily and Adam Finn had set the date for their wedding for the following spring, and after that they were moving to Virginia to be closer to Adam's parents. This news had made me sad and incredibly lonely, but I knew how happy Lily was, and I tried to be happy for her too. I had Aaron, after all. I still had Aaron.

The love I felt for Aaron wasn't the love I'd felt for Nathan at all. . . that gasping, desperate love grabbed in greedy fistfuls behind doors. With Aaron, the love was sweeter and less complicated. It was there. It didn't need to fill me all up until there was nothing left. It didn't need to wrap around me and make me a prisoner. It was just there, and it was content to be what it was.

I loved the way he held me, the way he kissed my forehead when we watched tv, the way we didn't have to say anything to speak to one another. I loved praying with him at night, talking to God together. So much had changed and so much had happened. . . but still, I was with Aaron.

In the fall I started seeing a counselor once a week at the request of my father. Aaron and Lily hadn't thought it was a bad idea either. Despite my initial refusals, I finally agreed to talk to her just to make them happy.

It was painful to speak to this stranger about Black and Annabelle Rose. . . all the things that had happened. I didn't think she could possibly understand, and I was sure she would judge me for staying with Nathan for so long, but she never did. The first few sessions were nothing short of torture, but slowly I got used to talking. Her name was Julia, and she was kind to me, and the more I saw her the more I wanted to speak. I wanted to get it off my chest. I wanted it out of me, so that I could move on.

I didn't blame myself anymore. I stopped thinking I had killed Annabelle Rose. I stopped blaming myself for Nathan's pain. It wasn't mine; I had just taken it as my own. I stopped blaming myself for my father's drinking. It was his decision, and it had nothing to do with me. And when the weight of all that guilt was lifted, I felt I could really see for the first time in my whole life.

I hadn't gotten all the answers I'd wanted from God, but I knew that He was with me. No matter what I would face, I would never be alone again.

One day in November, I got a letter from Nathan. It was at the exact point that I thought I was really healing, really moving on. And then, from out of nowhere, I heard from him.

I sat staring at the envelope for a long time before I opened it, not daring to breathe. I studied that handwriting for so long. While I looked at it I remembered all the songs he had ever written for me in those same jagged, faint letters. Nathan never used a pencil. When he put something on paper, it was permanent. That was one of the things I remembered: the ink on his hands, the patches of blue and black.

It took me two days to get up the courage to open it.

The letter was five pages long, all written in pen. Nothing crossed out. He was okay, he said. The gunshot wound had healed perfectly. He was just out of rehab and was at home with Bonnie, and he wanted to tell me that she said hi. He said he was sorry, for every little thing he had ever done to me. He listed them out for me, stuff I could barely even remember. Every cruel word he said to me. Every slap, every tear. The two times he raped me. He admitted them. He left none of the blame for me.

He was in counseling, he said. Group therapy. A part of the program was listing everything he had ever done to me, but writing the letter had been his idea, because he couldn't bear for me to blame myself. The last thing he said before he signed his name was that I didn't have to write him back.

I folded the letter when I was done and put it into my jewelry box next to the ring. I kept that box on the highest shelf in my closet. Sometimes I brought it down and opened it up, let Scarborough Fair play slowly into the silence. I would let the memories seep out for just a moment. And then I would close it up and hide them again. Their echoes would still be in the air, like the scent of perfume after you stop up the bottle.

I had hung the Niamh painting on the wall opposite my bed, a reminder of who I had been, what had happened. Some mornings I woke up and just stared at it, studying it hard. And I would think of Nathan putting it together all those nights, telling me about Tir Na Nog. I remembered swapping stories of our days as he worked, leaving nothing out. I remembered kissing his hands where he had been burned by the hot glue, the chemical scent that stayed in our clothes and hair.

Sometimes, when I thought of things like that, I would break down again. The pain would rise up inside of me like a great sea. I could feel it coming, the waves of it. Melissa and Lily and Leah and Aaron and Chris and Adam Finn would be there for me every time. But mostly, I would call on God. I would pray and yell and sob into my hands, thinking about Nathan and Annabelle Rose, wanting to scream for them. I would ache for them, ache for his touch and his eyes. I would long for my baby, the electricity in my stomach and all the hope I had ever kept for her. I would tear and weep until there was nothing left of me. I did not see God or hear Him or even feel Him most of the time, but I knew He was there in the room with me, feeling my pain too.

The months started to pass. In the winter I got a second job at the gas station by Aaron's house, trying to keep busy. In between church and volunteering at the shelter and working with Lily, I made sure that I didn't have very much time to dwell on the past. This was around the same time that I dyed my hair. I dyed it black at first, cloaking myself under the color, never wanting to see my old face again. Gradually it faded to a soft brunette though. I was happy with it, happy with a new reflection.

I never wanted to be that girl again.

It was spring. I'd just had my twentieth birthday, and it was now two weeks until Lily and Adam Finn's wedding. It was all any of us could think about. I was going to be Lily's maid of honor, and I was searching feverishly for a dress to wear. She wanted me and Leah to pick our own dress, and I thought this was probably a good idea knowing Lily's sense of style. But I was definitely running out of time.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was at work at the gas station. Since I had no customers and nothing to do, I was spending my shift thumbing through a bridal catalog. Only this time I skipped the section on wedding dresses and went straight to the bridesmaid's pages. It made me a little sad now, to see wedding dresses.

Just when I was checking the price for a dress I liked, I heard the mechanical bell above the door that signaled a customer. I looked up briefly and saw someone opening one of the fridges in the back. A few seconds later a set of car keys and a Mountain Dew were placed on top of the counter.

"Hi," I said, pushing the magazine out of the way. "Pump two?"

"Yeah."

I sighed as I pushed in the buttons on the cash register, cracking my neck from side to side. It was uncomfortably hot, my feet hurt, and I was ready to go home even though my shift didn't end for another hour.

"And a pack of Marlboro Reds please."

He sounded young. I looked up at his face to see if I needed to card him, and that was when I gasped.

"Nathan?" I whispered.

The word was so quiet, weak and foreign that I didn't realize I had said it. He was there. . . standing in front of me. Only he looked different. He looked alive. And his eyes were shimmering, and his face was flushed from the spring wind. I had never seen him look so healthy. In the five page letter I'd gotten in November, he had spoken about going to rehab, but I'd had no idea it could make such a difference in his appearance to have the drugs out of his system.

He looked at me too, and in his eyes there was a sudden flash of recognition. I saw the color fade away from his face, until nothing was left but the blue of his eyes. For a long time we just stood there staring at one another. Then,

"Rainy. . . It's you," he said, as if he had been expecting to find me for a long, long time.

I smiled shakily, at a loss for words.

"Hi. . . um. . . how are you?" I mumbled helplessly.

"Your hair!" he exclaimed, "I didn't recognize you with your hair like that!"

I laughed nervously, reaching behind me and playing with my dark ponytail.

"Yeah. I dyed it awhile ago. Just wanted a change."

"I like it," he grinned, "How are you, Raina?"

"I'm great. You?"

He smiled at me. When Nathan smiled, he still looked like a little boy.

"I'm fine. Really good."

There was a few second's pause in which I looked beyond him into the parking lot, staring anywhere but at his face.

"New car?"

Nathan glanced behind him at the small, red Eclipse parked next to the gas pumps. There was movement inside, and I saw a yellow dog poke his head out the passenger window, sniffing the wind.

"Yeah. Finally. It's used, but it runs real smooth. Got a working air conditioner and everything."

We laughed then, remembering his old car that had given us so much trouble right up until the end.

"It's really nice," I said, "Your dog too?"

"Yep. His name's Chief. Mom got him for my birthday."

After he spoke, there seemed to be nothing more to say. We stood there awkwardly for a moment. The store was completely empty. I nervously thumbed through the pages of the magazine again, but I wasn't seeing the dresses anymore. They were only colorful, glossy blurs as I felt Nathan's eyes on me, the heaviness of his stare, like a secret spoken into silence. I opened my mouth to mention Lily's wedding, but I stopped when I remembered that Nathan probably wasn't invited. I didn't know if he and Adam Finn had made things right, and I didn't want to be responsible for another awkward silence.

Somehow, I had known this day was coming. I had known I would see him again, at a time when I least expected it. And when it happened, I knew, I would not know what to say, and I would be trembling from the shock of it, and all that had happened in the last year would seem like a dream. Counseling, church, volunteering at the shelter, all the progress I'd made. . . it just faded off.

"So you going to school?" Nathan asked.

I shook my head, happy that he had broken the silence. "Just saving some money now. Next fall I'm going though. What about you?"

He nodded. "Yep. Still in school. Finals coming up in a few weeks. It sucks."

"You declared a major yet?"

"History."

"Cool. I remember you always really liked history."

Nathan shrugged, tracing pictures in the condensation on the Mountain Dew bottle.

"I think it's good to look back and see why things turned out the way they have. You know?" he said.

For the first time, I raised my eyes and looked at him, really look at him. There was color in his face. His hands were not shaking. He seemed full of energy, but not the restless, chaotic energy that the drugs had provided him. Now he looked like he had just finished running or some other physical activity: a healthy, real energy. He was wearing jeans ripped at the knees and a black t-shirt. I'd rarely seen Nathan wear t-shirts in public. He didn't like to show his scars. But now, in place of the scars, I saw lyrics scrawled up and down his arms.

"You're writing again," I smiled.

"Hm?"

"You're writing songs again," I said, motioning to his arms and remembering warm summer nights in Adam Finn's pool, just us, secrets and whispers and kisses given and taken.

Nathan looked down and grinned. "Oh. Yeah. I guess I just never got into the whole paper thing huh?"

"Guess not," I laughed.

"Except for. . . Did you get my letter?" he asked softly.

I nodded, looking down at the chipped counter. I ran my thumb into the grooves on the plastic.

"Yes, I did. Thank you."

We were silent again. I heard him breathing. I closed my eyes, that sound rushing in my head. I could smell his familiar scent. The smell of forests, of salty ocean water and cigarettes. It made me weak, just like it had always done before.

"You still in counseling?" I asked.

I felt guilty as soon as I said it, but Nathan didn't seem to notice or mind at all. He nodded with a heavy sigh and a smile.

"Probably for a long, long time. But it's okay. I feel a little better every time I go. This guy there, John, he's amazing. He's been working with me one on one, sorting through a lot of stuff. He even got me a job. Eleven dollars an hour."

"Wow," I smiled, "I make minimum here. That's really awesome!"

Nathan blushed, staring down at the counter, watching my hands move across the plastic. He looked so beautiful; he reminded me of the summer.

"Well, I'm not rich or anything, but I'm saving it for now. I don't think I'm ready to move out again."

"Yeah," I shrugged, my muscles tensing in preparation for another awkward silence. But Nathan kept going.

"You would like him, John. He's a Christian, but he's not one of those pushy types. You still into all that? Jesus and everything?"

I smiled. "Yeah, I am," I said, "He saved my life."

We stood nervously for several more minutes. I kept glancing into the parking lot, hoping to see another car, another customer, something to break the awkwardness of this moment. There was nothing but Nathan's red Eclipse and the heatwaves slinking around on the pavement and Chief sticking his head out the window, barking for him to come back.

"You look really good, Rainy," Nathan whispered.

"So do you, Nathan."

He cleared his throat, and I knew he was thinking hard about what he was going to say next.

"I meant what I said in that letter. I was messed up for a long time. I still am. I've got a long ways to go. But I'm getting better. I'm getting help. Rainy, I didn't ever want to. . . you know. . . hurt you. I think we never should have met. . . at least not right then. None of it was your fault."

"Yeah," I nodded, looking down at my hands, desperate to change the subject.

"And I'm glad He saved your life," Nathan said softly.

"I'm glad too."

He was quiet, twisting the cap on and off the Mountain Dew bottle, over and over again. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click.

"Hey," I said suddenly, remembering something.

"What?"

"I still have the uh. . ." I moved my hands around, not wanting to say the word. "The- the ring. Your great-grandmother's ring."

"Oh. . ." Nathan said, the color falling out of his face a little.

He looked away from me, out the windows again. For a second I could see his old sadness filling up the blue of his eyes, but it was gone in an instant when he spoke.

"Keep it. It's yours."

"But it's important. It's your family's."

"I gave that ring to you. I'll never give it to anyone else," he whispered.

Nathan wouldn't look at me. I bit my lip as I felt tears sting my eyes. I didn't want the ring anymore. It was a part of my old life, and it was painful to know that it was with me. Near the beginning, when Nathan was still recovering, I had taken it out of the closet again and again and sucked the salt off of it and wept for Annabelle Rose. But now I had put it away for good. I didn't want it anymore.

Yet, seeing him now, I couldn't bring myself to say no to him.

"Okay. Thank you. But if you ever want it back-"

While I was still speaking, the door of the gas station swung open. I looked up, grateful to see a large family entering, the children immediately running towards the candy aisle. Their laughter filled up the silence that Nathan and I had created. I smiled and shrugged.

"Well, I got customers so. . ."

"Right," he said, breathing sharply, as if he had just woken up.

I slid him his Mountain Dew and his cigarettes, adding the latter to the total in the register.

"Still smoking I see," I smiled, cocking my head to the side.

Nathan grinned. "One thing at a time, Raina."

"Twenty-five-fifty."

He handed me a few crumpled bills, and I gave him his change as the laughing children moved into line behind him.

"See you around," he grinned, flashing me a wave of his hand.

"Yeah. See you. Tell your mom I said hi!" I called.

I looked up as I watched him leave. I watched him walk across the parking lot, take a swig of his Mountain Dew, get into his red car, and drive away. The dust rose up behind him making a smudge, like a fingerprint, in the heat. And then he was gone, and I was just Raina again. I remembered Aaron, and I remembered that he was picking me up in an hour. I remembered Lily's wedding and the fact that I still hadn't found a dress. I tore my eyes away from the window. I breathed deeply, smiled at the children in front of me, and I went back to what I had been doing.

End.

"I have borne and have not fainted; I have not ceased to love, and Love helped me push through the crack in the rock until I could look right out onto my Love the sun himself. See now! There is nothing whatever between my Love and my heart, nothing around to distract me from him. He shines upon me and makes me to rejoice, and has atoned to me for all that was taken from me and done against me. There is no flower in all the world more blessed or more satisfied than I, for I look up to him as a weaned child and say, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire but thee.'"
- Hannah Hurnard, Hinds Feet On High Places

A/N: First let me say a huge THANK YOU to all the readers, all the PMers, all the reviewers, all the new IM friends, all the emailers, all of you who cared. I love you all. I don't know most of you, but I know that you are all special and have something amazing to offer.

Writing Equinox has been so much fun. Ever since I started this rewrite at the end of last summer, I have been going through an extremely dark and scary time in my life. Writing Equinox has been a real comfort to me. A lot of Raina's pain was my own pain, masked behind a character, because that's how I deal with things. If I hadn't had this emotional outlet, I'm not sure where I'd be. The hardest part of this story was writing about Hope. During a time in my life when I feel very little hope, it was hard to express the way Raina's life changed after she came to know Christ. But it made me remember how I came to know Him, and that He is still with me just as much as He was then. These past few chapters have served to remind me of things that I often struggle to believe in: God's love for me, His plan for me, during a time when I feel and see neither. But faith isn't about feeling and seeing, and I think Raina had to learn that right along with me.

If you've read my profile, you know that this story is partly based on my own experiences. I experienced an abusive relationship, though it was not nearly as bad as Raina's. A few years have passed since then, but I want to keep that experience in my mind; I constantly want to remind myself of what I felt, so I can understand how others feel. Equinox has helped me to do that. If there is one quote I could use to sum up the story, I think it would be from Psalm 30:5- "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." If you are like me, you know that a night can be a long, long time! lol. But the good thing is that there is hope!

Okay, it wasn't my plan to write an entire novel with this author note. I just had a lot to say. :) I have the soundtrack ready. Please let me know if you want the track listing! You can email me, PM me, review me, whatever. I only ask that you include your email address or a way to contact you so that I can send the song list. Oh and Equinox was also nominated for a SKOW award. You can vote for me from the link on my profile. Alright, I'm really done now. PLEASE tell me what you thought/think!! And I love hearing from you guys. Feel free to email me, PM me, whatever. Watch for my next story, Banner Over Me! Hopefully coming soon.

Update: Check out the sequel on my FP page, written in Nathan's point of view: Pearl of Great Price.