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Part 3: Wings Outstretched

Separate lives, separate dreams, separate ways. Although they know they will be apart, their love will transcend time and space themselves. Their time is running out yet is only just beginning.

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Few and far between they are, and this she will admit –albeit grudgingly- but when he smiles it drives her heart wild. And he's smiling now at her as she stands in front of thousands people, singing her heart out. The audience is enormous that night –but in her mind it’s just the two of them- and seeing him smile spurs her on to new levels of energy as she approaches the elusive top A flat that calls an end to the song. Now,

-she thinks as she goes up for it- it is her time. She is going to show him that she can be special too. She hits the note, right at the top of her range- and to him it is a sound more beautiful than anything else in the universe-. She has made her decision, and he his. She is going to the royal academy of music to become a singer –a talent scout was at the performance yesterday, and in exactly two hours, twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds, will ring her about her first career as a singer-, and he is going to Cambridge to further his career as an author. Their dreams have taken wing, and, although they will be apart, he will hold her forever in his heart as he writes, and he will be in hers as she sings. She holds the note for twenty, thirty, thirty-two counts and then the lights fade to black and the curtain drops, signalling the end of the show.

The noise from the audience is deafening. He himself has burst into tears, and he can see that, as the curtain rises again, so has she. He watches as she accepts a bouquet of flowers almost as big as her, and then gets up from his seat, runs down the passageway, vaults a couple of currently-vacant chairs and envelops her in an enormous hug -right there on the stage, in front of all the staring eyes-. Grinning madly, the couple leave the stage and rejoin the rest of the cast. Huge cheering and congratulations fly in all directions and the mood is easily as high as if Christmas came early.

As they stood there, just embracing over and over as the rest of the cast and crew filter off to their own homes and loved ones, she is suddenly struck by a profound thought. She didn’t have to hit that high A flat to prove she was special, nor did she have to act in the musical to be perfect for a change. She realises that, in his mind, she already is and always will be. And that’s all that matters –not the flowers, not the champagne, not the cheers- love.