And this, I thought rapturously, sinking into the kiss, was absolutely true.
It was over three months ago, inside a darkened auditorium, standing on stage with a dozen other schools’ chosen winners, that I had held my breath, telling myself either way—win or lose—I will have won. I needed only to look beside me, at the one who held my hand to his pursed lips, anxiously awaiting the same news as I, to know this was the truth.
Dominic was all I had ever wanted.
Even so, the moment our names were announced as the winners of this year’s Senior Piece, I cried; for many reasons, but mostly because of everything leading up to that moment. People talk of scaling walls, flying to the moon, plunging the depths of the ocean—all to find love or resurrect it. And while I had read about it numerous times, even watched it once or twice, listening as actors declared it for themselves . . . now I had lived it.
The day I found Dominic again was the end of the beginning. And where he and I picked up, once again assigned to work together as Senior Piece partners, was somewhere in the middle. Neither one of us could bear thinking of it as starting over. Too much had happened. Too many memories, too many moments that would forever remain embedded in our souls, making up the people we were now.
It took a while, weeks upon weeks of recounting it all piece by piece. It changed things—having someone else that had been there. My mother and Emily only needed to listen and believe, but Dominic, with his own collection of memories, added the missing components. There was no rush. We had the time. Still, it was much like being told a portion of a really good story, and then having to wait to hear more. Often we talked for hours about one single detail; for in that one detail resided countless sub-details where things either did or did not align. There was discovering where our worlds interconnected and paralleled, how much of his life I had filled in using my consciousness. Not everything was identical of course—it couldn’t be. But then again, much of it was, more than I would have thought possible. Only there was no Summer, no Foster, but only Foster Summer Kelly.
The two were finally one again, a whole and complete girl.
There was temptation to choose, to recognize one world as real and the other as imaginary. This wouldn’t do. To sever one from the other was to strip the soul from the body. Undeniably, there was sorrow and grief in the world I had left, but there was also a tremendous amount of love in it, too. And not just mine. All the memories, every single one of them—they’re ours. We don’t have to choose which ones we want, or which ones make the most sense. Ultimately, we decided that there was no reason to choose, when we could have them both equally. Like the song we had written together and apart, it was ours.
The flower. Of everything that had happened, of all the mysteries, big and small, that flower was one unknown that remained unknown to me. For days I had searched out meaning, and then only waited for it, certain my mother would bring it to me, I would stumble upon it in the garden, or maybe catch a glimpse of it as I drove past some location, suppressed memories bursting into understanding. I had every assurance that, like the rest, it would eventually appear and make sense.
It didn’t.
Surely there was no one answer; the flower could symbolize one of many things: my growth as a person, the shedding of one’s skin, dying to an old life and waking to a new one. There was plausibility in multiple answers. And that bothered me for a while, it really did. I wanted to know what it meant, what it all meant. And this could have just been me and my tendency to over think things, but I began to wonder if possibly, just maybe, that in the flower’s ambiguity lie the meaning; perhaps there are just some things we ought never to completely understand—made better, purer for the not knowing. I could believe that.
Dominic’s last words to me just before I awoke in the hospital . . . they stayed with me. In those few first few days the hurt was terrible and so was the sense of loss; but in that loss was a burgeoning incipience; something that I had once credited to Dominic and now understood that, while he was responsible for beginning a belief in me, he never could have sustained it. He could love me, yes, and he had—greatly; but until I loved me, until I believed that I was worthy of his love, it could only touch me on the surface.
The first time Dominic told me he loved me, there was a sense of joy, but with it also a sort of disbelief, as if it were too good to be true. Could he really, truly love me? Though fleeting, that had been the very first thought occurring to me. Not—I’m so happy. Not—this is everything I hoped it would be. Not even that I loved him in return, which I did. That saddened me as well; until the day he told me he loved me for the second first time.
And what I felt in that moment, I couldn’t describe even if I wanted to. When Dominic looked in my eyes and he said those words I love you, Foster, there wasn’t a single part of me that questioned it, doubted it, or thought twice about it. It was certain. He loved me. In hearing it, I found him in that moment again. But only in knowing his love made me neither more nor less, was I able to receive all of it. And it grew to something immeasurable.
Dominic was right all along, about the decision being mine to make. I had to wake up. It didn’t mean, however, that I had to stop dreaming.
Our story, it’s not for the logical, certainly not for the unimaginative; it belongs to the dreamers.
The End
CARA ROSALIE OLSEN resides in sunny Southern California, where she lives with her very patient husband, Michael, and their spoiled pooch, Annabella. A product of a relatively normal childhood—whatever that means—Olsen recalls "Life had this relentlessly boorish way of reminding me I was wonky and unapproved. Regardless of status or gene pool, there is nothing simple or easy about growing up. Life doesn't play favorites or carry biases; it's the pits for everyone. But rather than constantly falling into the pit, often I chose to climb down willingly, lining the bottom with a soft place to land. That place is where I became a reader, and today, a writer."
Throughout high school, Olsen struggled with subjects like Math and Science, but excelled at the arts, written and performed, often finding a kindred spirit in those teaching Creative Writing and English Literature. What began with an ardency for language, soon developed into a burgeoning desire to create. This yearning took shape in the form of poetry and short story fiction, both of which have been featured in print and online publications. Olsen's debut novel, Awakening Foster Kelly is the result of a four-year project born on a whim and sustained by its characters' tenacity and their refusal to give the author a minute to herself. "In the beginning, getting them to talk was like trying to light a wet match. So, we had several long, sometimes combative conversations. I told them that unless they started holding up their end of the deal, I would have no choice but to fill in the blanks with whatever scraps came to mind. It wasn't very long before I started to find that everyone was already seated and waiting for me. We talked. I drank coffee. It was bliss."
These days, Olsen considers herself incredibly blessed to be able to do what she loves most. However . . . if she wasn’t a full-time writer, she would have liked to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, or, taken over as CEO of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
For more information, please visit:
www.CaraRosalieOlsen.com
www.AwakeningFosterKelly.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Cara Rosalie Olsen
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America.
First Printing, 2013
ISBN 9781478263647
For Michael, who changed my life forever when he married me
, and for doing it again with the words “I think you would make a really great writer.” There are husbands; and then there are angels on loan. This book is for you, my sweet darling, and your invisible wings.
Table of Contents
Cover
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Epilogue
Awakening Foster Kelly Page 99