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@wordsmith  –  Here it is. The last part is more final, starting from where she ‘thought up a storm’. The earlier part might need more work since that’s the part I added recently.

 

I didn’t know what to do. The whole town stood there, waiting for me to speak, waiting for my decision.

“Hey, um, just so you know.” Clay stepped forward, hands shoved into his pockets. There was something in his eyes… I tried to look at his feelings, but there was so much there, such a swirling maze that I couldn’t see discern one thing from another.

“Just so you know, I… I want you to stay.” He met my gaze and suddenly it was crystal clear what lay soft and gentle in his heart, spilling out into his words. “I want you to stay,” he repeated. “Please.”

I couldn’t find a way to speak. Everything I was feeling rushed up into my throat and choked the words I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him… tell him I felt the same way.

Turning towards the town I stared out at the tops of the buildings, the place I’d learned so much in. And suddenly, I couldn’t seem to imagine myself anywhere else.

“Felicity?” Clay looked at me questioningly, and I saw the anticipation that clung to him, the tiniest bit of fear that hovered close.

Gloria’s eyes were wide and pleading as she clung to Harper’s arm. Aunt Jo stood behind them, smiling. Just smiling in her old, young, knowing way.

Looking around at all the people that waited for my words, I closed my eyes and thought up a storm.

I thought about how Clay had stood in the middle of the road and caught me like a pop-fly to left-field, letting me fall right into his fireflies and flap-jacks filled life.

I thought about Mollie Mae in her husband’s shoes, shuffle-thunking until she tip-tapped.

I thought about how God had sent Aunt Jo, like an angel in an apron, to teach me how to let go of the past and smile at the future.

And I did smile, because I knew that if I could look at myself right now, the one feeling I would see spinning in my heart and dancing around my head and tip-toing over my shoulders would be love.

I knew that this tiny little two-bit town, with its campfire weddings and rainstorm celebrations, was and would be my home.

Forever.

(The End)