“Hey,” said Layce, pulling out another deck chair and curling her legs under her as she eased herself down. She pushed her shoulder length auburn curls back with one hand in a gesture Elizabeth had always found sexy. Elizabeth turned away from Layce’s perfect arms and tousled hair.
“Hey,” she responded staring into the pool water, the lights casting a blue glow against the underside of the nearby foliage. They sat quietly for a few moments.
Layce cleared her throat. “So, earlier… about the ring…”
“Um huh…?” said Elizabeth, watching the ripples on the water’s surface.
“Tell me more about that.”
“There’s nothing more to say,” said Elizabeth, glancing at Layce and then back to the water. She was pretty sure she knew what Layce had on her mind, but she wasn’t sure how to discuss it. Layce had a new life, and here she was, still trying to figure out what she wanted from her own life—actually, she’d only just figured out what she didn’t want from her life. There was still so much more for her to figure out. “I just realized that I didn’t need to marry Kev.”
“Earlier, you said you shouldn’t have said yes in the first place.”
“Yeah. You were right. He’s not for me. Besides, I know that I’ll never be happy with a man.”
Layce was quiet for a minute.
“When did you realize it?” asked Layce, after clearing her throat again.
“I’ve known all along.”
Layce was quiet for another minute. When she spoke again, the anger in her voice surprised Elizabeth.
“You fucking amaze me.”
“What…?” Elizabeth looked at Layce, who sat stiffly, with her arms crossed and her jaw set.
“You’ve known all this time and never once said those words to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Obviously. I’m your best friend. We went through all of that… that… bullshit, and you don’t think it would be important to tell me? Instead, you sink into a little pre-defined rut and coast along until I’m in a good place and lay that kind of shit on me?”
Elizabeth was taken off guard by Layce’s anger.
“What do you mean, lay it on you? How does this affect you at all? You have the perfect life. You’ve always done what you wanted to do…”
“Is that how you see it? You’re right. I do have a perfect life right now. But it took a long time for me to be in a place where I could be open to it. It took me telling you…” said Layce, nearly shouting now. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. When she spoke again, it was still shaking with emotion. “Remember that night? Remember just after I graduated and we got drunk and you were complaining about not knowing what happiness is? That night was the night I realized I had to stop waiting for you to get your shit together. That night was the first time I realized you might never be able to crawl out of whatever little hole you had made for yourself.”
Little hole? Elizabeth started to get angry now.
“You moved to California a few weeks later. Don’t tell me you were waiting for me. You left. Not me.”
“Andy had had enough. She had a job offer out here and had decided to take it to get some distance from what she saw as my obsession with my roommate.” Elizabeth was shocked. She’d never suspected. Andy had always been kind to her, not once had she hinted at any sort of animosity. Elizabeth’s respect for Andy grew exponentially right then. “It just worked out that I had an offer out here, too. I was going to stay there. In Baltimore. But that night, I decided to follow another path instead. I couldn’t just keep waiting for you.”
“Are you happy?” asked Elizabeth.
Layce didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I am.”
“Are you glad you left?”
“Yes, I am. But, now I get to wonder if I gave up just a little too soon.”
Elizabeth felt Layce staring at her, studying her. She swallowed hard because there was something stuck in her throat and she realized it was all the words of love and yearning and asking that she had never found the courage to reveal. But now it wasn’t fair to say them. Now would just be too cruel. And now she finally realized they were just ghosts of a pain that she’d simply gotten used to. She couldn’t tell if the hurt she felt was the opening of a new wound, or the closing of an old one. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she wouldn’t turn to Layce. She couldn’t. It was just too late.
After a few minutes, Layce got up and walked toward the house. She stopped a few steps away and looked back.
“I’ll always love you, you know. That will never change.”
The door whisked shut, and the care that Layce took to keep from waking Andy reminded Elizabeth of all the things she’d never have. She sat in her chair and didn’t move for what felt like hours. Eventually she went back into the house and crawled into bed, but she didn’t sleep. Then, in the hour just before dawn, she heard the baby cry and knew Andy was in the living room nursing and rocking her.
She gathered her suitcase and wrote a quick note telling them thanks for letting her stay with them and she’d call when she got settled in her new apartment in Baltimore. She handed the note and the elephant toy to the bleary-eyed Andy, kissed her and the breastfeeding baby on the foreheads, and went out to get into the taxi she had already called.
When she arrived at the airport and got into line to rebook her flight back home, she stared at her return ticket to Baltimore. She still had a week before anyone expected her and she wasn’t ready to just fall back into whatever waited for her there. She felt aimless, untethered. The conversation with Layce had released her from an unknown tie, but she needed to end things with Kev before she could really move forward. And then there was her career. She loved medicine, but what was she going to do with it? She needed time. She had nothing figured out by the time she reached the ticketing counter.
“Welcome to North Star Airlines. What’s your destination?”
Elizabeth glanced at the departures sign and picked the first flight that looked tempting.
“I’d like a one-way ticket to Juneau, Alaska, please.” It was an impulse, but it felt right. She’d always wanted to visit Juneau. It sounded peaceful and remote. It would be a perfect place to spend a few days thinking and figuring out what came next.
“May I see your identification?”
Elizabeth handed the agent her identification and felt a surge of energy. A week in Juneau. It would be a great place to get her life together. She could do some hiking, check out the scenery, and figure some stuff out.
“A one-way ticket to Juneau, Alaska departing in an hour and fifteen minutes from Terminal 6. How would you like to pay, Ms. Trackton?”
Ms. Trackton? Shit. She’d given her the fake ID. If she traded in the ticket to Baltimore the agent would see the different name. If she gave her another ID, she’d probably get in trouble. The irony of Layce’s teasing her about her adolescent fears of getting in trouble over the ID didn’t escape her.
“Do you take cash?” she asked, thankful she had enough to cover the ticket.
Relief rushed over her when the agent nodded her head and extended her hand to take the bills Elizabeth had taken from her wallet and held out to her.
While the agent was busy checking her single bag, Elizabeth slid the removable insert from her wallet holding the real license and credit cards into a secret pocket in the black leather backpack matching her Coach purse. In her present state of mind, knowing her, she’d accidentally give the real one and screw everything up. She’d keep the fake ID in the wallet. If they searched her at security, it would probably be discovered, but she hoped she’d go right through, like usual.
She relaxed only after she made it through security without incident. By then, she’d also realized the benefit of the error, because even her mother wouldn’t be able to use her political strings or Homeland Security to find where she went if it took longer than a week to figure out what she wanted to do. Not that she’d intentionally do anything to worry anyone, but the
thought of doing something that wasn’t tied to anyone else’s expectations gave her a momentary sense of freedom.
By the time she got to her gate, the conversation she had had with Layce started to hit home and the sense of freedom she’d felt was replaced by anxiety. The lack of sleep and Layce’s reaction to their conversation pounded her like an emotional bludgeon. Graduation and the prospect of her future, along with the flood in Guatemala and her decision not to marry Kev, had already worn the walls controlling her emotional state to barely there. Layce was just the final straw. Elizabeth went into the nearest bathroom, locked herself in a stall, and had a good cry. When she emerged, she felt better, but her head—all stuffy from crying—was pounding. So she popped a couple of Benadryl she bought at a newsstand and sat in the plastic chair at the gate to wait for her flight. By the time she got to her first class seat on the plane, she had taken a third pill to address the stubborn stuffiness and was yawning. With any luck, the Benadryl and exhaustion would let her doze during the flight. She didn’t have to change planes in Anchorage, so it would be perfect. In Anchorage she woke for just a few minutes to hold a little girl in her lap to let the mother in the seat next to her get settled, but that hadn’t kept her awake for long, and she was back to sleep just minutes after the plane took off for the hour and half flight to Juneau. She remembered nothing else until she woke up to Nora’s beautiful eyes.
4B sat on the edge of her bed, having remembered her entire life in the time it took to read half-a-dozen pages and a handwritten note. She thought she would have felt different, fuller, heavier, maybe. Her skin felt stretched tight with memory. But she didn’t. She felt the same as she had before. At least physically. Emotionally, it was a different story. All of that time, all of those events, all of those emotions, all of it assailed her, raged against her very core. Her world felt like it was collapsing around her. Unable to sit still, she got up, and though it was the middle of the night, she took a shower. After that, she tried to lie down and go to sleep, but she couldn’t shut down her mind. So she did the only thing she could think of.
She found the keys to her mother’s car and drove.
She pulled up to an upscale townhouse in a gated community a few minutes later and rang the bell. She had her own key, but it didn’t seem right to use it. She waited for the door to be answered and she used the time to figure out what she needed to do to clean up the mess she had made of her life.
“Hey,” she said when Kev finally answered the door. The flickering light of the television in an otherwise dark house framed him in the doorway. He wore pajama bottoms and a blue and white striped robe hanging open. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was a handsome man, and most women would have enjoyed the view of his defined abs and nearly hairless chest. It was wasted on 4B.
“Hey,” said Kev, rubbing his eyes with one hand and holding the door open with the other. It was obvious she had just awakened him. “How did you…?”
“My dad ran into your dad down at the boat club and mentioned you were still in town,” she explained.
Kev dropped his eyes.
“I didn’t want to lie to you. With your memory and all, I thought it would be easier on both of us if I told you I had to get back to Texas right away.”
“It’s okay. You’re probably right,” she said running her hand down his arm as she walked past him into the house. Their fingertips held for a second before she dropped her hand to her side.
“What’s up? Not that I mind you dropping by, but it’s after midnight,” he said, standing by the closed front door, his eyes following her to the couch. His body heat still warmed the cushions as she sat. The TV was playing low in the corner of the room. She smiled at his predictability.
“I have my memory back,” she said.
“That’s a good thing, right?” he said studying her from the doorway.
She hadn’t considered that question yet, and honestly, she didn’t know how to answer it.
“Yes, I guess. And no. Yes, and no.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” he said, striding over to where she sat.
“Yes, for obvious reasons. No, because some things were better off forgetting.”
“Explain,” he prompted, stifling a yawn.
“Sit down. You’re hovering all above me,” she patted the seat next to her and looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked, as he sat down close to her, but didn’t touch her. She could always count on Kev to read a situation and react to it in the right way. He was perceptive, which made him a good attorney, but he was empathic, which made him a great guy. She hoped he would find a woman who deserved him some day.
“Stringing you along for most of a decade.”
“You haven’t strung me…”
“Yes, I have. We both know I’ve been in love with Layce.”
There was a short pause.
“Still?”
“I probably always will be, but it’s different now. We’ll never be more than friends.”
Kev was quiet and 4B thought about what else she needed to say.
“When I told you about what happened between Layce and me way back then, why did you still want to be with me?”
“Because I love you, I always have,” he said without hesitation.
“Really? Or was it out of duty?”
“It was never out of duty, Elizabeth. I have always loved you. I have always wanted to be with you,” he said, again without hesitation. “Even if I was a second choice.”
“How did you do it? How did you never get angry? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did get angry, remember?” asked Kev, looking away.
“The night at the marina?” she guessed. The argument right before he’d proposed had been uglier between him and Layce than it had been between him and her. Had he held on to it all this time?
“It wasn’t a proud moment, but no. Before that.”
At first, 4B struggled to recall what Kev was talking about. It was the shame on his face that brought it back for her. It was the moment both of them wished had never happened. The moment in the car when Kev had had enough and Elizabeth had decided her path.
Now, all these years later, she sat on the couch and looked at him, seeing the boy in the car, wishing she had set him free way back then.
“Oh, Kev, have you been holding onto that all of this time?”
“Not really, but sometimes I remember, and well...” he sat on the edge of the sofa with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling. He stared at the carpet between his feet.
“Nothing happened that shouldn’t have.”
He looked at her with sorry eyes.
“I disagree. I shouldn’t have scared you like that.”
“Well, true, but you stopped when I told you to.”
“That night kind of defined our whole relationship, you know.”
“How’s so?” she asked, but she knew. She’d picked him that night.
“After what happened, I relied on you to set the pace and tone for everything.”
She didn’t expect that answer.
“How do you figure?” asked 4B. She looked back on their relationship and tried to see what he meant. She certainly never felt like she called the shots on anything, except maybe the long engagement. Other than that, she’d done what everyone else expected of her. She’d picked a path and went along with what was expected of her.
“I didn’t want to push you away. So, I waited. I always waited until you were ready or initiated things. It wasn’t just sex, but also when we saw each other, planning things, everything. I knew, after a while, I often came across as inattentive, but I didn’t know how to bridge the gap from my desire to be with you and the chance of pushing you away. It was self-preservation, I guess. I knew if I pushed, it would force you away.” He dropped his gaze, but not before she saw the sadness in his eyes. “It seems that my inattention has actually succeeded in pushing you away anyway.”
Suddenly, every
thing made sense. Why they were together. How things had gone the way they did.
“I never saw it that way. I just thought it was how we were. I thought we were both comfortable with the way things were.”
“After a while, it was comfortable. We had our own lives, but we had the same goals. At least I thought so. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have been more demanding.”
“No. You’re right. Being demanding would have made it happen sooner. I almost wish it had.”
“What do you mean?”
She tried to find words for what she meant.
“If you had pushed me away earlier, maybe you would have found someone who deserves you. Who knows, maybe I would have had a chance with Layce.”
4B mumbled the last sentence quietly, finally realizing the truth of the words.
“What was that last part?” Kev asked.
“Nothing.”
He tensed up.
“I think I heard you. Elizabeth, you can’t blame me for—”
“I’m not blaming you, Kev,” she said, shaking her head and resting her hand on his leg. She wanted him to believe her. “I will never blame you for anything. This was all my doing. I gave you mixed messages. Hell, I gave myself mixed messages.”
“What happened? Layce has always been out and proud. If you wanted to be with her, why weren’t you?” She heard the derision in his voice when he said “out and proud” and part of her cringed. What would he say about her once she told him? She had to tell him. She told herself his reaction was understandable. She was changing the direction of his life right now.
4B paused and wondered how she could explain the constant yearning she had had for her best friend, the inability to act on it because of her own confusion about what her parents and society expected her to be. She didn’t want to hurt him with the details.
“Layce moved on, and I was just a couple of years too late.”
There was a long pause as they both absorbed what was happening.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
She looked up at him and wished she could love him the way he needed her to. He was such a good man.
Chasing Mercury Page 36
