by Chloe Garner
“But you don’t have to act like you just came home from a tee-ball match,” she said. “You didn’t even win.”
He laughed, coming around the counter.
“But it was fun,” he said. “You had fun.”
“Not even a little,” she said. “It was completely out of control.”
His face sobered and he took another step toward her. She took half a step back. Her body was reacting to him, surging heat and nonsense into her brain. And damn it if he didn’t know it.
The corner of his mouth twisted up.
“That’s what you’re here for,” he said. “You’ll get there, and then we’ll get to have some really good fights.”
“Where is everyone?” she asked. “Are they all okay?”
“Not here,” he said. “Don’t know.”
“What about Sybil? She got arrested. I saw it.”
He hadn’t stopped a slow, even move forward, and she took another step back.
“She always gets arrested,” he said. The rest of the room was gone. It was just him, just her. He was there, nowhere else but with her, and her awareness of what had just happened was narrowing quickly. “She’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that,” she persisted, and he grinned.
“What if I just don’t care?”
His fingers found hers where she was bracing against the counter, sending a sizzle up her arm. She jerked away like she’d burned herself, and then she found herself backed into the corner of the counter. He didn’t lean in. He didn’t need to. He just stood, right there, the humor gone from his face as he looked at her.
She remembered the manic glee as he’d run past her, Robbie’s fear that he would just leave, his own words.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“They’re okay,” he said, not budging, but not pursuing any more. He was listening to her, and it made her want to push herself against him and not think, but she was right.
“I can’t do this,” she said again, wedging herself out from between him and the counter and finding her back against the refrigerator. He turned, but stayed where he was.
It wasn’t that he was hurt. Maybe she’d wanted him to be hurt. He was curious. Serious. Paused, but not stopped, chasing after her. He gave her her moment and she took it.
“I can’t do this,” she said and he nodded.
“You said that.”
“This isn’t who I am.”
“It is now,” he answered, and she shook her head.
“No, it wasn’t and it isn’t and it’s never going to be. I don’t just have a torrid affair with a man I barely know.”
He took a step forward, looking at her with his face slightly to the side, one hand out.
“You know me better than my own father ever did, and you read too many books.”
“I’ve only known you a couple of weeks,” she said. “And I don’t… I don’t know if you’re going to be here tomorrow.”
He stopped.
“You know that’s a promise I can’t keep.”
“I know it is,” she said. “But I want you to make it, anyway.”
“You want me to lie to you? I will.”
“No,” she said, feeling the heat, the pressure die off as he eased back again to lean against the counter. “I want you to make it and to mean it. That’s why I can’t do this. I can’t be with someone who could just walk away from me like that, even if it were… Even if it weren’t like anyone else would ever do it. Even if you didn’t really have a choice.”
He crossed one foot over the other and nodded.
“I can see that,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I want…” Well, she wasn’t going to say what she wanted, so she moved on. “I wish it were different.”
She felt emptied out, deflated and hollow, and she was almost broken that she didn’t see the same on his face. He gave her an almost-tender sideways smile and he nodded, just this much short of a bow, and he stepped away from the counter, no tension at all in him anymore. He put his fingers out to touch her chin and he kissed her cheekbone gently.
“It’s okay,” he said, with a quick wink, and then he was gone, crossing the living room with an easy stride and out the door.
It was like someone cut her puppet strings. She leaned against the refrigerator and put both hands over her mouth.
Her ally.
She was right. She’d done the right thing. She had.
But it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
A furling came creeping in through the garage door and she pointed at it.
“You,” she said. It froze, then eased down to the floor, walking toward her on back legs like she’d entranced it. She was furious and hurt and reckless. It held out a paw toward her and she grabbed it, feeling the creature inside dematerialize. It wasn’t cruel - the furling made no attempt to escape her, didn’t even want to. She could feel that much, too. It just stopped being.
***
Robbie was slapping her face, gentle, but with an urgency that told her he was worried.
“What happened?’ she asked.
He shook his head at her, helping her up.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he muttered. “You have to make everything as hard as possible.”
“What?” she asked, still disoriented.
“There’s a hot bath in your room,” he said. Pushed his fingers through his hair. Sighed. “Go. Whatever we need to say, we’ll say later.”
The tub was too hot again, and not hot enough. She rested there until it went cold, then forced herself up and out.
She didn’t remember anything after the furling. She didn’t want to remember anything from before it, but there it was, like a wound, a kiss on her cheek and a hole opened up in her life. It was shocking to her, how much she felt it, that loss of potential, how much she would miss the heat of being there with him, wherever they were. His fingers.
She toweled her hair dry and dressed, going to sit on the couch, feeling numb.
“Why wasn’t Trevor here?” Robbie asked after a few minutes.
“He left,” she said. The words hurt.
“Why?”
She looked over at him. This wasn’t right. None of it was right.
“I told him…” she started. What had she told him? She wasn’t even sure. Robbie waited. “I told him that we couldn’t work.”
Robbie straightened.
“You what?”
She nodded.
“I think… We’re done now.”
“Really,” Robbie said, straightening further. “You mean it?”
“He might be gone tomorrow,” Lizzie said. “How could I stay with him, knowing that?”
Robbie nodded.
“And he’s the bad guy.”
She laughed, a bit defeated.
“He isn’t, and you know it.”
Robbie shook his head, then ran his fingers through his hair.
“It’s good you won’t be with him,” he said. “But why did you zap the furling?”
“How do you know that’s what I did?” she asked, and he tipped his head to the side.
“What other reason would there be for you to be laying passed out on the kitchen floor when I got home?” he asked. It was a good point.
“I was angry,” she said.
“You shouldn’t do it again,” he said. “Not for a while.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You haven’t got any glow to you,” he said, standing and going to the kitchen. He came back with a glass of whiskey and put it in front of her. She frowned at it.
“I’m fine,” she said. “That doesn’t really help.”
“It’s because of Trevor,” he said, turning and wandering away down the hallway. She heard his bedroom door close, and she stared at the glass for a while longer, then downed it and put her hand over her mouth, staring at the wall for a long time.
She didn’t know what she was going to do.
She had two frien
ds here. Two. And she’d just alienated one of them, and the other one wanted nothing to do with getting her equipped to do the job that Lara had left unfinished.
And what they did was chaos. She only just barely understood what they were doing, not to mention how. She needed someone who would teach her.
As evening drew closer, she turned on the TV, but she didn’t watch. She needed to go pen an e-mail, but she had no idea what she would say.
She should have gone to make dinner, but she didn’t have the energy. It didn’t sound like Robbie was going to do it. At least there were leftovers.
She finally got up and fed herself. The fridge was running well and nothing had spoiled in days. She wasn’t sure what she believed had caused that, but she was grateful not to have to play hunt the smell again.
When it got suitably late, she got up again and dressed herself for bed, laying down under the blankets in the dark and listening to the rustle and scrapes of furlings wandering her room. She wanted to get up and chase them off, but she was tired and miserable.
What if Trevor never came back at all? What if she’d hurt him and he just left?
She heard a clatter on her night stand and she turned her head to find a furling crouched there gnawing on her contacts case.
“Seriously?” she asked. It set the case down and sprung, disappearing into the shadows. There was a chittering up at the ceiling, and a pair of furlings fell onto the bed in a biting, scratching tangle. She kicked them and they fell on the floor, scattering in different directions.
Something plinked at the window, and she looked, but she didn’t see anything. It plinked again and she put her hand over her face. A furling went tearing across the bed.
Another plink, and she sat up. There weren’t any furlings at the window; it would be outside, just tapping on the glass to mess with her. She went to go look, and startled back when she saw a much taller figure standing out under the trees.
“Geez,” she said, going to turn on the light and then returning to the window to open it. “What are you doing out there?”
Trevor took a step forward into the pool of light and looked up at her.
“It’s not okay,” he said. She frowned, grabbing the two sides of the windowsill to keep her hands from shaking.
“What isn’t?” she asked. He shook his head.
“Come walk with me,” he said.
She looked down at her pajamas and sighed. Good enough.
“Just a minute,” she said.
“Come on,” he waved. She snorted.
“I live here now,” she said. “I’m going out the front door.”
He shook his head.
“No, you’re not. Come on.”
She sighed at him, but she couldn’t fight with him - wouldn’t fight with him. More, she didn’t want him out of her sight. She dashed to the vanity and snatched her key out of her purse, then went back to the window and climbed out onto the sill, hopping over the cactus and down onto the ground. He grabbed her when she landed, wrapping both arms around her chest long before she had a chance to stumble, and she latched hold of him, ducking her face against his jacket and closing her eyes.
“I thought you were gone,” she said.
“I can’t…” he said, squeezing her harder. “I…” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away, and she thought that this was just a protracted goodbye, more pain; that she’d misread him and was even this second making a fool of herself.
“Come on,” he said, turning her around and nudging her toward the front of the house. “Walk with me.”
“Are you saying goodbye?” she asked, surprising even herself when her throat choked. He spun her hard and kissed her, just once, but with force. And then she was looking directly into his eyes.
“Not if I ever get a say in it,” he said. “Come on.”
She found herself disoriented, shaken, as he spun her once again, and she had a hard time picking her way through the undergrowth toward the front of the house, but eventually she made it. He grabbed her hand and held it tight in his as they walked. He was silent for a long time.
“It’s not okay,” he finally said.
“What isn’t?” she asked.
“You telling me that I’m not enough.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did. You said that if I can’t promise to be here, you don’t want me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s what you meant,” Trevor said. “It’s the one promise I can’t make. I leave. It’s what I do.”
She felt herself choking again. There wasn’t any way to get around this. She’d known it, and yet, seeing him there outside of the window, she couldn’t keep believing it. She had to hope that it was possible. It hurt too much to think that it wasn’t.
She turned her face away from him, not sure what he would see there and not wanting him to see it. He pulled at her hand, and when she didn’t turn back around again, he stopped, pulling her harder until she spun.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “It didn’t change. I want to know.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
She shook her head. What words answered that question?
“That you aren’t going to just disappear,” she said.
He nodded.
“I can’t promise that I won’t just leave,” he said. “I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. I guarantee that. But I can’t walk away, because that’s not all right with me. There is no one in the world like you, and I know that right now. I’m never going to meet someone like you again, and…” He swallowed, rubbing his thumb down the side of his mouth and shaking his shoulders out. He put his hands to her face. “I’m going to stop looking.”
“What?” she asked. She thought she knew what she’d heard, but she wasn’t certain.
“I might leave tomorrow,” he said, “but I give you my word that I won’t ever disappear. We might not be together ever again. I can’t tell you that and not lie to you, but there won’t ever be anyone else. If I can come to you, I will. That’s what I can promise you. Is that enough?”
She nodded, putting her hands over his.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can live with that.”
He laughed.
“I never thought it would matter to me,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked. He swallowed again, turning his hands over to take her fingers in his palms.
“Marry me,” he said.
She felt her jaw drop. She knew that was the wrong reaction, but she didn’t have the capacity for another one.
“What?”
He nodded.
“That’s what it is, isn’t it?” he asked. “No matter what, it’s you and me.”
He nodded at her and she nodded with him, just mirroring him. He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re leaving me hanging here,” he said. She might have tried to speak at that moment, but there was no proof.
“Not a fan of weddings?” he asked.
“That’s not it,” she finally said. “I don’t know you.”
“You know me better than anyone else you’ve ever known,” he said. “Don’t you?”
She started to argue, but, somehow, he was right. He nodded.
“And I know you better than almost anyone else you’ve ever known,” he said. “Maybe better than anyone.”
She’d spent her life trying to help Robbie. Styled her entire profession around it. She had coworkers she liked, but she didn’t talk to them outside of work, nor did she talk to them about things outside of work. She had friends at the gym, friends that she saw movies with, friends that she had dinner with occasionally, but she hadn’t even called them when Lara had died.
There was a hesitation to her, one that said this was crazy, but the crazy part was that the rest of her felt no hesitation at all.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
He grinned and he kissed her, then wrapped her hand into his and started walking again.<
br />
“Good.”
She sighed, exasperated.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Why does it need to be more?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Traditionally, there’s a ring.”
He dug in his pocket with his free hand.
“No,” she said. He pulled out a gold band and held it in his palm.
“Like that?”
“You don’t have enough money to feed yourself,” she said.
He looked at the ring for a moment, tossing it just high enough to flip it in his palm a few times.
“This was how I figured it out,” he said. She shook her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Furling popped up on my way here and left it on the floor of the bus in front of me,” he said.
“That’s someone’s wedding ring,” she said. “You stole it.”
“Furling sole it,” he said dismissively. “I found it. No way to take it back - furling isn’t going to do it.”
“You’re encouraging them, if you go along with it.”
He tipped his head back and laughed.
“You can’t think that we have any impact on what they do,” he said. “That’s not how it works.”
“I have no idea how it works,” she complained and he grinned.
“Yeah, you do. You’ve killed two of them.”
She glanced at him and he sparkled back at her.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
She shook her head.
“How?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Why’d you do it?”
“I was angry,” she said. He nodded and sniffed.
“Good a reason as any. Either of them fight you?”
“No,” she said. He put his spare hand into his pocket, still holding the ring.
“That’s not how they are,” he said. “They do what they do. They aren’t invested in it the way you expect a sentient creature to be. You can’t teach them.”
“So one of them hands you a ring and you just take their word for it and show up here and propose?”
He laughed.
“I rode the bus the whole length of the route twice after that,” he said. “I’ve been holding on to that ring for the last two hours.”
“That’s all the time it took you?” she asked.
“You said yes after three minutes,” he said. “And I’m supposed to be rash.”
