by Lark O'Neal
“I can imagine.” He puts bread in the toaster. “My parents aren’t crude. They’re nice, you know, just not very polished.” He gives me a sad half-smile. “And it would hurt them a lot to hear me say that.”
“I’ll never tell.”
“How about your parents? Would they like me?”
“Yes,” I say as definitely as he did. “They’d probably like you more than they like me. And you’d talk geeky science stuff with my dad. He especially loves to talk about climate change.”
“The earth will be fine. It’s just humans who are going to be in trouble.”
“See, he’d love that.”
“Your mom sounds like the one who has more rigorous standards. Doesn’t she want some good marriage for you?”
“No. That’s not her at all.” I shake my head, smiling. “My mother really is—” I pause, trying to think how to describe her. “So committed. She wants to save the world, everyone in it. She’s very funny, actually. She has a great sense of humor and she’s a great cook—she loves making big meals for the family, and she’s the best grandmother who ever walked the earth, trust me. She loves it that my sister is having so many kids.” Suddenly, I’m feeling crazy emotional. “I really adore her, actually, which is why it’s so upsetting that she wants me to give up this thing I love so much. I hate it that she’s trying to force my hand, and I just can’t seem to find a way to convince her it’s important, that the thing that really matters the most is not that we all try to save the world, but we each follow our hearts to the thing we are supposed to do—”
I break off and look at him, mouth open.
“What?”
“I was having a dream when I woke up that I was explaining to my dad and mom and sister how to do this trick, and—” I break off, looking into the distance over his shoulder, realizing how deep this feeling is for me. “That’s the thing, though, right? What if everybody does the thing they’re supposed to do? Like you and your volcanoes and my sister and medicine and my mom saving the world.”
He’s buttering toast, looking at me. Even doing something as simple as that, he looks like a painting. Man Buttering Toast.
“Go on.”
I take a breath. “Ok, so Tyler! I saw him today and he said the most amazing stuff, about art and becoming the man Jess deserved.” I lean on the counter. “If he pours all of his angst and sadness into his paintings, something amazing will happen.”
Gabe hands me a piece of buttered toast, smiling.
“What?” I ask.
“I think you’re right. I also love that burst of excitement out of you. And you should go home and tell your mother all of that.”
With cheese in one hand and toast in the other, I mull that over a minute and take a bite of both. The cheese is a milky mild cheddar and the toast is nutty. “She’ll ask me how snowboarding contributes anything to the world.”
“And how will you answer?” The kettle whistles and he pours water over tea bags.
“Good question. I’m just not sure that’s the point. A florist just makes things beautiful, right? No purpose, except beauty. Sports are like that, just for fun.”
“When you’re turning those circles in the air, Kaitlin, it’s beauty. It’s poetry, a poetry of the body.”
I pause, touched. “That’s beautiful. Thank you.”
He grins. “You’re welcome.”
I arrange the cheese on a plate. “Anything else you want me to put on here?”
“Nope. I’ve got the tea. Let’s go where it’s warm.”
“Music.”
“Done.” He settles on the bed, picks up a remote control, and clicks the button. Music pours out of the speakers, soft and pleasant.
“Is this seduction music?”
“No. I keep telling you I’m not that guy.”
“How could you not be?”
He laughs. “What do you mean?”
“You’re so beautiful. Women have to throw themselves at you.”
“Not everyone sees me like that.”
“Yes, they do.” I pluck a square of cheese from the plate. “You just don’t see it.”
He looks at me, steadily. The long lashes make his dark eyes even more shadowy, and yet somehow they shine, too, with light. “I think it’s just you. But that’s okay with me.” He layers bread and cheese in a mini sandwich. “Tell me more about the training, your schedule, what’s coming up for you.”
A hot knot crowds into my throat and I shake my head. “No, not yet.”
His phone buzzes and he scowls. “Not good.”
“Don’t look, don’t look!”
He leans over and kisses me, but says, “I have to, I’m sorry.”
Even as he’s reaching for it, the phone vibrates three more times, one after the other. He reads the messages, thumbing upward and his eyebrows lift. “Huh! Good news and bad news,” he says.
“Bad news first.”
“The second volcano has erupted.”
“Okay, good news?”
“It’s a fissure eruption, which means it’s erupting from a long crack in the earth’s surface.”
“And that’s good because…?”
“It allows the system to disperse energy in a much less damaging way. No gas or high ash clouds.” He tosses his phone aside. “Basically, it means the crisis is averted.” He breathes out. “For now.”
“You seem very, very relieved.”
He takes a big drink of tea, picks up more cheese. “Well, the potential for a very damaging eruption was presenting. The poisonous kind, which could have had extreme and far-reaching impact on the health of most of Europe, on the world economy, on farming and ranching.”
I frown. “That sounds like a movie.”
“I know. Unfortunately, it has happened before and it will happen again, and we’re so interconnected now, so global and delicately balanced, that it’s hard to predict how it will play out.”
“And you like studying this, when you have absolutely no control?”
“I do. Volcanoes are still the coolest thing around. It’s partly their lack of predictability that makes them interesting. The hope is that our study and science will get better at predictions and preparation. If we knew, for example, that there could be a big fluorine eruption, then we could prepare by getting out medical warnings, maybe build greenhouses big enough to house crops and animals, biospheres to help protect the food supply and—”
He halts, frowning much as I must have a few minutes ago. “Huh,” he says again. “I’m going to have to dig out the dissertations on this subject, applying the lessons of the Laki eruption to the modern world. There might be something there for me.”
“Two breakthroughs in one night!”
“We’re a good team.”
“Or sex is good for thinking,” I offer with a big grin.
He moves so fast that I’m tackled and flat on my back before I know it, laughing. “It’s not just sex,” he says, holding me. “You know it isn’t.”
I’m afraid that if I let all this in, I’ll get teary and that would piss me off. “I told you not to come on so honestly.”
His fingers move in my hair. “Okay, let’s pretend. What if this was real? What would we do?”
I’m caught, looking up at him, cradled in the sweetness of the night. “You’re the one who said that soulmates always work out, that if it doesn’t, we aren’t.”
“Maybe I’m afraid that’s wrong now. Maybe I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.” His thumbs move on my cheekbones. “Maybe I’m afraid this is the real thing and we’ll throw it away.”
I close my eyes because I’m afraid he’s right, and then what? “If we’re soulmates, the universe will make sure we get together.”
“Why won’t you even try?” He flings himself sideways, stands up, hands on his waist. “Talk about it, find some possible solutions?”
I sit up, angry, too. “Because I saw what happened to Tyler, okay? He’s like shattered into thousands o
f pieces. He can’t do his work. He can’t think. He has the worst broken heart I’ve ever seen, and I can’t go there. I can’t love you and then lose you and feel like that.”
“But what if we stay together? What if it’s really good, this good, forever?”
“It’s impossible, Gabe. I travel nine months out of the year, all over the world. Are you just going to study while I’m gone?”
He bows his head. “Never mind. Just never mind.” He sinks down beside me. “I get it. Let’s just enjoy what is, and let the rest go.”
Lifting my hand to his mouth, he says, “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, and lean forward to put my arms around his shoulders, my heart aching. “Me, too.”
* * *
During our last hour, he asks, “Can I tell you something without making you mad?”
I laugh. “I don’t know. What is it?”
“You should let go of your parents’ support. Do your own thing, find an apartment in some city you like and just make it work.”
A ball of lead hits my gut. “I’m scared. I don’t know how to do anything. Like, at all. Only ride.”
“So maybe you get a job teaching at a resort and you train close to your home base and save your travel for competitions.”
I trace the edge of his thumb, knowing that not everyone has had the advantages I have. “What if the only reason I’ve been so dominant is because I’ve had so much help?”
“Well,” he says, looking straight into my eyes, “I guess you’ll find out. Or work harder, or change your focus.” He brushes a tendril of hair out of my face. “But I think you’ll be fine.”
“I’m so scared. Of, like, everything. It’s all turned upside down.”
“Welcome to life.”
I nod.
“Think about it. You said you’ve been wanting an apartment, right, so where would you want that to be? Denver?”
“Denver’s good. I’ve got friends in Portland, too. I’ve thought about the Bay Area, too, but it’s insanely expensive.”
“Vancouver?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure about the visa thing.”
“It’s a great city.”
“Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”
He slides his fingers through mine and looks up at the ceiling. “Seattle, maybe. I like it there. I like the weather.”
“Not Hawaii?”
“I love it, don’t get me wrong, and I will probably live there when I’m old, maybe find some nice teaching position and retire, but it’s far away from things, and I need a good airport nearby.”
I smile. “We could shack up in Portland. Get a dog.”
“A golden retriever.”
“Rescue only.”
“Of course. And we’ll name him Enzo.”
“And we’d need a cat, too. Maybe a black cat—they’re so elegant.”
“I like it.” He’s leaning on his elbow, looking at the ceiling. “We could have bookcases and paintings on the walls.”
“Oh, oh! Can it be an old apartment, with bay windows, maybe?”
He nods. “I like it. Mission furniture.”
“To go with the prints of the Pre-Raphaelites we have.”
“Perfect.”
We hold hands. I can see myself coming home to him there, his books stacked up, and take-out on the table. “I could learn to cook, maybe.”
“We could learn together.”
I close my eyes, fighting back the tears. “I wish I’d met you ten years from now.”
“Don’t cry, sweetheart.” He bends into me, kisses my temple. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m afraid I fell in love with you,” I whisper.
“Me, too,” he says, and kisses my ear.
And then we bend into each other, tight and close, my arms around him, his around me, for a long time.
Chapter TWENTY ONE
On the way to the airport, I’m feeling shaky and tragic and trying to hide it. The sun is not up, adding to my sense of darkness. The Rover has become so familiar, and smells of him, and the Icelandic rock is playing on the speakers, and I can only lean into him.
He pulls up to the curb at the airport, but doesn’t turn off the engine. We are silent for a minute, both of us looking at the lights spilling from the windows of the terminal. “Here we are again,” Gabe says.
“Here we are.” I don’t move yet, dreading the moment I have to peel my body away from his and kiss him one more time and then turn my back and walk away. “I can’t move.”
“I know.” He kisses the top of my head. “This really has been one of the best weeks of my life.”
“It’s like the last day of camp, isn’t it?” I say quietly, my head against his parka, soft as a pillow. “We have to reenter.”
“We do.” He’s the first one to move. “I’m going to get out so I can hug you properly.”
Which means I have to straighten and slide across the bench seat and open the door. He’s waiting for me on the sidewalk. Takes my backpack off my shoulder and pulls me tightly against him. “I’m not going to say I’m going to miss you,” he says against my neck. “I’m not going to say I love you. I’m going to say that you are smart, and passionate, and intelligent, and strong.” He raises his head. “You have everything you need to make your life what you want it to be.”
I close my eyes, dizzy with such faith. “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me.”
“Well, hear it. You’re amazing, and I believe in you.”
I will myself not to cry, but a tear leaks out anyway, hot in contrast to my cold cheek. “I’m not going to say I love you, either. I’m not going to say I will miss you. I’m not going to say that I will be thinking of you every minute.”
He embraces me again. “I’m so glad I met you.”
“Me, too,” I whisper.
And then there’s really nothing else to say. I raise my face and he kisses me, so exquisitely gently. “Take care, Kaitlin.”
I nod. “You, too, Gabriel.”
He picks up my pack and I sling it over my shoulder, and as I walk away, all the injured spots in my body start to ache, as if he was some sort of pain blocker. I force myself to stride forward, strong and mighty, and not look back.
I don’t look back. I don’t want him to see my tears.
* * *
Inside the airport, I pace for an hour, trying to get myself together, but I’m a wreck. There’s no other word for it. I’m lost and sad and confused and overly tired.
On impulse, I ask at the desk if there are any standby flights to New York. To my amazement, there is not only a standby but an actual seat. It’s a terrible seat, the window seat at the very back of the plane, but I’m so tired it isn’t going to make any difference.
I text my sister. R U available this afternoon? I need to talk.
After a minute, the text comes back: You know I am always here for you. Dinner with us?
I don’t know about that. I have to get to Denver soon.
Oh, stay. I think Paula is making fajitas.
Paula, let it be said, is one of the best cooks ever. She makes everything taste like a chef is working in the kitchen, and her fajitas are famous. Ok. I’m in.
Go there. I’ll see u when I get home. Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Her long line of kisses and hugs always makes me smile. A little of the burning heat in my throat eases.
The flight leaves on time, just as the sun edges over the horizon to pinken the snow-covered lava fields, the glaciers, the bluffs. Looking down as we bank over the bay, which has gone purple and pink, I find myself crying so hard that the lady next to me says, “Honey, are you okay?”
I nod urgently. “Fine. I’m fine.”
She pats my arm and offers a handful of tissues.
After awhile, my exhaustion catches up with me and I fall back against the seat, closing my eyes. I don’t even know this side of me. It’s exhausting.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m exhausted. I haven�
��t slept enough the past few days, at all. My emotions are careening around like a bunch of new skiers, crashing into themselves and trees and old ideas and Gabe and Tyler and—
Chill, Bouvier.
But behind the screen of my lids comes a parade of the past few days. Gabe’s smile when we met, his rescue on the bus, the hours at the hot springs, the night I spent reading in his apartment while he slept, which is weirdly precious; our kissing, our touching. His hands on me, his mouth. Making love until we could barely move. The sexy shower, the hair on his legs, his amazing mouth. The way he held me this morning.
Tears leak out of the sides of my eyes and I’m both embarrassed and helpless to stop them. My sister will feed me and listen to my stories and then I’ll be brave enough to head to Aspen for the games.
Focus is everything. I will focus on what I can control, not on what I’ve lost.
Chapter TWENTY TWO
Gabe
It’s a miserable day. I’m unfocused and lost and unable to concentrate and my professor finally says, “You have been very scattered this week, Gabe. Is everything all right with your parents?”
I blink, trying to figure out why he’d be asking about my parents. Then I remember that it has only been a few days since I returned from Hawaii, and my father had a heart attack and there were some distracting things, yeah.
I shake my head. “Sorry. I’ve had some things on my mind. My father’s okay, though. Thanks for asking.”
As the day wears on, however, the lump in my gut continues to grow, to distract me. My intuition is roaring at me, telling me that I will always be sorry if I don’t make one last stand, if I don’t find some way to convince Kaitlin that this is worthy of some work and time and attention.
But how?
Chapter TWENTY THREE
Kaitlin
My sister lives downtown in a big apartment with a walled garden. Her wife is an artist whose vivid, exuberant paintings hang in all the rooms, and she answers the door when I arrive, bedraggled and greasy, just before dinnertime. “Kaitlin!” She reaches for me and kisses me hello, her long dark hair barely caught in a ponytail. “Your nieces are so excited that you’re here.”
