Through the Mist

by Ferrell, Cece

  I pulled myself from his embrace and turned to face him, my knees up against my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs. Archer smiled that beautiful, heart-stopping smile, and I couldn’t help but return it.

  “Her name was Hanna, and she was amazing. She was understanding and kind. Oh, and funny. She was so damn funny. It was like she had a joke or humorous response to just about any situation. Her laugh was the best I’d ever heard. It sounded like home.”

  The more I talked about my mom, the more I shared with Archer, stories and traits, anything and everything I could think of, stories I hadn’t even known I remembered. It all came spilling out of me and he soaked it all in, only interrupting to ask questions or clarify something he didn’t understand.

  With each word that left my mouth, a weight lifted gradually, until I felt a new lightness that was so unfamiliar, but felt so right. And that? That was something I knew I would never come to regret.

  Twenty-Nine

  “Hey, I’m gonna take a break for a bit, kay?”

  I laid the book I was reading to Archer on the floor and stretched out on the couch, plopping my feet on his lap. There was a new intimacy between us, a comfort that came with so much time spent together and secrets shared. It wasn’t a leap for me to call Archer my best friend and mean it.

  “Sure. Would you like me to take a turn?” he asked as he placed his hands on my ankles.

  We realized a few days ago that he had no problem resting a book on his lap and reading from it. We still weren’t sure how this was all possible, how he grew stronger with each passing day, how his once-insubstantial form was now a very real body much of the time we spent together. Certain activities still zapped him of his energy more than others, and he still needed rest, but I had a feeling that if someone came across him, they would think he was alive.

  I was about to respond when my phone rang on the coffee table. I was going to ignore it until I saw it was Dan calling.

  “It’s Dan. This could be quick, or it could take a while. I never know.” My conversations with Dan now exclusively took place through text message, so the fact that he was calling made me think this was more than the typical messages he sent.

  “It’s okay, I know you’re tired, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Archer said as he waved before disappearing.

  “Hey,” I said as I answered the phone.

  “Hey, babe. How’s it going?” Dan sounded exhausted. There was something else in his voice that gave me an uneasy feeling.

  “It’s going. I haven’t been sleeping well, so I’m pretty exhausted and was about to go to sleep. How are you? You sound tired too.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty wiped. I have some news though. I’m coming home in the next week.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, sitting up quickly. “You mean for a visit?”

  “No, Ros. For good. I’m shutting down the project. I know it’s sudden and I know it’s earlier than expected given all the delays and issues, but I’m ramping down right now. I’ll explain later. Rogers said we can stay in the house as long as we need to. I thought we could use this time as a vacation before we head back to Santa Barbara.”

  “Wow. That’s just… a lot of information to take in. I thought I’d have more time here. Shit, I’m going to have a lot of work to do to turn over my program.” I realized I didn’t sound excited, no matter how much I wanted to feel it.

  “I know. There’s a lot for us to talk about,” he said and sighed deeply. Something was bothering him, weighing him down.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It will be. We’ll talk when I get there. I love you. I’ll see you soon, Ros.”

  “I love you too,” I responded woodenly.

  Dan hung up, and I sat there for a good five minutes with the phone in my hand, just staring at it. I should have been excited about Dan being done and coming home, and about the fact we would get time together to work through all the things that weren’t working for us.

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. This also meant my time with Archer would be coming to a close so much sooner than I’d expected. The prospect of losing my best friend was something I was incapable of processing.

  * * *

  “Ros, what’s wrong?” Archer asked.

  I wrung my fingers in my lap and looked down, uncertain how this conversation was going to go down, unsure of how I was going to say all the things I needed to. The tears stung my eyes, and blinking them wasn’t helping to hold them back this time.

  As I sat there in silence, feeling the tension rolling off Archer, who was sitting so close to me, waiting for what I was going to say, my throat ached with all the unshed tears and all the unsaid words were fighting and clawing their way to the surface, desperate to be let out.

  “Dan is coming back.”

  He turned and looked away, tugging on his hair in frustration. He groaned, and it was so painful to hear.

  “When?” he barked out.

  “I don’t have an exact date, but he said in the next week.”

  The tears were starting to slip down my face. I didn’t even bother wiping them away. There would be no point.

  “Is the project over? I thought it was going on for another two to three months.”

  “I don’t know if it’s over, he was vague about the details. I only know he’s coming back, and then we’re leaving. Going back home.” I said the last sentence so quietly it was almost a whisper, but I knew Archer would hear me.

  “Fuck, Ros. This is your home.”

  I couldn’t hold it in anymore and a sob broke loose. In an instant, I was in Archer’s arms, my face pressed against his chest where his musky scent I loved so much was even stronger. I wrapped my arms around his waist and was surprised by how solid he was. So much more than I had grown used to.

  “Shhhh. Shhhh. It’s going to be okay. I promise,” he whispered, stroking my back.

  “No, it’s not. You don’t understand. My heart is fucking breaking right now. You feel like home to me, Archer, but this isn’t my home. Not anymore.”

  “Rosalind,” he said so firmly I looked up at him.

  The fierceness in his gaze ripped me apart. He grasped my face in his hands, ever so gently rubbing away my tears with his thumbs.

  “I’ve been beating around the bush with this, not being entirely honest for fear I would lose you, and out of respect for your marriage, though your own husband doesn’t appear to hold the same respect for it,” he said bitterly. I opened my mouth to defend Dan, but he cut me off, not allowing me to even get out one word.

  “No, Ros, it’s the truth, and deep down you know it. The truth I’ve been withholding, that fear I never confessed? It’s that I’m in love with you. I love you in a way I’ve never loved anyone, in a way I never thought was possible, and it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. You are everything to me. And I… I fucking love you. I didn’t mean to, but I do.”

  A single tear tracked down his cheek and the honesty of his words was written all over his face, in his eyes. I had been noticing the more time we spent together, the more movies we watched, the more music we listened to, the more books I read to him, the more he spoke as though he’d been alive just a year or two ago. He didn’t sound like he had lived a hundred years ago—what little had remained of his vocal habits from that time had now gone.

  I knew this was a bizarre and inappropriate time to have the realization. As I was lost in thought, his grip on my face tightened slightly, but not painfully, and I looked in his eyes again to see them flame with love and passion and lust.

  Before I knew what was going on, his lips slammed down on mine in a heady, demanding kiss. It somehow managed to be both tender and harsh at the same time. I could miraculously feel the wet trail his tongue left behind as he licked my lips.

  Archer bit my bottom lip, making me gasp, and as my lips parted to release the air, he thrust his tongue into my mouth, seeking and finding my tongue as he deepened the kiss. It went on forever and for
only a second before it ended. We were both panting, staring at each other. I finally broke.

  I couldn’t continue to deny to myself that I loved him. I was in love with him. I probably had been for far longer than I cared to admit.

  I realized that when people talked of soulmates, of one eternal love, this was what they were talking about. A love that lit you up from the inside, that set you on fire. A love that was so different from everything and everyone else, you knew you would never meet anyone like them again. A love that fulfilled and sustained you in ways you didn’t know possible. That made you stronger, braver, better in every way.

  This was what Archer did to me. He challenged me to be the best possible version of myself. Urged me on and supported me, always assured me he was there, even when I couldn’t see him. This was a love there would be no returning from. I would never be the Rosalind I’d been before I walked onto this island, before I walked into this house.

  And I knew there was no future for us. There was no future for lovers when only one person of the couple was actually, physically alive.

  “Archer, I love you too. More than you will ever know.” I took a deep, ragged breath, unable to say anything else.

  And there was Dan. The guilt was nearly crushing. What kind of person, what kind of wife did it make me, that I had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t my husband? I might not have chosen to feel this way, might never have consciously sought this out.

  This love had come over me like a tsunami, suddenly and with little warning, all-consuming and devastating. I might not have been technically unfaithful until this moment, but my heart now contained another, and because of it, guilt surrounded me, closing in, making me feel claustrophobic even in the largest of spaces.

  I still loved Dan. I was still in love with him. He was an amazing man and right for me in so many ways, except all the ways that truly mattered. The ways in which Archer had invaded my heart and taken over. If I didn’t know how to explain to myself how this had happened, how was I going to make sense of this to Dan or anyone else?

  This had to come to a stop. The only way this ended was with me walking away from Archer and him accepting it. The mere thought of never seeing him, feeling his whisper of a touch, hearing his laugh or words, his sweet deep melodic voice, smelling the scent that was uniquely his. Losing all of those things forever killed me, filled me with an acute pain in my stomach, a combination of heartbreak and dread and guilt.

  “Archer… I think I need some space. This is too much right now. I need to figure out how to process this all,” I said in the tiniest voice, so quiet I began to think he hadn’t even heard me. Goose bumps erupted as his kiss landed on my cheek before he moved next to me.

  “I understand, Ros. I’m here, just call me if you need me,” Archer said as he faded away.

  The end was inevitable—the only thing I could do was start the breaking now in hopes it would hurt less with the pain spread out.

  Thirty

  I didn’t see Archer once over the next week, didn’t even attempt to speak to him. It was a fight with myself every minute of every day to not reach out, but I had to get used to life without him in it.

  I kept myself busy by focusing on my art program. In addition to running my classes, I was starting to do all the things necessary to transition the program over to a new director. I held interviews and chose two different local artists to run the program together. One would be in charge of the children’s and teens’ program, and the other would be in charge of the new adult program that would be starting in the next month.

  The first gallery show fundraiser for the program was also scheduled for the month after I was going back to Santa Barbara, so I remained in charge of planning and hosting, but the new director shadowed me to ensure the transition when I left was as seamless as possible for future shows.

  I was grateful for the chaos during the week Dan returned. I was struggling with letting go of my program and having to say goodbye to the students I had come to know and love. My only solace was I’d already started making plans to start up a chapter in Santa Barbara.

  The crazy amount of work also helped keep my mind off of Archer and my upcoming reunion with Dan. We had discussed staying in the house for six weeks after he came home to give me the time needed to tie up all the loose ends with the program as well as time to train the incoming instructors and program director.

  MarisCorp was understanding and great about the extra time we needed in the house. Dan had hinted that Liam Maris wanted to potentially contract him for another project planned for the following year, but it was all he had said about it.

  Dan was due back in two days, so I was just curled up on the sofa watching an old black-and-white movie I had never seen before to pass the time. I was zoning in and out, barely paying attention, struggling to stay awake. I must have drifted off.

  “I’ve missed you, baby,” a voice whispered in my ear. I jolted awake, jumping up and screaming before I saw it was Dan.

  I threw my arms around his neck, holding him tightly. Dread flooded my stomach as I realized his embrace didn’t feel familiar. He didn’t smell familiar.

  This was the first time he had returned from a project where I didn’t recognize him in the bone-deep way I used to. He didn’t feel like home. Tears pooled in my eyes, falling over and tracking down my cheeks. Dan pulled away and reached out to wipe them away.

  “What’s wrong, Ros? You aren’t supposed to cry at my return,” he joked, but something in his voice sounded… off, not right.

  “I don’t know. You’ve been away for what feels like forever. Everything just feels strange.”

  It was probably the closest to the truth I would be able to get with him. I dropped back down on the sofa, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. Dan recognized my attempt to protect myself.

  He pushed the armchair in front of where I was sitting on the sofa and sat down. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and clasped his hands together. We just sat there, staring at each other.

  I looked at him closely, seeing the tension in his neck and shoulders, how rigidly he held them. He had more wrinkles than I remember and had a little more silver at his temples than he had before the start of this project. The exhaustion was written all over his face. I couldn’t imagine how bad the stress was on this assignment if the effects of it were manifesting themselves physically so quickly.

  I looked into his eyes and saw more strain, worry, and an emotion that looked a lot like guilt or regret. We both knew we needed to talk, but neither of us wanted to be the first to start. Hell, maybe we didn’t know how to start after all the distance between us.

  “You know, Ros, I thought you’d be happier to see me, more excited to go back home to Santa Barbara. You don’t even seem excited to see me at all.” He was being defensive, which was so out of character for him, and it instantly threw up a red flag.

  “Dan, I’m excited to see you. Not as excited about going back to Santa Barbara. You just woke me up too. You know how I am when I’m woken up out of a dead sleep.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in months, Ros. I get that it’s late, but this is all you can muster?” The anger in his words smacked me awake. I couldn’t understand how something so small had escalated within him so quickly.

  “I don’t know, babe, we’re going to have an adjustment period. We always do after you get back from a project. You know we have a lot to talk about when it comes to us and what our marriage is going to be like, moving forward. I just don’t think this conversation should happen tonight.”

  He swore and shook his head before lacing his fingers behind his head. “This was not what I expected to come home to. I expected a warm welcome, like I usually get. Why are you so distant? So cold? Are you pissed at me about how this all panned out?”

  I saw red and the rage exploded out of me. “Are you fucking kidding me, Dan? Do you want to have this conversation right now? It’s two in the
damn morning. Nothing good will come of us having this conversation tonight. And fuck yeah, I’m a little distant. None of this went as planned. I get that work was a shit show, but you stopped communicating with me, Dan. Fuck!”

  He got up and started pacing. His tension and nervous energy ramped up with every step he took. He must have crossed the living room four or five times before he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back to me, giving me a strange look filled with contemplation and something darker and more troubling.

  “You’ve changed, you know?” We both knew it was more of a statement than an actual question. “I don’t know when it started, but you’ve changed while I’ve been gone,” he continued.

  I still couldn’t tell by the tone of his voice if he considered this a positive or negative thing. Then I considered the fact he had been AWOL for so long he wouldn’t even recognize if I had changed. It didn’t alter the fact that he was right.

  “Yeah, I guess I have changed. But you know what, you’ve changed too. What happened, Dan?”

  He shook his head in response, but said nothing.

  “There’s been a difference in your voice the last couple of times we talked, Dan. I brushed it off, figured I was just being paranoid. But now you walk in here, and the negative, nervous energy is coming off you in waves. I can see something is wrong. What the hell is it? Why do I sense guilt or regret or remorse just as much as I can see the stress?”

  I looked up at him in time to see him take a step back and bend over to grip the back of the chair in front of him. It looked like someone had punched him in the gut. He walked back over to the armchair and fell into it. He looked so broken, so different from the Dan I last saw.

  “I’m so sorry, Ros. I fucked up.”

  He dropped his head into his hands, gripping his hair and refusing to make eye contact. It hit me then that this was bad. Whatever he was going to say would be so much worse than I was ready for.