On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

  I watched the dawn break behind the mountains, the sky softly lightening to a cerulean blue as we drove. We weren’t on the road long before Emery pulled off to the side, parking and grabbing my mat from the back seat.

  The waves were calm below us as we hiked down a bit, finding a plateau where Emery laid out my mat, taking the towel and spreading it out a few feet to the left. When he turned to me, I swore the sky lightened more in that moment, the golden hues of the morning racing to match that of his eyes.

  “Usually when I have a bad day, people push me,” he said, swallowing. “My parents, my therapist. No one ever understands that I can’t talk about it when I don’t have anything to say. Even Grams, she wanted me to write, and for the longest time I couldn’t. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can write, but even that is hard sometimes because honestly…” his voice trailed off as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his athletic shorts. “Honestly, I don’t see what the point is.”

  I frowned, stepping into him and wrapping my arms around his waist, my head falling to his chest. He sighed, hugging me in return, his chin propped on my head.

  “I can’t tell you how much it meant to me that you didn’t leave, didn’t get mad, didn’t look at me like I was broken or sad or like you pitied me. I gave you nothing, but you understood.” He pulled back, the sun rising a bit in his eyes as they found mine. “You’re the first person to do that. You’re the first person to make me feel alive, Cooper. In a long time.” He shrugged. “Maybe ever.”

  My heart swelled at the same time guilt seeped low into my stomach. I had left him alone, let him have his bad day, all the while using ammo from his journal to break down his walls a little more. It was an unfair battle, one he didn’t even know I was fighting.

  “I’d like to practice with you,” he said, nodding toward my mat. “If that’s okay. I know yoga is important to you, and I know it helped you get through the hardest time of your life. I thought maybe it could help me, too.”

  It was a resurrection, the way my heart stopped in that moment and kicked back to life with a new beat under my chest. To someone driving by, it would have seemed so insignificant — Emery’s towel spread beside my mat, the two of us enjoying a morning yoga session before getting back on the road. But I knew it was more, I knew it meant he was healing, and I was a part of it.

  We started in a seated position, our hands at heart center, faces turned to the west as the ocean mist drifted up the rocks to greet us. The sun rose behind us, the water sparkling a deep blue under its shine, our backs warming as it rose higher. With every new stretch, every new breath, I felt our connection grow stronger.

  Emery Reed wasn’t a stranger anymore.

  Looking back, it doesn’t surprise me that I didn’t see the storm rolling in from the east, the clouds billowing up higher and higher behind the mountains. All I could see was the sunshine, all I could feel was his heart beating, and mine matching the rhythm, falling into sync without so much as a second thought of what would happen next.

  We laid down in Savasana and I meditated as if that moment alone was enough to banish any worries I had before. I found a reassurance that wasn’t actually present, a promise never spoken.

  I thought I couldn’t lose him.

  But I could, and I would, in a way I never even imagined.

  After yoga, we ended up staying the rest of the day in Big Sur, eating lunch by the river and hiking the falls. We got up close and personal with the redwood trees, and Kalo found more than a few furry friends as we explored.

  The next morning, we took our time driving the rest of the way up the PCH, stopping once we reached Legget before traveling on to Grants Pass the next day. Our afternoons were mostly spent driving or hiking the areas we passed, and our conversations grew deeper with each day. Emery talked more in those few days than he had the entire trip, and I wasn’t tempted to read his journal anymore. Hearing the stories of his childhood and his thoughts on life from his own lips instead of those pages was better than I imagined, I only had to give up my need to know what he wouldn’t tell me — like what would happen when we reached Seattle.

  “One day, I was just sitting in my bedroom and I noticed this mug of pens on my desk,” he told me when we’d finished our drive up the PCH. We were standing at the northernmost point of it near Leggett, our eyes on the setting sun over the coast. “And I remember being instantly annoyed. Why the fuck did I have so many pens? I needed one, maybe two, just in case the first one broke. But I had seventeen. Why?”

  I’d laughed, shrugging. “We just collect things over the years, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. And it wasn’t just pens, it was everything. I looked around my room that night at all this… stuff that I didn’t need. So, I went into the kitchen, grabbed an entire box of trash bags, and locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. I cranked my music, started at one corner, and by three o’clock the next morning I’d bagged up seventy percent of my shit to donate.”

  I’d nodded, understanding him more than he knew. “I had that same kind of clarity when I was packing up to leave with you. I was standing there in my room trying to figure out what to take with me when I realized I didn’t need any of it. There was nothing there that I couldn’t leave behind and never think about again. So, I stopped packing.”

  Emery had slid his hand into mine then, fingers running over my palm before he laced them with my own. “I think when we let go of the materialistic shit we think we need, the stuff we grew up looking for because we thought happiness existed under their price tag, that’s when we start living a better life. A free, meaningful existence.”

  “Very Gemini of you,” I’d teased, and he’d just lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing them with a playful grin on his lips as the last of the sun dipped away.

  That’s how easy it was, talking to Emery. Nothing was off limits — politics, beliefs, childhood, future wants and needs. Sometimes we’d talk about something I’d never discussed before and I’d find new beliefs, ones I didn’t even know I had. He made me think before I answered, before I chimed in with how I felt about whatever topic we had on the table.

  Emery pushed me. He challenged me. He opened me up.

  The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know. He told me about his family, about growing up in the affluent neighborhood he called home in South Florida. I asked him about his friends, of which he had few, mainly because, in his own words, not many people stick around and put up with my shit for long. It seemed his closest friend had been his grandmother before she passed, so I listened to his stories of growing up with her, of the memories he would have of her forever.

  And, for the first time, he talked about his brother. Not just to me, but to anyone — ever. He told me he didn’t realize how much he needed to talk about his brother, about the hole left before he’d even been born, until we’d talked about it the day we left Vegas. He was letting me in, more than anyone before me, and I took that gift with more appreciation than I could express.

  We talked about me, too — not as much about my past as about what I wanted for my future. Emery sat with me in the business center at our hotel in Leggett helping me fill out applications for apartments and serving jobs near the school. On that same day, I’d received a call from Tammy saying there was a letter at Papa Wyatt’s from Bastyr.

  I’d gotten in.

  We celebrated with a dinner that was way too expensive, one Emery insisted on, and then we spent the night tangled in the sheets, bringing each other pleasure with our hands, our mouths, our bodies. It was my favorite way to spend a night now that I knew what it felt like. It wasn’t just sex with Emery — it was passion unleashed. It was every fantasy I’d ever had answered in a language I didn’t know, one I was learning to speak with every new touch.

  For the first time in the twenty years I’d been alive, I was happy — truly, one-hundred percent happy. I hadn’t known happiness like that existed, the kind that fills you from the heart and ble
eds into every day. I’d dreamed of leaving Mobile, of attending Bastyr and living in Seattle, of finding a boy who made my heart race, and living in a world where every day was new and exciting and fresh.

  Now I was awake, and my life was even better than the dreams.

  Emery had been fine the night we spent in Grants Pass, holding me under one arm as we strolled the downtown area where they’d already hung Christmas lights even though Thanksgiving hadn’t passed yet. We both sipped on hot chocolate, sharing stories of what the holidays were like for each of us growing up before we retreated back to our room.

  But once we were there, Emery grew silent, that storm that had been quieted stirring again behind his golden eyes. I watched them change right in front of me, the bottoms of them lined in black, the tops shadowed by bent brows. I wanted to reach for him, to ask him to talk to me, but I knew he just needed to be alone. So, I turned on the television, lazily rubbing Kalo’s belly as he wrote in his journal beside me, working through his thoughts. We both turned in early, and I didn’t crowd him as we slept, only reaching one hand forward to press heat into his back and let him know I was there.

  He tossed and turned that night, and when we woke the next morning, he declined my offer for breakfast, telling me he was just ready to get on the road. It was cold and gray that day, so we both bundled up, leaving the top up on the car and the heat on low as we cruised up through Oregon.

  It was only four hours into Portland, our next planned stop, but Emery drove slower than usual, even stopping at one point at an intersection when we didn’t need gas or food. He just got out of the car, walked about ten feet in front of it, and stood there, his hands in his pockets, eyes on the sign that told us how much longer it was until the next city. I took the opportunity to walk Kalo, and then we were back in the car, and if it was even possible, Emery seemed even more distant than before.

  My weakness was thrown in my face the last two hours of that car ride, because all it took was another bad day for me to eye his journal, desperate to be inside his head. We were too near to the end of our trip for him to pull back, but I didn’t know how to tell him that, to express my own feelings without disrespecting his.

  We were about ten miles outside of Portland when the silence became too much. I turned in my seat, arms crossed over my middle, heart picking up speed as I opened my mouth to ask what he was thinking, but the question died in my throat. Something caught my eye on the windshield, and when I leaned forward to inspect it, another flake joined the first.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, rolling down my window and sticking one hand out. The flurries fell harder, one of them landing on my palm before melting away. “Emery! Look!”

  I glanced back at him, his eyes still dead as they landed on my hand out the window.

  “It’s snowing,” I said, giggling. I wiggled my fingers, hanging my head out the window with my mouth open wide.

  Emery didn’t smile, just pulled his attention back to the road, steering us between the slower cars until we pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the hotel we’d call home for the night. It was only three in the afternoon, the sky gray, ground slowly being buried by the snow. He grabbed our bags from the back, slinging one over each shoulder as Kalo tumbled out of the back seat and onto the cold ground.

  She paused, nose in the air as she sniffed before trying her paws on the wet ground again. The snow scared her and she jumped back, bending to sniff it next and getting a whiff of powder on her nose. She shook it off as I laughed, then she took off, hopping through the fresh snow as I ran after her.

  “It’s my first snowfall!” I hollered back at Emery, dipping down to grab a handful before throwing it in the air. I hoped he’d bite, hoped he’d take the chance to let me in, even if just a little. “Come on! Drop the bags, we’ll get them in a second.”

  “I’m tired,” he answered, not even looking at me. Kalo stopped short, her tail still wagging as my hands fell to my side. “I’m going to lie down for a while.”

  “Emery,” I pleaded, and he closed his eyes at his name on my lips. I went to say something more, but found I had nothing more to say, so I simply closed my mouth again, asking with my eyes for him to stay.

  He opened his eyes again, glancing at me briefly before adjusting the bags on his shoulders and heading inside the lobby without another word. I swallowed back the hurt I felt, trying to understand he couldn’t help it, but his coldness stung more than the snow on my bare cheeks.

  As I put Kalo’s leash on and led her toward the lobby entrance, I couldn’t help but remember what Emery had said to me.

  He was right.

  Everything is quiet when the first snow falls.

  I laid in bed with Emery, even though I wasn’t tired in the slightest, just listening to the quietness of our hotel room as the snow fell outside. I’d opened the curtains over our window, my eyes catching snowflakes as they drifted down from the sky, eager to join the others already painting the ground.

  Kalo slept between us, her body a little furnace that I curled into, and every now and then my eyes would drift to Emery. I watched him sleep, his breath peaceful and calm, though the two lines between his brows were still present, as if he couldn’t escape his thoughts even in his dreams.

  He stirred around five, moving to lean against the headboard as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Hi,” I whispered, unsure of which man was waking up beside me.

  “Hey.”

  Emery reached forward to rub behind Kalo’s ear, his eyes catching on the winter wonderland unfolding outside our window. I thought maybe he would say something now about it, or ask if I wanted to go outside. I thought maybe he was okay again.

  But he only sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face before kicking the covers back.

  “I’m going to shower.”

  I closed my eyes as he closed the door, effectively putting a physical barrier between us where a metaphorical one had already existed all day. When I opened them again, they landed on his journal laying unassumingly on the bedside table, the pages pressed flat onto the wood, leather binding stretched open.

  Don’t, I warned myself, curling into Kalo more. She rolled over, offering me her belly, and I ran my fingers along her silky fur, eyes still glued to the journal.

  I wanted so many opposing things in that moment. I wanted to read the journal, to read what he was feeling last night, to find something within the pages to bring him back to me. I wanted to respect his privacy, trust that he would talk to me in time, and spend the evening being there for him in whatever way he needed me to be. Everything I wanted seemed at war with something else I desired equally, and I weighed my options as I heard the shower turn on in the bathroom.

  It was, for all intents and purposes, our last night together. At least, our last night guaranteed together. Tomorrow we would drive into Seattle, to my new home, and I didn’t know if he would stay once we got there. I didn’t even know where his final stop was, or what it was that he “needed to see.” I only knew it was somewhere in Washington, and that I’d had the time of my life on this journey with him, and now it was ending, and I didn’t want to lose him.

  I pressed my fingers hard into my temples, massaging the muscle there, my eyes closed as I tried to find the easy answer that eluded me. But there was no easy answer, no simple solution, and as sick as it made me feel reaching a hand out until I felt that leather binding, I couldn’t stop myself.

  I was an addict, fiending for comfort from his words, chasing the high that came from finding a new layer of him buried in those pages.

  Pulling the book into my lap, I ran my hand over the page bookmarked, the entry he was writing last night before bed. Kalo put a paw on the pages with a whine, as if to tell me to reconsider, but I’d already had the first taste. There was no turning back now.

  I remember the first time a girl told me she loved me.

  It was Melissa Rickman, and we were seniors in high school. She told me she loved me after we’d be
en dating for a little over a month. I just stared at her before finally asking, “Why?”

  That night, I talked to my dad about it, and I asked him to tell me how he knew he loved Mom. He’d sat on the edge of my bed with this far off look in his eyes and this goofy ass smile. He told me there was one night where Mom invited him over to her apartment because she wanted to cook a meal for him.

  But she was an awful cook, he’d told me, which didn’t surprise me since she still is. He said watching her try to make a meal for him was the most endearing thing. He said she was making something so simple, a pasta dish, but the sauce was all over her apron and splatted on her face.

  He said at one point, she’d given up, placing her hands on the counter and hanging her head as she started to cry. All she’d wanted was to do something special for him.

  Dad said in that moment, he knew he loved her.

  It was nothing crazy, nothing she said or did that really stood out, just seeing her standing there with pasta sauce on her face and tears in her eyes. He loved her. It hit him simply and without fuss, and he didn’t tell her until a full six months later.

  I told Melissa Rickman the next day that I didn’t love her, and she broke up with me, which was fine.

  I’ve written about love in this journal before today, always with the firm belief that it didn’t really exist. I’ve always believed it was a fantasy, something we cling to as humans to make this world a little less lonely. Because it is fucking lonely.

  But tonight, I walked with Cooper in downtown Grants Pass, and we were just talking and drinking hot chocolate and looking at Christmas lights when she tripped a little. She spilled hot chocolate on her scarf, and her little face crumpled at the sight of it. She was so devastated by that splash of brown on her otherwise blue scarf, and I found it so fucking adorable that all I could do was laugh and pull her into me and kiss her. I mean physically, there was nothing else I could have done in that moment. I couldn’t not kiss her.