Here Without You

by Jennifer L. Allen

  “I’m so glad you’re home, Ryan. I missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. It’s good to be home.”

  “I love you.” She said the words slowly, carefully, as if she was simply trying them out.

  “I love you, too,” My tone left no room for misunderstanding. I loved her, and I was going to make sure she knew it.

  “Good night, Ryan,” she said, and the happy was back in her voice.

  “Good night, A.”

  I disconnected the call and scrolled through my contacts. One more call to make before I could go to sleep. I tapped Kelsey’s name on the screen and started a video call.

  “Daddy!” Charlotte squealed, a moment later her image appeared.

  “Hi, princess.”

  “You home?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and playing with a loose curl. Her hair was getting longer and longer. I bet she’d be a whole head taller when I saw her in San Diego in two days.

  “Almost. I’m in Virginia. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow. Two more sleeps.” She held up a hand and showed me two fingers. “That’s right, baby girl. Two.”

  “I wuv you.” Hearing those words out of her little mouth would never get old. Ever.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Mommy want to talk to you,” she said, and the phone shook as she toddled to wherever Kelsey was. “Hewe you go. Bye, Daddy.”

  “Bye, princess.” The phone jerked some more before Kelsey appeared. “Kels,” I greeted. She was still pissed at me, and I didn’t blame her. I tried to apologize, but it didn’t help that neither of us would budge on the Anna situation.

  “Ryan.”

  I sighed, she wasn’t going to make this easy. But then again, neither was I. I gave her my flight information, and after agreeing to bring Charlotte to the airport, she quickly ended the call.

  I laid my head on my pillow and closed my eyes. Two more days until I saw my daughter. Another week or so until I saw Anna.

  I was counting the seconds.

  ~ 31 ~

  Anna

  San Diego International Airport was a lot busier—and larger—than the airport back home. There were people everywhere and they were all moving with focused determination. I felt like I was in the way, even though I was standing off to the side in baggage claim.

  At least I was entertained. A little girl with bouncing blonde curls was giving her mother a run for her money. She tried to climb onto one of the baggage carousels three times, her mother wrangling her away just in time, each time. The little girl was positively adorable, but her mother looked exhausted.

  I was reading on my Kindle, waiting impatiently for Ryan’s flight, when the little girl approached me.

  “Hi wady. Watcha doin’?” I smiled at her little lisp and set my Kindle down on the empty seat beside me.

  “I was reading a book. What are you doing?”

  “Waitin’ for my daddy,” she said, curling her fingers in her hair.

  She was absolutely precious. Her dark blue eyes were a familiar shade, and I smiled at how it must have been another sign I’d be seeing Ryan soon. I’d been seeing him in strangers all over the last couple days.

  “I bet he’s going to be excited to see you,” I said. Her father was probably military; there were so many men and women in uniform bustling around the airport.

  She nodded her little head. “He cawls me pwincess.”

  “You look just like a princess.”

  She gave me a big, toothy grin. “I know!”

  Little kids were so modest. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d spent time around a small child. I never babysat as a teenager, and I didn’t have any small cousins or anything. There were a few kids who would go to the soup kitchen with their parents, but they were so shy and skittish. Nothing like the little princess at the airport.

  “Charlotte,” her mother scolded, approaching us. “I’m so sorry,” she told me, giving me an embarrassed smile as she took her daughter’s hand.

  “It’s quite all right. I haven’t ever been in the presence of a real princess before.”

  The woman laughed. “That she is. Her father spoils her rotten. I keep telling him he’s going to give her a complex, but he doesn’t listen. I feel terrible for the man she eventually marries.”

  “I gonna mawwy daddy!” Charlotte announced. Her mother shook her head while I laughed.

  “He must be a prince in order to get to marry a princess,” I said.

  Her eyes widened, and she looked up at her mother. “Is daddy my pwince?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Your daddy is your prince.” Charlotte smiled that toothy grin again and my heart melted. She was so sweet. “Come on, little one. Let’s go check the board for Daddy’s flight.” She looked at me. “Sorry about that.”

  “She was no bother at all. She’s very sweet.”

  “That she is,” she smiled and they both gave me a small wave before they walked off to check the monitors on the other side of baggage claim.

  I looked at my watch. Last time I checked, Ryan’s flight was due to arrive on time at 12:05. It was 12:04.

  My heart raced at the thought of seeing him again. Would he be happy to see me? I hoped he wouldn’t be upset that I withheld the truth. It was just so much better this way. At least I thought it was. He did seem a little distracted when we spoke yesterday. He mentioned that thing he had to talk to me about again. My nerves were fried from anticipation. He seemed…off.

  Well, hopefully seeing me would change his tune because it was almost go time. In just a few short minutes, he’d be walking through those doors to get his bags, and I’d be here, ready or not, waiting for him.

  I tried to imagine it in my head. Would I run to him and jump into his open arms? Would he smile at me, then shake his head like he’d done all those times I’d tried to surprise him in the past. Like the time I threw him a surprise party for his eighteenth birthday. His parents had been out of town, so I snuck over to his house and invited a few of his buddies. He didn’t get mad at me when he got home, he just smiled and shook his head, like he couldn’t believe the things he let me get away with.

  This would be just one more of those things because he loved me.

  He loved me, and I was his girlfriend again.

  Whatever he had to tell me didn’t matter because we’d be together again soon, and this time I wouldn’t be so foolish and let him go. I’d never let him go again.

  A canned voice came over the loudspeaker saying that the luggage for Flight 2056 would be arriving on carousel one.

  If possible, my pulse sped up even more. I thought my heart would beat straight out of my chest. If his baggage was here, then he was here.

  I stood on shaky legs and looked around, trying to catch sight of his tall, wide frame. I wasn’t sure if he’d be in uniform or civilian clothes, so I just looked for his face instead of trying to spot uniforms as there were so many milling about.

  A high pitched squeal directed my attention towards the toddler. Charlotte. She was running across the open space and jumping into the arms of a man in uniform.

  A man who looked strikingly familiar.

  A man who had the same midnight blue eyes as the little girl he was holding.

  A man who I thought was my boyfriend…but was now embracing Charlotte’s mother.

  Ryan smiled down at the woman, and she smiled back at him, her arm around his waist and his around her shoulders. Charlotte was perched on his other arm, like she’d been there a thousand times before.

  Because she probably had.

  She was Ryan’s daughter.

  And the woman? Was she his wife?

  What the hell was happening?

  You want him to meet another girl? Someone who will fall in love with his big biceps and rock hard abs…someone who will get to see him look all sexy in his uniform? Then he’ll fall in love with her, too. They’ll get married and have babies, and you’ll be nothing but a memory.

  Ronnie’s words from
years ago haunted me, and I struggled to breathe, feeling like my life was flashing before my eyes. All the emails, the messages, the video chats, the phone calls…what were they?

  Who was he?

  He was a father. Possibly a husband.

  I watched as the happy little family reunited before me.

  What was I doing? Why was I still standing there?

  I turned around, feeling nauseated, and picked up my Kindle, hastily stuffing it in the tote bag I’d packed to keep myself occupied while I waited for Ryan.

  For my boyfriend.

  Who I wanted to surprise with the great news that I was living in San Diego.

  It looked like I was the one who was surprised in the end.

  I took one last glance back, but they were already gone. My vision flooded with tears as I looked at the space where they’d once stood. Where he’d held his little girl and her beautiful mom.

  Where he broke my heart.

  ~ 32 ~

  Anna

  I wasn’t sure how I made it back to campus, but I did.

  I wasn’t sure how I made it to my dorm room, but I did.

  I wasn’t sure how I ended up in my bed, in my cozy pajamas, but I did.

  I wasn’t sure how I ended up with an awesome roommate, but I did.

  I opened my swollen eyes later that evening to find Megan sitting across from me with two pints of Ben & Jerry’s. I burst into tears.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Megan cooed, leaving her bed and lying beside me in mine. “What happened? I came home and you were in bed…alone…and I could tell you’d been crying.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears. I wasn’t supposed to be alone. I was supposed to be celebrating with Ryan. Ryan, the liar and cheater and…I didn’t know what else, but it was bad.

  How could he do that to me?

  I wasted a year on him! It wasn’t one-sided. It was very much two-sided. Maybe he didn’t think he was a cheating asshole because he wasn’t physically with me. Emotional cheating is still cheating.

  “Anna? Talk to me,” Megan begged, sounding desperate.

  So I did. Between sobs, I told her everything. I unloaded years and years of love and pain and happiness and sadness. I let the tears fall as my roommate rubbed my back and whispered soothing words.

  “Wow,” Megan said when I was finished. “You’ve been through some stuff.”

  Unable to help myself, and quite possibly drunk on delirium, I laughed. I laughed and sobbed and laughed some more. Megan just had a way. She summed up the past five years of my life as “stuff.” If only I could do the same.

  “Want me to kick his ass? I could totally shank him.”

  “He’s in the military, Meg,” I managed to get the words out through sniffly giggles. “I doubt you could shank him.”

  “Of course, I could,” she insisted. “He’d never expect it from me!”

  She was right about that. She’d be the last person anyone would expect to be shanked by.

  I inhaled a deep breath in, then let it out. Dr. Matson told me that controlling my breathing could help in times of stress and anxiety. It wasn’t really working.

  Ryan broke my heart.

  Never, in a million years, would I have expected him to hurt me.

  Was it revenge? Did I hurt him so badly all those years ago that he set off to break my heart like I did his? No, Ryan wasn’t like that. Was he? I only knew the Ryan he portrayed…the Ryan in the airport, I didn’t know him at all.

  He had a daughter. A beautiful, adorable little girl with his eyes. A daughter he never once mentioned. Not even to my family because surely they wouldn’t have kept it from me. Charlotte.

  The waterworks began again and this time, Megan’s humor couldn’t stop them.

  “Oh, Anna. It’ll be okay, I promise. My high school boyfriend dumped me after graduation because he wanted to go away to college single. It sucks, sweetie, but it’ll be okay.”

  But Ryan didn’t dump me. He lied. He had a family. A fucking family!

  “He said he loved me,” I sobbed.

  “He’s an asshole.”

  I shook my head against my pillow. He wasn’t an asshole.

  But he was…wasn’t he?

  What kind of guy did that sort of thing? An asshole. That was who. We may not have done anything physically, but emotionally? We were all over each other emotionally.

  I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe this was the turn my life had taken.

  “That’s it,” Megan said, rising from the bed. “We’re going out!”

  “What?”

  “It’s Saturday night. There’s bound to be a party somewhere. We’re going out. You need to get drunk!”

  “I don’t want to get drunk,” I groaned, rolling towards the wall and pulling my blanket over my head. I wanted to stay in my warm little cocoon of darkness and self-pity.

  “Too bad.” She yanked the blanket off of me, and I whined in protest as the air conditioned air chilled my skin. I was in a pair of jersey knit sleep shorts and a matching tank top. My comfort clothes. She was ruining it.

  “I really don’t want to go out, Meg. Please let me wallow in peace.”

  “Nope, no wallowing.” She pulled my arm until I was upright, and I reluctantly held myself up. “We’re going to clean you up and make you look like the gorgeous woman you are, then we’re going to go out and get you nice and drunk, and maybe even find you a hot guy to fool around with.”

  My eyes must have resembled a cartoon character, because I swore they popped right out of my head. “I’m not fooling around with anyone!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. You won’t fool around with anyone, but you’re going to go out, get a little tipsy, and dance like nobody’s looking. Got it?”

  Her tone left no room for negotiation, and I growled as I stood from my bed and stomped off to our en suite bathroom. As I turned on the shower spray, I heard her cheers of delight and shook my head. She was something else. But I was glad I had her. With Megan around, I wouldn’t be allowed to withdraw and feel sorry for myself. She’d make sure of it.

  I’d only known her a little more than a month, but I had a feeling Megan and I would be very good friends.

  ***

  “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

  The crowd chanted as I downed my third beer bong of the night. Half of the cold, bitter liquid spilled down my face, but I didn’t care. I was drunk. I was drunk before I even started the beer bongs. It was the shots that did me in.

  I was kneeling on the disgusting kitchen floor of a house a bunch of seniors rented off campus. But I didn’t care. My borrowed black mini skirt was so short that the entire room had caught a few shots of my red lace panties more than once—panties Megan insisted I wear since they matched the red lace bra I had on under my black tank top. I looked like a hooker, but I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care about a damn thing.

  It was wonderful.

  I stood up after finishing the beer bong, raised my hands in the air in victory, and then swayed, leaning on some huge guy for support. He had a lot of muscles. Muscles on top of muscles. I wasn’t scared of him though; he was like a teddy bear. He’d been following me around, growling at any guy who came close. He was my bodyguard. I laughed out loud at the thought.

  I didn’t even know his name.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him, at least I thought I did. The way he was looking at me indicated that I might not have made much sense. It sounded right in my head though.

  I pointed to my chest and said, “Anna.” Then I pointed to his chest.

  “Jack,” he said.

  Oh good! He understood me. “Thank you, Jack,” I said, patting him on the shoulder and moseying out of the kitchen. I headed for the living room, the last place I’d see Megan. She was dancing with some guy. I couldn’t dance. The last time I danced was with Ryan at homecoming. That was over.

  I spotted Megan in the corner, laughing with the guy she’d been dancing with ear
lier. He was cute, but he was no Ryan. Ryan was beautiful. He was a beautiful jerk is what he was.

  Someone bumped into me, and I almost fell down, but Jack caught me. I liked Jack. Why couldn’t Ryan be more like Jack? Jack wouldn’t have lied to me about having a daughter. He wouldn’t emotionally cheat on me, either.

  “Do you have a wife and daughter, Jack?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “No.”

  I beamed at my bodyguard. Everyone should be like Jack.

  I leaned my head against Jack’s chest, letting his strong body hold me up. “Thanks, Jack. I’ll just be a minute.”

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t talk much. But that was okay because I was really, really tired. I closed my eyes, promising myself it would only be for a minute.

  Just one minute…

  ~ 33 ~

  Anna

  Sunlight blasted through my bedroom window, and my eyeballs felt like they were about to explode. The university’s drum line was parading around inside my skull, which didn’t make any sense because Braddock didn’t have a drum line. I wanted to take my head off and throw it out the window, right at that godforsaken sun!

  Megan groaned from her bed, and I groaned back.

  Then I sat straight up, immediately regretting the movement but too concerned to care.

  How the hell did we get home?

  “How did we get home?” I asked Megan.

  “Too…loud,” my wonderful roommate answered. My wonderful roommate who got me completely hammered last night. I rubbed my head…hammered…now I know where they got that term from because it felt like a tiny person was hammering inside my head. Maybe it was the seven dwarfs with their pickaxes.

  “Megan, seriously. How did we get home?”

  “Jack and John took us home.” Her voice was muffled because she was talking to her pillow.

  Jack and John? They sounded like a nursery rhyme. “Who are they?”

  “Hot emo guy was John,” she said, and I vaguely recalled the guy she was dancing with. He could be considered a hot emo guy, I supposed. “Big bouncer looking dude was Jack.” Ahh, Jack. I remembered him. He was my teddy bear bodyguard. “Pretty sure you fell asleep standing up, leaning on Jack. He came and got me and John, and we all piled in their car and they drove us home.”