by Laura Miller
“Let’s run away together,” he says, taking the few steps from the door to my bed.
Instantly, I feel a happy grin shoot across my face.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He lies down beside me, puts his arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him. I let him do it, but as he does, I stare into his dark brown eyes. I just keep searching them, trying to make sure they’re real, until suddenly, I feel tears start to fill my own eyes.
“Baby, don’t cry,” I hear him say, bringing the back of his finger to a place under my eye and wiping away my tears.
I try to laugh because his eyes are real, and he’s really here with me, and I have nothing to cry about.
“We were a small-town scandal, weren’t we?” I ask, through my tears.
He keeps his eyes in mine for several moments. He’s wearing a smile, but it’s faint.
“What if we never would have...,” I begin.
“Shh,” he says softly, as he breaks his stare from my eyes and moves his lips to my ear.
“Logan, we weren’t a scandal,” he whispers. “We were in love.”
I take a minute and let his last word echo through my ear, and then through my mind and finally, through my soul. Then, I grab a hold of it and tuck it away inside my heart.
“Andrew,” I say and then stop and wait for his eyes to find mine again.
“What, babe?”
“Is there hope for us?”
He pauses and draws a long breath.
“For us...I don’t know, baby,” he says, at last, forcing the air out of his lungs. “But for you, yes.”
I watch his lips gradually turn up at one end.
“Hope is a funny thing when you think about it,” he goes on. “It’s always right in front of you.”
My gaze falters and falls to the pillow.
“You just have to see it,” he whispers.
I look back up into his eyes and then sigh.
“Andrew.”
“What, babe?”
“I miss you,” I say.
He squeezes me tighter, and I can smell his cologne on his tee shirt. I breathe it in until I feel as if my lungs are going to explode.
“Andrew,” I say again.
“Yes, baby?”
“Let’s go to Paris,” I say. “I always wanted to go to Paris with you. Will you go with me?”
I watch his lips quiver, trying to turn up, but they don’t ever make it to a smile. And instantly, I feel the warm tears pressing against my eyelids again because I know what that look means.
“Okay,” he says, slowly nodding his head. “We’ll go to Paris.”
He takes my hand.
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he whispers.
“No,” I say.
I start to shake my head.
“No,” I cry.
There are tears falling down my cheeks like rain now.
“We have to go today,” I cry. “Life will tear us apart, Andrew. We don’t have tomorrow.”
***
Suddenly, my eyes open, and I’m frozen. I look around the room. Everything is normal and still and quiet. I wonder why I’m awake, and then it hits me. I quickly turn over and look to my left. There’s no one there. I lose my next breath, and my heart sinks. I reach up and touch my cheeks. There are no tears on them, but I feel as if there should be.
I take a deep breath in and then slowly push it right back out again before I peel the covers back and sit up on the side of the bed. I really hate my dreams sometimes. And I can’t even call them nightmares because I love them too. I love them, but I hate them because I can’t stay in them. They’re my tortured dreams.
I close my eyes and try to replay every moment of the dream in my head. I try to replay his boyish, raspy words and his warm, soft breaths against my skin. I try to remember the smell of his cologne and the perfect way his shaggy hair fell across his ears. I try to replay it all—exactly the way it used to be. And then I get to the part where I realize exactly the way it is, and my heart aches.
“No,” I cry.
I double over and cradle my face in my hands. I miss him. I miss his voice; I miss the certain, special ring it used to have to it that always made me feel loved. I try to recall the hum of his words, the ebb and flow of every syllable as it trailed off his lips. In my dream, the voice sounded perfect—like a song, my favorite song—but now, I can’t hear it anymore.
I want to go back and change everything. I can’t help but think that if we never would have gotten married that day, that things might have been different. It might all have played out differently if we had just waited. And maybe it was karma—getting back at us for eloping or for being too young.
I pull open my nightstand drawer. In a corner, under the marriage license and a birthday card from Hannah, I slide out a ring and slip it on. At least Hannah hadn’t found this. I twist the ring slowly around the base of my finger with my thumb. And I let my eyes get lost in its little diamond and its little, breakable promise inside. Then, after a moment, I fold my other hand over the ring and bring both hands to my chest.
“Forever and a day,” I whisper to myself, before I slowly slide the ring off and carefully tuck it away again, underneath the marriage license and the birthday card. And then I close the drawer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Come Over
I glance at the clock on my nightstand. It’s 5:30 and still dark outside. The sun hasn’t even come up yet, but I’m wide awake—thanks to my dream and evidentially, the chains of my past. I rub my eyes and reach for my phone. The light from its screen blinds me—as if I were looking straight into the sun. I snap both eyes shut and wait a second. And when I finally get the courage to peek through one eye again, I notice there’s a message waiting on the screen. It was sent at 2 o’clock in the morning. I click on it and read:
Can’t sleep. Thinking about you. Had the best weekend! Can’t wait to see you today!
I stare at the words for another minute before I set the phone back down. I feel torn—torn between my old life and my new one, between letting go and moving on. Images of my dream are still playing in my head—images of Andrew and the way his lips moved when my name—my birth name—came tumbling off of them—and Paris. I force my eyes shut, swallow hard and lie back down. I lie there until the images in my mind start to fade and eventually disappear.
People say it all gets better in time. And I think it does. Each day is a little better than the last; each dream pulls me back just a little bit less. But what they don’t say is how much time it takes. They don’t tell you how many more moments your heart will race, sink, tear or ache. They don’t tell you how many more breaths you’ll lose over a memory, a dream, a scent, a spoken name. They don’t tell you how long it will take to heal. They don’t even tell you what being “healed” actually feels like because I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel like I did when I was sixteen—years before my world crashed in on me. But what they do tell you is that it does get better and that time is part of that equation. So, I guess for now, I’ll just wait on time.
I lie there for another minute, until I feel as if I just can’t lie there anymore, and I pick up the phone and read over the message from Jorgen again. And this time, a smile instinctively dances to my lips.
I type in a few letters asking him if he’s up yet and hit send. Then I wait. And within a couple seconds, there’s a response: Yes. You?
My fingers go to typing another sentence before hitting send again.
Seconds later, the phone beeps and lights up, and I look down at the screen: Get your cute butt over here then!
I laugh to myself, then stand up and make my way to the door. On the way out, I tame my hair into a ponytail and grab a piece of gum sitting on the counter and shove it into my mouth.
Three steps later, I’m at Jorgen’s door. I knock softly a couple times and wait, but no one answers.
“Jorgen,” I softly say.
I wait a few more seconds. Then, I slowly turn the knob, and the doo
r cracks open.
I hesitate but then step inside. The little rooms are dark, and there’s still no sign of him. So, either he sleeps with his door unlocked, which is completely crazy, or he’s already unlocked it and gone back to bed. How long was I messing with my hair?
“Jorgen,” I say, barely over a whisper, as I make my way to the back of the apartment. Now, I think I’m expecting him, at any moment, to jump out at me from some dark corner.
There’s no answer.
“Jorgen,” I whisper again.
I wait. Nothing.
I finally get to his bedroom and freeze in the doorway when I see him.
He’s there—in his bed. He looks perfect. His eyelids are covering his eyes, and his thick eyelashes are resting on his cheekbones. His short, barely-there curls are tossed every which way on his pillow. The covers are strewn all about him; one leg is sticking out. I lean up against the door frame and just watch him sleep for a few moments. I love him. I’m scared to say it out loud. I’m scared to even think it, but I do. I have fallen for the paramedic across the hall—the normal, motorcycle-driving, blue-eyed, abs of steel paramedic that lives exactly three steps from my door.
He turns over, and it snaps me out of my trance. I watch him tuck the comforter under his chin and stop moving again. Then, I tiptoe over to the side of the bed closest to me and lie down beside him. He doesn’t even flinch. I lay my head on the pillow next to his head and blow a gentle stream of warm air onto one set of his eyelashes. It doesn’t faze him. I wait a second and then blow a gentle breeze onto the other set. His head rolls the other way but then returns to mine a second later. I’m trying not to laugh as I blow another stream of warm air onto his lips. He twitches and then suddenly, his eyelashes flutter open.
“Hey,” he says in a deep, sleepy voice. “What took you so long?”
I plant a light kiss on his unshaven cheek.
“I had to wait for you to finish dreaming evidently.”
He squints his eyes and wrinkles his brow.
“Come here,” he says, grabbing my hips and pulling me closer to him. “I had a dream about you.”
“You did?” My cheek presses up against his bare chest.
“Yeah, I dreamt you wore something other than that sweatshirt and those boxers to bed.”
I lift my head.
“That was your whole dream?”
“Well, no, but the rest is R-rated.”
I laugh and rest my head on his chest again. “Jorgen Ryker,” I scold playfully.
He’s quiet for a second before I hear his raspy voice again.
“My mom ordered your magazine.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah. She loved you. My whole family loved you.”
“Really?” I scrunch up my face and timidly peer up at him.
“Really,” he confirms.
A little wave of excitement overtakes me. I wanted them to like me. And if I were being honest, I wanted them not only to like me but also to think of me as a good match for their son too.
“I really liked them too,” I say.
We’re both quiet again for a moment.
“Ada.”
“Hmm?” I ask.
“You’re my summer night.”
I feel my face molding into a question mark. For a second, I wonder if he’s still dreaming.
“I am?” I ask, peeking up at his sleepy face. His eyes are closed, but there’s a faint smile hanging on his lips.
“Yeah.” He nods. “And my blue-sky afternoon and my rainy Sunday...and...my open road.”
I push out a laugh.
“All those things?” I ask.
“Every one,” he confirms.
“Well...” I lace my fingers in his. “You’re my...” I think about it and let a few silent moments pass. “My sea otter.”
“What?” he asks.
“My sea otter,” I say again, with more confidence.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Well,” I say, playing with his thick hair, “if you puffed up your hair a little, and if you grew out your whiskers a little more...”
“Oh really?”
He laughs, and I do too.
“No, I mean you’re my figurative sea otter.”
“Your figurative sea otter?” He narrows a playful eye at me.
“Yeah,” I say, “when they sleep on the water, one holds the other’s hand so she doesn’t drift away from him.”
I feel his hand squeeze mine a little tighter.
“I won’t let you drift away,” he whispers near my ear.
I can tell he rests his head back on the pillow, and then he’s quiet again. His last words mean more to me than I think he knows because drifting, for me, is dangerous. It only leads me back—to memories and a broken heart.
“Whose shirt is it anyway?”
My thoughts break instantly, and my eyes fall to my sweatshirt as I let a few seconds pass.
“It’s mine,” I say.
He laughs. “No, I mean before it was yours.”
I don’t say anything for a moment. I just swallow—hard.
“It was my high school sweetheart’s,” I say, at last.
I don’t look at him, and he doesn’t say anything more about the shirt.
“The boxers?” he asks, sheepishly. “Should I assume the same person?”
I take a second before slowly nodding into his chest.
“Why do you wear them?” he asks.
I angle my face up toward his. “I thought you liked this outfit.”
His head lifts slightly. “I said you look good in it. I never said I liked it,” he clarifies.
“Aah,” I say, sending him a playful smirk. But his eyes only widen, as if he’s still waiting for my answer.
“Why do I wear them?” I ask myself, my voice fading off.
My eyes fall to a spot on his tan chest and get stuck there for nearly a minute before I look back up at him and shrug my shoulders. I could tell him why. I could tell him everything right now, but I just can’t seem to find the first word.
“You don’t still...,” he starts but doesn’t finish.
I know what he wants to ask: You don’t still love him?
I shake my head. It’s not the true answer to his question, but it is the right one. It’s the one that matters.
“Do you want some new pajamas, Ada Bear?”
Ada Bear? I feel a slight smile edging up my face again. I go by a lot of names, but Ada Bear has never been one of them. I catch his eyes, and then suddenly, I feel my head slowly nodding. I don’t know if it’s the new nickname or the way his blues hypnotize me, but I nod without any real thought.
And as if the earth all of a sudden shifts, Jorgen jumps up, grabs a pair of basketball shorts lying on the floor and pulls them over his boxers, then runs to his closet. I sit up on his bed and dangle my feet over the side. I listen to him root around the little room for a while until he finally emerges a minute later. He’s holding out a gray sweatshirt with his high school football team’s name stretched across its front and a pair of blue, checkered boxers.
I take the shirt and boxers and stare at them clutched within my fingers and lying against the backdrop of the gray and red, checkered cotton of my old life. And when I look back up, Jorgen is smiling a wide, goofy grin, and I can’t help but smile too.
“Thank you,” I manage to say. “These are perfect.”
If it’s possible, he looks even more content.
“You want some breakfast?” he asks.
I take in a breath and then nod my head.
“Comin’ right up,” he says.
I watch him hurry off into the kitchen, and then I hear some clanging of pots and pans before my eyes travel down again to the sweatshirt and boxers in my hands. Then, slowly, I feel my stare moving to the old sweatshirt I’m wearing. I pull its collar up over my nose and breathe in. It doesn’t smell like Andrew anymore. It used to smell like his sweat and his cologne. It did for a
long time, until one day, it just didn’t. And after several days of not being able to smell him, I finally laid the shirt down inside the wash machine, closed the lid and pulled the knob. But as soon as I heard the water pouring into the machine, I flung open the lid and tried to retrieve it. But it was too late. I cried for almost an hour that day, hovered over that soggy sweatshirt. And I still pull it up over my nose every once in a while, just to see if I can smell him again. They say the strongest sense connected to memory is smell. And I believe it because sometimes, if I closed my eyes and breathed him in, I could almost feel him next to me.
I swallow hard, forcing the lump in my throat back down, before standing up and sliding Andrew’s boxers off and then sliding on Jorgen’s. I fold the red boxers and carefully set them onto the bed. Then, I pull off Andrew’s old baseball sweatshirt and force Jorgen’s old football shirt over my head. After Jorgen’s shirt is on, I carefully fold Andrew’s and set it on top of the boxers.
I stare at the folded pile then. Andrew’s hooded sweatshirt no longer has a drawstring for its hood. And the cuffs at the ends of each sleeve are tattered and torn. The word baseball across the front of the shirt is now just a faded and broken semblance of the word, and there’s a tear at the end of one leg on the boxer shorts where I caught it on the arm of my Adirondack chair one day. The pile looks sad and discarded, and all of a sudden, there’s a ripping at my heart, and I want to throw Andrew’s sweatshirt and boxers back on as quickly as I can. But instead, my eyes fall to the clothes I’m wearing and get stuck on the blue in my new boxers. I love the color. It reminds me of Jorgen’s blue eyes. I tug on the sweatshirt that now all but hangs off my shoulders. It’s larger than Andrew’s, and it almost feels as if it’s swallowing me. I kind of like the way it feels.
“Ada, do you want your eggs scrambled?”
My eyes travel to the kitchen and then eventually fall back onto the little pile of clothes sitting on the bed.
“Yes, please,” I call out to him.
I stare at the pile for another minute before scooping it up and making my way into the kitchen. But I only get two steps outside the bedroom door when Jorgen’s hungry gaze makes me freeze. His sexy eyes narrow in on mine, and within an instant, he drops the skillet and starts a slow saunter toward me—looking as if he has a million thoughts running through his mind but only one clear goal.