The Thousand Mile Love Story

by Natalie Vivien

  “Okay, but a woman cannot live on protein bars alone,” threatened Jill, as Tiffany nodded, backing out of their space alongside some very tall pines. “And I need coffee, or I’m going to die,” added Jill seriously.

  “Me, too,” said Tiffany, as she shifted the car into drive, angling the rearview mirror and puckering her lips at her reflection before pressing her high-heeled toes to the gas pedal.

  “Me three,” muttered Andee, keeping her eyes glued to her side of the scenery.

  “Mutiny!” muttered Robin, shoving the piece of paper back into her pocket and rolling her eyes to the sky with a weak grin. “All right, coffee and sustenance it is. But right after that, it’s to the caverns.”

  “Caverns?” Andee hadn’t realized she’d even spoken the word out loud until Robin turned to look at her for the first time since they’d climbed into the car. The smile evaporated from her face, but at least she wasn’t frowning...

  “Yeah, the caverns in Shenandoah. They’re kind of famous, and one of my buddies works there. They’re normally not open this early, but since we’ve got to be in Baltimore this evening if we’re going to stay on schedule, he said he’d let me do the tour myself and show you guys some of the best parts. It’s perfectly safe,” she added softly.

  Andee swallowed, curling her hands into fists on her lap as Robin glanced away. But then Robin said, “Don’t worry about it, And. It’s not that bad. You’ll be okay in there.”

  Andee’s stomach clenched in knots. Robin had spoken her nickname. But more than that, Robin had remembered that Andee wasn’t a fan of closed, dark spaces. Andee’s heart was beating a bit too fast for this early hour of the morning, so she tried to calm it as she gazed out at the beautiful forest sliding past as Tiffany headed out of the park.

  Not only had Robin remembered…

  Robin cared.

  This is ridiculous, thought Andee, blowing out a huge sigh as she put her chin in her hands and let her eyes unfocus, absorbing the green of the trees blurring by. I’m being ridiculous. And what the hell could Tiff have meant about hearing out her side of the story? The more Andee thought about it, the more her stomach hurt, so by the time Tiffany had driven away from Shenandoah National Park, Andee was one big mass of nerves. She was tired after the worst night’s sleep of her life. She was angry at herself for kissing Robin. She was angry at Robin for having cheated on her in the first place, beginning all of this heartache. She was angry at Tiff for not understanding how she felt. She was miserable that she still felt so hurt, so betrayed, even after ten years. And beneath all of those emotions, but perhaps most painful of all, Andee felt terrible that she’d hurt Robin with her words that morning.

  At first, Andee fought with that feeling. She kept coming back to the fact that it was Robin who had hurt her all those years ago. Andee had simply been reiterating what Robin had done. Stating facts. But regardless of what had happened back in college, here and now, Robin was being very kind to her. Thoughtful. Caring. Wonderful.

  If Andee had let herself be completely honest, she would have admitted that this was the way Robin had always treated her.

  But then the cheating happened…

  “All right, ladies!” said Tiffany loudly, pulling into a spot at a coffee shop that Andee hadn’t even realized they’d passed by last night. It was just down the road from the overpriced gas station, the little hand-lettered sign in the window declaring that there were fresh baked pastries on the premises, along with the best cup of coffee in the state. “Get in and get out! We have caverns to see, places to go, coffee to consume!”

  “You’re turning into a general,” said Robin, brows up over her sunglasses as she grinned at Tiff and leapt out of the convertible without opening the door.

  “And you’re turning into James Dean. What the hell, Rob? The car has doors, you know,” said Tiff as she primly exited the car, slamming the door shut with her bottom.

  “Hey, I’m excited about showing some of my favorite people one of my favorite places,” said Robin, brows still up as she glanced over at Andee.

  Some of her favorite people. Andee’s heart thundered within her chest as all four women made their way into the coffee shop.

  That was just like Robin. She’d heard what Andee had said to Tiff, and she didn’t hold it against her. Robin forgave. Robin had a really big heart.

  And Robin kept glancing at her, shoving the sunglasses up and onto the top of her blue-brown head as she watched Andee beneath hooded eyes.

  They got their coffee and sustenance (there really were fresh baked pastries, as advertised) and got back on the road, Tiffany pressing her pretty little high-heeled shoe against the gas pedal a little harder than necessary in an effort to make up time and get them to the caverns quickly. When they pulled into the gravel parking lot for the Shenandoah Caverns, Andee’s coffee wasn’t even cool enough yet to drink.

  Andee’s breathing quickened as she stared up at the massive red rock outcroppings before the entrance to the cave as she took a sip of her coffee, burning the roof of her mouth. But the burning was good. It brought her back to that moment, a moment in which she was still safe and comfortable—not surrounded by crushing rock walls and dark spaces…as she soon would be.

  “You going to be okay with this?” asked Tiffany, slamming her car door and staring at Andee with her hands on her hips. “I mean, let’s be honest. Your claustrophobia is pretty bad,” she said, brows furrowed in concern. “Andee, remember? You couldn’t even do the haunted house last year…”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Andee quickly, putting her cup down in the cup holder and gingerly exiting the convertible. Robin watched her from across the car, her arms folded.

  “And, we don’t have to—” began Robin.

  “I said I’ll be fine,” said Andee, her tone a little sharper than she’d intended it to be. Why did Robin have to use that nickname? It brought back too many memories.

  Robin bit her lip, nodded and turned on her heel, starting toward the wooden staircase that led up to the little ramshackle ticket house, painted a peeling green, the door into the building open and leaning at an angle. This was where, presumably, Robin’s “buddy” was, ready to give them access to the caverns. A slightly frightening cartoon mole was painted on the door to the ticket house, holding a pickaxe and offering a deranged smile and thumbs-up sign. Andee shuddered and sighed, choosing to gaze at Robin’s retreating back, instead.

  “Robin, I’m sorry,” said Andee, calling after her, then. Andee’s voice was small and soft, but Robin paused for a moment, hands still deep in her pockets, back curved forward a few steps up on the staircase. But then she nodded and kept going. She’d heard.

  Andee felt her cheeks redden as Tiffany and Jill both stared at her. Then she followed after Robin, trotting toward the stairs and taking them two at a time after her.

  “Hey, Robin!” called a man from inside the little house, and then he was out, embracing Robin tightly. He actually wore a miner’s hat, the kind with the little lamp thingy (Andee didn’t know what it was called) on it, exactly like the one sported by cartoon mole. He had a black mustache and a quick smile, and was almost as short as Tiffany.

  “Guys, this is Henry. Henry, these are my best friends. Tiffany, Jill and Andee,” said Robin without any hesitation. “And we’re ready to do the caves!” she practically whooped.

  Andee breathed out, her heart pounding as she glanced up at the cave entrance.

  “Be careful in there, Rob, but I know you will,” said the guy, taking off his hard hat and reaching up to plunk it onto Robin’s carefully feathered blue and brown locks.

  “Oh, no. I’m not wearing one of those,” said Tiffany then, as Henry produced a few more helmets from within the wooden ticket stand. “Do you even know how long it took to get my hair to look like this this morning? I had to do it in a tent,” she told the man seriously, clutching her crazy red braid with an expression that was one part farce and two parts seriousness.

  “Tiff,
your hair will be ruined if you bang your head against something. Think about all of that blood, matting your pretty little style,” said Robin with no fuss, handing the hat to Tiffany.

  When Robin handed Andee her miner’s hat, their fingers touched, sending an electric jolt through Andee. She wondered if Robin had felt it, too—and then she felt ridiculous for wondering. She’d been the one to break off the kiss with Robin last night.

  And she hadn’t wanted to think about it, even though she’d thought about it all night, but there it was: Robin had reciprocated. Quickly. Easily. Happily. She’d wanted Andee to kiss her, had—perhaps—been waiting for it to make her move.

  What did that mean now? Andee had pulled away, and she had said some stupid things that morning that Robin had overheard. If Andee kissed her again…what would happen?

  And why was she thinking about this? Frustrated and slightly infuriated at herself, Andee placed the hat on her head and followed Robin as she and Henry began to walk up the remaining steps.

  It was over. Over. Andee wasn’t going to start anything between them again. The mere thought was ridiculous.

  It was over.

  “I can’t go with you like I’d intended,” said Henry, voice apologetic. “Which, you know, could mean my job if you’re not careful, Rob.”

  “How many times have I done this?” she smirked at him, head to the side, but then her cockiness faded—slightly. “I promise we’ll be good, Henry,” said Robin, winking at him.

  “You ladies make sure she is,” said Henry, then, shaking his head as he grinned and started back down the staircase. “I’ll turn the lights on. Half an hour, Rob.”

  “Half an hour, Henry!” said Robin, glancing down at her silver watch that flashed in the early morning light. “Okay, ladies! Now listen closely,” said Robin, as she put her hands on her hips, head to the side, and she stared at each woman one by one, her bright blue eyes boring into them. “I am God in there. You got that? Listen to everything I have to say, and obey every command. There are life-and-death situations in any cave, but I got you in there, and I’ll damn well get you out, and in between those times, you’re going to see some of the most glorious art nature ever created. Ready?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” said Tiffany, throwing a saucy salute as she chuckled, Jill joining in. But Andee only drew in a deep breath and wished with all of her might that the half hour had already come and gone.

  “Hey…Andee. You don’t have to come. You could wait outside, down in the car. I have a book in my backpack you could read…” said Robin, stepping forward, her voice low as Tiffany and Jill walked up the last few steps and paused at the massive cave mouth, waiting. Robin had taken Andee’s arm gently, her fingers curled around her bare skin below the edge of her t-shirt. Andee swallowed, her head reeling, her heart pounding too fast, even as she shrugged out of Robin’s grasp.

  “I can manage,” she said, clipping the words short and moving past, going up the final few steps. Robin was being too nice to her. It made her insides twist as she stared at the yawning cave entrance that, if Andee squinted just right, looked like a gigantic mouth ready to swallow them whole.

  “Lights are on. You’re ready to go, Rob!” Henry hollered up to them from the wooden ticket house.

  “Thanks, Henry!” called Robin down to him; then she switched on her headlamp, and the four women walked into the cave.

  As Andee’s eyes adjusted to the darker surroundings, she spotted the lights Henry had been talking about. Little flood lamps positioned in crevices along the cave walls that made dense shadows spring up around them, but also showed off the innate beauty of the cave. And, yes, it was beautiful. Andee inhaled the damp air and glanced around, taking in the sparkling quartz of the rock, the massive overhead stalactites that looked so creamy against the darker rock that they hung from. The cavern they first found themselves in was huge, towering over them like a natural cathedral, and the air moved from an almost unbearable humidity outside to instant and plunging coolness. Andee took another deep breath and felt her lungs fill with the cold. Robin paused, hands on her hips, a big grin on her face as she gazed upward.

  “Come on, ladies!” she said, turning toward a dark opening on the far side of the cavern. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

  “Are there bats?” called Jill, her voice a little higher than usual. “I’m not a massive fan of bats.”

  “Yeah, but they’re farther back in the cavern. They won’t bother us.” Robin’s voice was gentle and reassuring, not her usual jokey tone at all. “And, Andee,” she called back over her shoulder, “it narrows a little up here, but it immediately spills out into a big cavern. You’re going to be okay.”

  Andee, despite her nervousness, felt a warmth fill her chest at the realization that Robin was, once again, looking out for her. Her head was muzzy and confused as she followed Robin, Jill and Tiffany through the narrow gap in the rocks, trying to keep her breathing calm and steady. The corridor she was in started out as just that: a rocky corridor. But then it began to narrow. Andee had to turn her body sideways, and the coolness of the rock pressed against her stomach and her back. She gulped for air, tried to think about last night, and the kiss. Yes. It was much easier to think about how she was feeling than to concentrate on the fact that tons and tons of rock were pressing down all around her and—

  Andee stopped cold, pressing her hands, her palms, against the wall of the cave, her heart beating much too fast. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t. She didn’t care if she looked stupid. Surely Jill and Tiffany would understand, and Robin would, too, right? She’d understand if Andee went back to the car, fished out that paperback from Robin’s backpack, propped up her feet on the side of the convertible and sunned herself beneath the wide, open sky while she read. Out in the open. Not in a cave. But when Andee tried to move backward, tried to return to the first big cavern, she found she couldn’t move that way, either. She literally could not move her legs. Her heart was beating at a much-too-quick pace. She felt woozy, blood rushing to her head, a roaring in her ears. Oh, she should have listened to Robin…

  “Hey,” said a soft voice to her right. Andee opened her eyes.

  There was Robin. Robin with her bright blue eyes. Robin with her smile and her head cocked to the side. “You’re okay, And,” she said then, tossing her hair to the side. “This is just like that time in theater, the last year—do you remember? When we made out during Romeo and Juliet right under Juliet’s balcony, behind that shrub, while the play was going on. And no one saw us.”

  The memory came so far out of left field and was so sudden and intense that Andee actually chuckled. She gazed up at Robin, Robin who waggled her eyebrows at her, who offered her broad palm to Andee.

  “Come on. It’s just a few steps more.”

  Andee breathed in, and she breathed out. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of the feeling of being crushed, of knowing exactly how much earth was around her and above her. But she also had the surety of Robin’s hand right there...

  If only she’d take it.

  “I told you that was a bad idea. To make out during the play,” said Andee, closing her eyes. Remembering. The pressure all around her began to subside. “That we’d totally be caught. And then Callahan would be pissed that we’d ruined his production.” She glanced up again at Robin, at Robin who was grinning deeper now. “But he didn’t even know where we were. And we completely got away with it.”

  “Yeah, we did,” said Robin softly. And then her smile shifted. If Andee hadn’t been staring so hard at her features, she might have almost missed the single heartbeat of a shift before that cool, confidant smile was back in place.

  For a single heartbeat, Robin had faltered. And her pain had shown through.

  Andee took Robin’s hand. She took it, and she grasped it tightly as Robin pulled her the last few feet through the narrow corridor of rock, and then—as promised—the cave spilled out into a glorious chamber, twice as big as the one that they’d begun the
ir walk through the cave in.

  Andee leaned down, concentrated on breathing for a long moment. And then she stood straight and looked up.

  There was quartz everywhere: quartz reflected in Robin’s headlamp, sparkling in the glow of the spotlights. Everything seemed to sparkle. Andee’s breath caught in her throat, not from the weight of the earth—which was still an omnipresent pressure, but at least one she could think over now—but from the sheer beauty that she was witnessing. Overhead, the cavern arched into a natural point, the glittering seeming to go on forever.

  It was the most beautiful thing Andee had ever seen.

  She didn’t even realize until she stepped forward that she still hadn’t let go of Robin’s hand. She did now, belatedly. Awkwardly.

  Her cheeks warmed at how Robin gazed at her before she turned away, and Andee had a tiny thought, a tiny thought that burrowed into her heart and made itself known:

  The cavern was the second most beautiful thing Andee had ever seen.

  ---

  Ding!

  “Don’t look at it!” shouted everyone in the car who was not Jill.

  Jill, who’d been about to reach into her pocket and check her phone’s text message, had second thoughts and left the thing where it was, with a sigh.

  Jill’s phone had dinged with a text message alert three times in the past hour.

  They were still in Virginia, because—as Tiff put it—Virginia was the biggest small state to drive through in the country. They were in the mountainous region but getting close to the Maryland border, the rolling hills and mountains around them a soft, milky green because the air was so humid.

  “Thanks, guys,” said Jill, rubbing at her forehead and pushing the bandana covering her hair back a bit. “I think I need to change my number. But that’s the thing… I don’t really want to change my number. I mean, I miss her. I mean, what if her text messages are telling me that she’s really sorry that she cheated on me, that she wants to get back together with me?” Though Jill’s voice sounded a bit hopeful, it mostly sounded flat and defeated. And desperate. She leaned back in her seat and glanced out at the magnificent scenery, unseeing.