A short, soundless moment pulses—long enough that I think she might be accepting my words—until she blinks and says, “Have you ever heard yourself talk about photography? The passion in your voice, Torrin, it’s unmistakable. It’s the type of passion that drives people like you to go on and do amazing things with their talent.” A look of finality washes over her face, erasing every bit of feeling from her features. “Not something to be wasted on me.”
She heads for the door to the hallway, the edges of her skirt clinging to her still-damp skin. The door swishes closed behind her, and I let my eyes drift to the moisture-stained ceiling.
My head against the wall, I close my eyes. Is what she said true? I’m trying to stay because I don’t want to leave her here alone? Instead of wanting to stay to be with her?
But she’s not alone. She’s got her family a few miles away, her roommate, Nikki, who should be back from Vermont any day now, other friends in her dorm…
Quietly, I pad into the pool room, get dressed, and retrieve my phone. I hit redial on the New York number from yesterday. The line rings twice, and then a squeaky voice answers.
“Ms. Mann?”
“This is she.”
“This is Torrin Kingsley. I’ve made my decision.”
June 1st
Welcome to Traveler Magazine. Jackie Mann’s words have been haunting me for the last week and a half, escorted by the unrelenting feeling that I’m going to throw up. I don’t know if it’s the right decision. But Quinn was right; this is an opportunity most people will never get. And I have to try.
“Dude, you’re gonna be late.” A hand slaps my shoulder, and I pry my gaze from the very spot Quinn and I last kissed: the wall beside the lockers. I try not to notice the glisten of water just beyond the brown door as I turn toward Andrew, though I can’t help but remember the smile on Quinn’s face as she dove in that day of the festival.
Andrew adjusts the strap of his workout bag on his shoulder. “There’s a Quarters tournament over at the TKE house tonight. What time is Sal gonna let you off?”
“Not ’til nine. I’m not really in the mood to drink though, so have fun without me.”
“Hold up.” He blocks the small opening between locker rows with an extended arm. “What’s got you so jacked up? Did you and your girl break up or something?”
I haven’t talked to anyone about the distance that’s grown between Quinn and me since I told her I accepted the internship. The way we haven’t broken up, but slowly let a forest of protected feelings sprout in that budding space. I still visit Loyola at night, but instead of fooling around with her or taking a field trip to the beach, we’ve sat on her bed regurgitating a vague description of our day, watched a TV show or two, then I headed back to my dorm.
Not exactly the ideal way to spend the last few weeks we have together.
“We haven’t broken up, yet,” I tell Andrew and start for the door.
“Yet?” Wrinkles crawl across his forehead as he jumps a step to catch up with me. “But you plan to?”
“We’ve only been together two months. Not exactly grounds for a long distance relationship. Besides, I can’t expect her to just sit around and wait for me to get back. If she wants to see someone else, I’m not going to stop her.”
His eyes focus on the main hall of the gym for a moment. Then he looks at me, wide-eyed as if he just came up with the most brilliant idea and, I have to admit, even I—for a millisecond—feel a tiny bubble of hope rise up in my chest. Until he says, “Who says she couldn’t go with you?” He shoves his back against the door and holds it open for me. We spill out onto the path, the summer storm above still drizzling rain down upon us.
“I can’t ask her to drop everything here in California to live in another country with me for half the year.”
He shrugs, sticking out his tongue to catch a few water drops. “Why not? What’s keeping her here?”
“I don’t know. Family? School? Her job? I’m sure there are plenty of reasons she wouldn’t want to come. On top of that, she couldn’t afford it and would never let me pay for her.” He gives me a puzzled look, and I explain, “She’s a little stubborn when it comes to borrowing money.”
“Okay, so what if she got a job out there to pay for it? Or got an internship like you? I don’t know, it just seems like you two are giving up way too easily.” A soft punch lands on my shoulder. “Not really your style, Kingsley.”
~*~
Not my style. Andrew was right. Giving up so easily isn’t my style.
The evening shift at Sal’s is slow, allowing plenty of time to scour the internet with my phone in search of the perfect solution. Fifteen minutes to closing, the bell on the door jingles and, before I can look up, Quinn is behind the counter, her hands wrapped tightly around my neck, the words, “I’m so sorry,” spewing over and over from her lips.
I bury my head into the side of her neck, inhaling the sweet bubblegum scent I’ve craved for the past week. “What are you sorry for? I’m the one who’s been an ass.”
“We both have. And whether you’re leaving or not, I don’t want to spend our last few weeks mad at each other.”
Mad?
I lift her up to the assembly counter and take her face in my hands. “Babe, I’m not mad at you. I could never be mad at you.”
“Not even for calling you an idiot?”
I kiss her, every nerve in my lips jolting alive at the taste of her. “It’s not the worst thing you’ve called me,” I mumble against her mouth. “Besides, I think I figured out a way to make this work.” From the counter, I grab my phone and show her the career finder page I’d been browsing. “I know you’d object to coming to Costa Rica with me on my expense, so I found a list of jobs you can apply for. There are a lot of restaurant openings, from sous-chefs to waitresses. And I found an internship, too, at a pretty well-known restaurant in one of the resorts only a few miles from where I’ll be staying. With all these choices, I’m sure you’ll land something. We can start applying tonight.”
Her eyes, flicking between the phone’s screen and mine start to fill with tears. Fingering the edge of my apron, she inhales a deep breath, holds it for at least five full seconds then sighs.
“You know I would love to work in a restaurant, especially as a sous-chef,” she says, her voice shaking and on the verge of breaking. “And I can’t believe you would take the time to find all these for me. But…” She shakes her head. “I can’t leave my job. I promised Mr. Hunter when I begged for my position back that he would have me unconditionally for the next year. It’s only been a few weeks. I can’t bail on him again. He’d never forgive me. And I’d never forgive myself for blowing him off.” She draws up a watery smile. “I actually kind of like the guy.”
After Quinn quit without notice a few months ago, I can see why she wouldn’t want to leave the art director short of a model again. I let out a sigh. “Yeah. I guess it was a long shot asking you to leave everything for me.”
She leans forward, pressing her lips to my chin and it’s impossible to think that I may not have many more of those before I go. “You know I would go if it weren’t for that.”
I nod, wrapping my arms around her. I do know. “So what do we do now?”
“You go and we try to make it through this. It’s only five months.” Her words are hot whispers against my neck. “And maybe I can even come visit you for a week between the summer and fall quarters. Couples do stuff like this all the time. And I don’t know about you, but I think we’re stronger than most couples.”
God, I hope so.
June 25th
“This is our last night together,” Quinn says softly, changing the channel on the TV again. It’s not the words, but the catch in her voice that makes me turn from my desk and face her. I’d expected her to avoid the subject all together, act like tonight was as normal as any night. Not bring it up, agonizing as it is.
A single tear drips down beside her nose. The sight crashes through my chest,
ripping my heart in two. This is because of me.
I rush to the bed, lay beside her, and gather her in my arms. She smashes her face into my chest and shakes her head. “Sorry. I was trying really hard not to be a big baby about it.”
“Being a big baby is much better than being unaffected and emotionless.”
“Turning off my emotions is easier.”
“It’s also scarier.” I push her back. “Not that I didn’t like the old you, but this”—I dry her face with my thumb and hold it up to show her the wetness—“is why I fell in love with you. When you feel, it’s intense and penetrating and oceans more than any normal person.”
“It’s because I’m a vampire.”
I lift my brow. “Huh?”
She shakes her head with a giggle. “Never mind. Just some show I was watching.” Her hand captures mine and she cradles it against her chest. A serious expression straightens her features. “Torrin, are we going to be okay? Like deep down do you think we’ll make it through this?” The worry in her voice—disquieted and glazed with sadness—tightens a screw in my heart.
I tip my forehead to hers. “You said yourself couples do this all the time. That we’re stronger than them…”
“But do you believe that?”
Eyes fixed firmly to hers, I answer as truthfully as I can. “With every cell in my body.” My lips lower to hers, and then I spend the next few hours memorizing and savoring every inch of her body.
~*~
I told Quinn I had an early flight, but the truth is I couldn’t stand to say goodbye. Not after last night; I didn’t want to erase the bone-deep, soul-to-soul connection we’d had with that one ugly word. So after lying with every possible inch of my skin pressed up against hers, wide awake until the clock read 3:00am, I quietly snuck out.
Again, I glance down at Quinn’s words on my phone: What happened to goodbye? and watch as the bright morning sunlight casts a glare over them.
The taxi driver, a balding man with an ungodly amount of black arm hair, squints his eyes into the rearview mirror. “Terminal four, you say?”
“Yeah,” I mutter in return, and then type back: Love you too much to say goodbye. Check inside your wallet.
A few days ago, while moving all of my belongings from my dorm to a storage unit, I came across a crumpled piece of paper tucked into the tiny garage’s dusty cement corner. Not sure why I didn’t throw away the scrap like the rest found on the floor, but opened it. Inside, scrawled messily in red ink, was a quote by a woman named Gretchen Kemp. There’s this place in me where your fingertips still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It’s the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me.
I guess I took it as a sign. If I could put my feelings for Quinn into words, those are exactly what they’d say. I scribbled them onto a clean sheet of paper and, last night when Quinn left her room to brush her teeth, I stuck it into the billfold of her wallet.
The taxi screeches to a stop in front of terminal four. I hand the driver a twenty, grab my two suitcases—one loaded with camera gear, the other with clothes—and, without so much as a glance over my shoulder, replace the muggy California sky with recycled airport air.
Morning turns into afternoon as I kill the hours required to sit and wait for an international flight and then, finally, a woman in a blue uniform calls my flight to board. I stand with the rest of the crowd, scanning the faces of who I’ll be in the vicinity of for the next six hours. The mass of people steps forward, and I glance over my shoulder with a nervous tingle in my stomach. As if my life will suddenly turn into one of those romance movies and Quinn will come bounding around the corner begging me not to go.
“We will now board Zone 3 of flight 263 to Alajuela,” the airline employee says into the intercom.
On the plane I find my window seat and, just as the flight attendant makes the announcement to turn off all electronic devices, my phone buzzes with a message from Quinn.
I miss you already. <3 <3 <3
July 17th
“Let me guess…” Joel nods at me from behind his lens and says, “You left someone back home to come traipse the Costa Rican jungle with me.” Silently I smile at the word traipse, thinking about the fun Quinn and I had in the locker room almost a month ago.
Joel’s actually a pretty cool guy. In his late thirties, he looks a lot like Hugh Jackman only with a tribal bracelet tattoo around his right wrist and hair as black as the fiberglass of our camera frames. I guess if I had to traipse the jungle with anyone, I’m glad it’s him.
I tuck my lens cloth into my pocket then return to my shot: a small group of capuchin monkeys foraging for food. It’s not the shot we’re searching for—a succession of black and whites for December’s story on the local foliage, but Joel, unable to pass up basically anything that moves without taking its picture, insisted we might need it for another story. I kinda like that about him, his spontaneity. The guy is brilliant and funny and not all that bad to spend time with.
Kneeling to steady my elbow on my knee, I say, “Am I that obvious?”
He laughs, and I hear the click of his shudder snagging a shot. “Don’t worry. It’s not like you’re some lovesick monkey or anything. But sometimes I can see it in your expression.” From the corner of my eye I can see him inspecting his shot. His brow wrinkles when he’s got it—I’ve gathered that much in our three weeks together. “It’s like you’re constantly searching for something.”
“We are on the lookout for the December shot, are we not?”
Joel bends, slipping his camera into its case. “Come on, smartass. Let’s call it a day.”
In the Jeep, as we head back to the main road, Joel starts up again. “So, tell me about her.”
I throw my feet up onto the dash despite his disapproving look. Whatever. If I have to spew about my love life, I’m at least going to be comfortable.
“Her name’s Quinn.” I pull out my phone and show him a picture—one I caught of her at the beach with her hair full from the wind, the sun half-eclipsed by her head. He nods with a smile, downshifting into second gear to cross a small ravine. Just on the other side is the dirt road that leads to the paved road.
“And how long have you known Quinn?”
Jesus, he’s just as nosy as my sisters.
“Known her since January. But we’ve only been together a few months.”
His thick eyebrows jump up and down. “Friends to lovers? Or did she play hard to get?”
I smile, remembering my first few months with Quinn. She was infuriating and bad-mannered, and for some reason I couldn’t stay away from her. “I guess you can say both.” I leave it at that. Explaining how broken Quinn was, and that she was incapable of love back then, would surely give him the wrong impression of her. She’s not the girl she used to be.
The tires groan as Joel steers the Jeep onto the poorly paved road. The roads this far back toward the jungle look more like someone dumped out a few tractor loads of asphalt and raked it with a shoe. But it beats the nauseous pitching of off road. I uncross and cross my legs. “What about you? Anyone back home?”
“Nah. I’m sort of a solo guy. Too much traveling to make it back home much.” Not an ounce of sadness in that statement, though I can’t help but notice the pang it sends through my chest. Photography is a lonely profession. Professor Williams wasn’t exaggerating.
We ride in silence the rest of the way and once back to the small rental house Joel and I call “home,” Joel points to a small package on the porch. “Dish duty tonight says that’s for you.” He winks at me and steps right over the box as he enters the house, not even looking at the name on the package.
It’s for me. From Quinn. I sit on the porch steps, package on my lap, remembering our conversation from last night:
Her: “Anything exciting today? New?”
Me: “Joel took me scuba diving to test out my new underwater camera. The water here is so clear. Nothing like our ocean.”
&nbs
p; Her: “Oh… Nothing else?”
On the steps, a smile grows on my face. So this’s what that was about.
I rip into the package, careful to preserve the box for the next time I ship her something. My first week here, I sent her a bunch of touristy stuff I’d picked up in the airport before meeting Joel: keychain, T-shirt, a little stuffed snake. Last week I sent her a pressed flower from our first jungle shoot. This is the first she’s sent me anything.
A folded piece of paper rests on top. For a second, I debate setting it aside to dig through the crumpled white tissue paper. But it’s Quinn’s voice I want to hear, and if I can’t have that then her words are second best. I unfold the paper. On it, cut out and pasted from what looks like a magazine, is a checklist. Signs You are in Love. And in her messy handwriting, the words:Don’t even ask why I was reading this in the first place, but you should know I answered YES to every single one.
-YOU READ HIS TEXTS OVER AND OVER
-YOU WALK REALLY SLOW WHEN YOU’RE WITH HIM
-BY THINKING ABOUT HIM YOU SMILE FOR NO REASON
-YOU GET HIGH OFF HIS SMELL
-HE BECOMES ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT
-EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS NO NAME MENTIONED, YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT HIM AS YOU READ THIS
In the white space at the bottom, Quinn’s words again.
Torrin,
Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, falling in love with you was beyond my control…
I miss you.
-Q (See what missing you does to me? I’ve become a sap!)
I set aside the note and dig through the paper balls, my hand landing on a square metal tin. Like the kind Christmas cookies come in. Taped to the top is a note that reads:My new recipeand inside is a dozen or so impeccably round brown and white swirled cookies. She mentioned she’s been visiting her parents more over the past few weeks, cooking with her mom and maybe even discovering her passion.
Without You Page 7