Carl tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. She hated that look. It was his analytical look. What he did when he was getting ready to start tearing apart her words.
“No, Ran,” he said softly. “That was your plan.”
The sour in her gut pitched and she closed her eyes against his words. “No, don't do that. I hate it when you do that. We agreed. We talked about it. You were totally on board.”
His frustration came heavy across the table even though she could tell he was trying to hold it back. “Ran, my stuff is a lot easier for me to be flexible with. Your plan for you is a good one. I've had your back this entire time. That hasn't changed and it's not going to. But I have the liberty of taking a year off if I want to.” He leaned forward with eyebrows raised and his most diplomatic tone in place. “If it comes to that. All I'm saying is that if they accept the contract and it's time to go, I'm gonna go.”
The pain that slashed through Miranda was unexpected. The air left her lungs with a rush and she pressed her hands to the storm in her stomach.
I'm gonna go. The words rang in her head over and over.
“Ran,” Carl called, his tone soft and worry coloring his features. “What's going on?”
“You think I'm wasting my time,” she said, the words not really making sense as she said them. They were mostly a defense against the fear that she was experiencing. It was irrational. Carl didn't think that.
“What? Of course not!” he protested in annoyance. “Me taking extra time to finish my degree does not trivialize what you're doing.”
The scrape of his chair on the floor brought her eyes up in time to see him settling back down right beside her. He grabbed both of her hands and stared hard into her eyes.
“I am so incredibly proud of you and what you're doing. You do not have to change one little thing about your plan. Not at all.”
She took a deep breath.
“Calm your heart, gorgeous girl,” he whispered, his mouth slanting up in a crooked smile.
Her neck heated up as her embarrassment settled in. “I think I'm just freaking out because the summer is over and I wasn't going to be seeing you as much already. And then you said you'd be gone with the band... and I guess I'm just being selfish.”
Carl's tender look helped push her fears further down. Not gone, but down.
“We have all the time we need, Ran. You know that.”
She nodded. “I know that.”
***
Carl rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He was still a young man, healthy (despite the smoking), but this band was aging him. He swore he'd taken ten years off his life in the past week alone.
“Now see if you can catch it.”
He didn't like the sound of that.
Carl cleared the side of the van just in time to see Blake drop a water filled condom from the roof of the venue they were parked behind into Sway's waiting arms. He bungled the catch — which would happen, condoms were slippery as hell — it hit the pavement and bounced up, hitting him in the nuts. Sway doubled over in pain and crumpled to the ground.
“Damn!” Blake yelled from the roof, laughing hysterically.
“Would you two idiots quit jacking off and help get the rest of your equipment loaded,” Carl barked.
Blake swung a leg over the roof and shimmied himself down the drain spout.
“Carl,” Sway whimpered, holding himself. “My nuts. He got me right in the nuts.”
Carl toed the water-filled condom and watched it slowly roll away from him. “How many rubbers did you use for that thing?”
Blake, hands on his hips, assessed their creation. “I don't know exactly. As many as we had.”
Carl reached for the pack of smokes he normally kept in his jacket pocket, but was disappointed to find they weren't there. Neither was the jacket.
He'd been trying to quit for Miranda's sake.
Not for the reasons everyone assumed. She wasn't the ball-buster they made her out to be. In fact, she had never actually told him she wanted him to quit. It was just something he'd picked up on and decided he could do that for her.
He'd do anything for her.
And the jacket? He was hoping it was keeping his girl warm while he was gone. He'd given it to her the day they'd left town. He hadn't planned on it, but she'd begun to cry and he suddenly couldn't stop himself.
He found it looked better on her anyway.
“Don't leave it in the street. Clean up after yourself,” Carl said with a head jerk.
“Why? Didn't we already lose our deposit?” Blake asked.
Carl squinted at him. “Yes, we already lost our deposit. Thanks to who again? Oh yeah, it was you and your guitar ripping down the lights above the stage.” He took a step towards Blake who had the good sense to look away. “I do not get paid enough to help you wipe your ass, too.”
He stalked away, desperately needing to talk to someone with some semblance of intelligence.
Just a couple more hours and they'd be out of this town and headed to the next one. He could call Miranda at the first truck-stop.
***
Miranda blinked hard at the red numbers on her alarm clock as Carl continued to rant about what a “bunch of pansy-assed playboys” the band was. It was so late. And she had a huge exam in the morning.
But she didn't want to cut him off, she never got to talk to him anymore and she really missed him.
Not that this was really talking. This was a soliloquy on what was wrong with the youth of today and where it would lead the country in the future. Which — and this was just a guess — was going to be hell.
She wished he would either save these rants for when she was more awake, or just skip them entirely. It was getting annoying. They didn't talk about school. If she brought up his classes, he would change the subject. They didn't talk about her stuff either.
And every single phone call happened at two in the morning.
“Ran?”
“Yeah, they're the worst,” she said around a yawn.
“You don't have to answer when I call, you know,” he said, gentle now.
“I know. But then I'd have to find a different grumpy old man to yell at me in the middle of the night.”
Carl sighed into the phone. “Get some sleep,” he said tersely. “I'll try to call earlier tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Love you, Carl.”
“Love you most.”
***
Carl hung up the phone without leaving a message. What was he supposed to say anyway? “Hey, honey, you didn't answer again. It's all right though, I can take a hint.”
Except he obviously couldn't take a hint, because he knew he'd be calling her again the next day. And the next. And every day until she told him she was done.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the side of the van.
No.
She wasn't that girl.
He was being paranoid and reckless and it was going to get him into trouble.
She loved him. She was just busy.
He knew this was going to be hard on them, he'd planned for it.
He just had no idea the huge, gnawing hole in his gut that would exist without being able to be near her. To feel her skin and taste her lips.
And now he had been deprived of her voice as well.
It was a lot harder than he had anticipated.
At least he would be home in a couple of days. They could reconnect and recharge.
Everything would be fine.
***
“Stop interrupting me!” Miranda shouted into her phone as she threw her purse onto her bed. It bounced off and onto the floor, spilling its contents all over.
“Well, if you would stop talking for one second, I could help you pull your head out of your ass!” Carl shouted right back.
Miranda suspected she could chew glass at that moment. Her mouth hurt from continuously grinding her teeth at him and this stupid argument.
“Stop being a dick, Carl
!”
“Oh, I'm the dick,” he said sarcastically. “I've been back in town for three fucking days and I wanted to see my girlfriend but she's too busy blowing me off. Yeah, that's me. I'm obviously the dick.”
Miranda grabbed her hair at the top of her head in crazed disbelief. “I can't keep having this same fight with you. You're making me crazy.”
“No, your plan makes you crazy. I'm the only thing in your life that makes sense and you keep shutting me out.”
Miranda had never been the kind of girl to hang up the phone to prove a point. She thought it was childish. But it didn't stop her from pulling the phone away from her ear and hitting End.
He was wrong. Just... wrong.
She was doing the absolute best she could do. Yes, her schedule was packed but he knew that before he left. She had no idea when he was supposed to be back in town. How was it her fault that he didn't understand by now that “spontaneous” wasn't a thing she did. Make a plan. Always make a freaking plan!
She yanked her coat off— technically his coat, the leather one she was so fond of—and threw it on the bed where her purse was originally supposed to land.
The action did little to make her feel better. It actually made her feel worse. As if the viciousness with which she removed his coat was symbolic of her shedding the feel of his arms around her.
She hadn't seen him in so long, she had begun to wonder if the comfort and security she always found there was somehow just an elaborate lie her heart had told her head.
She stared at the crumpled leather as it began to blur in her vision.
What was happening to them?
***
Carl rolled his eyes when the line went dead and tossed his phone onto the seat. She didn't want to talk about this? Too bad. He was already on his way over there.
He missed her. He was going to see her before he had to leave again in a few days. It was as simple as that.
He'd been gone for a rigorous six weeks. Fortunately, he was still keeping up on school. Honestly, that part was easy. Keeping track of those five morons that claimed to be rock stars? That was hard work.
Carl had spent six weeks — 42 very long days and nights — just wanting to be around someone who could hold an intelligent conversation. One more night of “who shit the bed” and he was going to kill someone.
He barely had the truck in park right next to hers before he was striding up the driveway. He was either going to strangle her or kiss her to death. But something had to give.
Not bothering to ring the bell, he entered the house and charged right up the stairs to her room. He opened the door and all of his fury disappeared when he saw her.
“I was trying to call you back,” Miranda's tear stained face looked up at him from the floor, holding up what looked like parts of her phone.
He sank to his knees, his arms going around her.
“But I broke my phone because I overreacted,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “I'm so sorry! I'm a terrible girlfriend!”
“No, you're not,” he soothed, running his hand over her hair and down her back as he cradled her to his chest. “I'm a dick. I'm so sorry.”
They held each other for a long time, so long that the sun went down and neither one of them got up to turn the light on. Carl pulled them down onto the thick rug at the foot of her bed and held her tight to his chest. They didn't speak, they just touched. Soft. Slow. Hesitant.
He could feel the space between them but he ignored it. Waiting. Holding. Knowing it would pass as long as they just held on.
“Just hold on,” he said out loud, flexing his arms around her.
“I'm trying,” she whispered, a shudder seizing her body.
“It's only been a short while. I call everyday like I promised.”
“But I'm not being fair to you.”
It was a discussion they had had a couple of times. Not often and not in depth. But her words weren't new. She'd made this statement and similar ones in the past. It always opened up a pit of despair right in the center of him. He didn't understand it. And that scared him.
To Carl, this whole thing was incredibly easy. He'd found the woman he wanted for a lifetime. Everything else was the stuff they had to work around. But in his head, they'd do it together. Not separate.
Convincing Miranda of that, what with her independence and Big Plan, was impossible.
She let go of him and sat up slowly. The light from the hallway filtered in and shone on the circles under eyes. The lines around them were deep with exhaustion and conflict. He hadn't been around to ease her burdens and it showed.
“What if we take a break for a little while?” she asked quietly.
Carl slowly sat up and braced his back against her bed. “What kind of a break exactly?”
From school? Yes. Absolutely. But the wide open pit in his chest told him that wasn't the case.
Tears dropped from her eyes. “Just until I get the hang of this semester. I can't keep doing this to you.”
“What if I'm okay with you doing it to me?” he asked, his chest tightening with each new breath.
Her palm touched her chest. “I'm not okay with doing it to you,” she said, her voice cracking at the end.
He hated seeing her hurt. That wasn't part of the deal. He only wanted to be a source of happiness for her, not grief.
“I can quit this band gig,” he offered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It's not as glamorous as it sounds anyway.”
“No, see?” Miranda said throwing a hand out weakly. “It's always you offering to change things for me. I can't keep doing that.”
Carl took a deep breath and choked on the tightness, he swallowed it down. “You once told me, 'If a person is brave enough to have a dream, who's to say it can't happen?'”
“Yes, exactly,” she said. “You should be allowed to pursue whatever it is you want. You shouldn't be waiting around on me all the time.”
“Ran,” he whispered, not believing she hadn't figured this out yet. “You're my dream. School, the band, nothing matters. I don't care about any of it. I only want you.”
She closed her eyes, tears leaving heavy tracks on her cheeks. “That's so unhealthy, I don't even know how to address it.”
His eyes narrowed and his voice sharpened. “Unhealthy how?”
Her big brown eyes pleaded with him to understand something he just couldn't, not if it meant being without her. “No one person should be so significant that you lose your identity with them. I shouldn't have that power over you. You can't need me like that.”
“Why not? What makes it so wrong?” he asked, breathing hard and trying to keep his voice down.
“Because I'm going to break your heart!” Fresh tears rolled out and she wiped them away furiously.
“It's my heart,” Carl pointed out gruffly. “If anyone is going to break it, I want it to be you.”
She sucked in a sob and shook her head at him. “Please don't do this to me. Don't make me be that person to you. All I'm asking for is time to get things in order. Time that we both need. I'm so close to being finished...”
Carl had felt a lot of things with Miranda. Almost all of them new and wonderful.
Helplessness was not one he ever expected.
“How much time?” he asked, his eyes dropping to his lap. Defeat permeated his body.
“Just until the end of this semester. Then I should have things sorted.”
He shook his head, his throat burning in the back. She was asking for time. He would give it to her. Because when it came down to it, he would give her anything.
“Okay, let's try it,” he said despite every molecule in his body disagreeing with him. “As long as it's temporary.”
“Yes,” she promised, her eyes shining with more tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He really couldn't bear to see her cry. He wasn't going to leave her like this. If they were going to take a break than it would be on his terms.
He took a deep breath and pushed a
side the hopelessness in his chest. “Then we start tomorrow. But tonight you're still my girl.”
She took a shaky breath and tried to smile. “So stubborn.”
He stood up and closed the bedroom door. Then he pulled her to her feet and slowly kissed her, taking his time. “No matter what happens, I am always going to love you.”
***
Miranda would later look back on that night as the best and worst night of her life. Carl had given her exactly what she'd asked for.
She'd just asked for the wrong thing.
Too bad life hadn't given her a heads up on what was coming next.
***
Carl stared, sightless, out across the open prairie. The long grass moved like a wave with the wind.
He put the cigarette to his lips and sucked in a long slow drag. It felt good. Right.
This was how it was going to end up anyway.
He was a piece of shit. He didn't deserve someone like Miranda. It was all just one big fantasy and he'd gotten carried away with it.
Even if he'd stayed, the same thing would've happened. She'd have eventually come to her senses and gotten shot of him.
At least this way he had something to keep him busy.
Like waiting for the tow-truck.
He squinted up at the sun. At least it wasn't snowing. That would be worse. It was still pretty chilly. He missed his jacket.
He missed the fantasy.
***
Miranda tried to focus on the blinking cursor, but she was distracted by the feeling of being watched. Her eyes slid up to find Harrison standing in front of her.
In a suit.
She didn't even know he was home. She hadn't seen him in months. Being a rock star and all.
She pulled her earbuds out and frowned at him.
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