Fight or Flight

by Young, Samantha

  My ass hit the floor and I cried like I’d never cried before in my life. Big-hiccupping, can’t-breathe-properly, might-throw-up-all-over-my-deep-pile-carpet crying.

  When the tears eventually stopped, I was left with the horrific unease in my gut and tightness in my chest. Panic. Panic and loneliness.

  “No,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head, seeing images of him everywhere. Lounging on my armchair, staring at me with that distinctive, brooding intensity. Leaning on my kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee and smirking at me like he thought I was funny and cute.

  My head rolled to the side and I looked through the doorway to my bedroom.

  I closed my eyes against the memories I found in there.

  Loss.

  The feeling … that terrifying, incapacitating feeling that was creeping over my body like a phantom pain that couldn’t be explained … it was loss.

  The next morning I dragged my butt out of bed and got ready for work. I prepared myself for the day like it was any other day, faltering only when I looked at the jewelry on my nightstand. The watch I put on, the earrings too. But the diamond tennis bracelet I’d loved so much only yesterday was a beautiful dagger to the heart today. I clutched it tight in my hand, feeling its sharp edges bite into my skin, and I promptly found an old shoe box buried at the back of my wardrobe. I stuffed it in there, where I wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Where Nick’s bracelet had chafed with the memories, Caleb’s wounded me too deep to pretend otherwise. It would stay in the box, image be damned.

  The rest of my preparation went as well as could be expected. Makeup was a wonderful thing. I didn’t know what I would have done without it, because the puffy dark circles under my eyes from all the crying and lack of sleep were no longer visible under my magic makeup.

  I still looked a little tired, but that could be explained away by traveling, and not the result of a broken heart. I didn’t want Stella to know about Caleb. I didn’t want anyone to know.

  But that was not to be, because as I walked to work that morning I got a call from my uncle David. We’d kept in touch during his travels. However, my gut instinct told me somehow he’d found out. Not somehow, actually. My gut told me Harper had called him.

  “Hey, you,” I greeted, trying to sound like I wasn’t dreading him asking me how I was.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said, and I flinched at the underlying sympathy and concern in just those two words.

  “I’m fine,” I said, wincing at how agitated I sounded.

  “Hmm. Harper called.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.” I was going to kill her.

  “She’s worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “I’m hurrying to work, that’s why.”

  “Sure.”

  “Uncle David.” I blew out an exasperated sigh. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. We’re good. How are you since some asshole broke your heart?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Fearne and I were thinking about coming home a little early and—”

  “Nope,” I said immediately, attempting not to feel anger but only gratitude that he cared that much. “Do not come home early because of me. I am a grown woman and a nonrelationship relationship I was in, unsurprisingly, did not work out. I am not going to wallow. And having my uncle, whom I love dearly for thinking so much of me, cut his travel plans short to come home and hold my hand is the equivalent of wallowing.”

  He was quiet a moment and then he sighed heavily. “No wallowing.”

  “No wallowing.”

  “It’s just … Harper was worried that something this man said may have caused serious emotional harm.”

  Harper’s concerns for me were similar to my concerns about how she would recover from Vince’s assault. I didn’t want him to change her. And she didn’t want Caleb to change me. Yet that was inevitable. However, as I stood frozen on the corner of Walnut Street and Beacon, I was hit with powerful determination.

  “No.” I shook my head, staring dazedly around me. “I’m not going to let what he said undo all the good he did. He … my time with him … it woke me up, Uncle David. Nick made me afraid to trust people—he made me afraid to think about settling down with someone worthy and starting a family. But I want those things. As scary as it is to try to reach for them, as frightened as I am of someone hurting me again, I have to believe that there’s someone out there who will love me. I’ve seen it. I see it in you and Fearne, Jason and Gillian, Patrice and Michael, Stella and Iain—hell, even in Mom and Dad in their own weird way.”

  “I’m glad to hear this,” my uncle said softly. “I worry about you being alone.”

  I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

  It hurt that the person I wanted to be with didn’t want me, and I could feel my throat tightening painfully with the emotion, but I breathed through it, searching for calm.

  “Ava?”

  “I’m okay,” I croaked out. “Or I will be. Eventually.”

  He was quiet so long I thought we’d disconnected, but then he told me, “We’re all afraid of something, sweetheart. It’s up to us whether we stay and fight that fear … or whether we run and hide from it. I’m glad you’re not going to hide anymore. You have to promise not to hide anymore.”

  “I promise.” I swiped at a tear that escaped, ducking my head, embarrassed I was getting emotional on a street corner.

  He cleared his throat, as though uncomfortable with all the emotion. “Well, good. I know … I know I’m gone a lot, but you know I’m still here, don’t you?”

  In all honesty, I’d let myself forget.

  But I wouldn’t again. “I know. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Fearne and I will be home in three weeks. We’ll arrange a dinner.”

  “I’d like that.”

  We hung up and I continued on to work, shaking a little with my epiphany. It was too much not to share with Harper, so I called her while she was in the middle of bossing a junior chef around at Canterbury. As I stepped into our building on Beacon Street, Harper left the kitchen to hear me.

  “You’re mad I called David?” she asked, sounding confused.

  “No, but a little heads-up would have been nice.”

  “I just wanted to remind you that you had more than me who loves you. Like you reminded me that I have more than you.”

  “I know and I get that. Actually, it was a good conversation.” I waved to Stella as I passed her office and headed for my own. “I realized something. I’m not giving up.”

  Harper went silent. And then I could hear the glower in her tone, “On Caleb?”

  “No.” I flinched at his name. “That’s over. You were right. Even if he does care about me, I couldn’t be with someone who would choose to inflict that kind of pain on me just to protect himself. No … I’m not giving up on love.” I paused, wrinkling my nose. “That sounded less cheesy in my head.”

  Harper chuckled. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. I want a family. It’s time to get back out there, no matter how frightening it is to make myself vulnerable to someone again. It’s time to start fighting for what I really want.”

  My friend went quiet.

  “Harper?”

  “When … you get all that—and I know you will because you’re amazing and there are plenty of guys out there who will see that—so when you get him and you start popping out little mini versions of yourself … you won’t forget me, right?” She laughed, like it was a joke, but I heard the pain underlying the question.

  “Of course I won’t. But you know you’ll be too busy with your own guy and little mini versions of yourself too.”

  “I’m not there, Ava. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

  I thought of the therapist, a Dr. Ren, Harper got an appointment with at the end of the week. It was during my
lunch hour so I could go with her as a silent support in the waiting room. “We’ll see.”

  I could practically feel her rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how I feel about this optimistic version of you.”

  “I don’t know how to feel about it either. She scares me.” I laughed.

  Harper didn’t. Instead she brought tears to my eyes when she said, “I think she’s brave.”

  Twenty-nine

  Fred Russo was in the middle of showing me new curtain fabric that he’d ordered, and I was oohing and aahing over the beautiful shimmering silk taffeta, when my cell rang. “Stella,” I told Fred, giving him an apologetic look before walking to the other end of the storeroom for some privacy.

  “Stella, I’m at Fred’s,” I said as a greeting. “Is everything okay?”

  “Ask him for an update on my order for Lola Perera.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m just calling to let you know your handsome friend popped by the office five minutes ago, seeming very anxious to see you. In fact, he was under the impression I was lying about you not being here. Trouble in paradise?”

  Caleb had come by the office? During his workday?

  My stomach churned at the thought of facing him. What did he want?

  “He said since he can’t get you on your phone, he’s left a message on your office phone and would you please do him the courtesy of returning his call.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice flat even to my ears. “I really better get back to Fred.”

  “Ava—”

  But I rudely told her I had to go and blew out a shaky breath. I stared at my cell for a minute or two, trying to decide if I was ready to hear his voice. Since I’d spent the entire morning convincing myself that I was ready to face my fears, I really had no option but to dial into my office voice mail.

  “You have three new messages.”

  I impatiently waded through the first two messages from clients and then it felt like my heart stopped at the sound of his deep voice. He sounded pissed.

  “Ava, where have you been? I stopped around your flat on Saturday and Sunday … We need tae talk. Call me immediately.”

  I replayed Caleb’s message. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so much from just hearing someone’s voice. Guessing at why Caleb wanted to see me was too dangerous a game to play, so I refused to allow my mind to go there.

  I did, however, play the voice mail a second and third time, rubbing at the ache in my chest as his voice rumbled in my ear.

  “Everything okay?” Fred called to me.

  No, I thought. No, it’s not okay.

  But one day it would be.

  I snapped my phone shut.

  It had to be. Because the alternative was not an option.

  Despite my best efforts, I could not get Caleb’s voice out of my head, and I agonized over whether calling him back was a good idea or not. Even as I sat in a quiet café with a client, I wasn’t fully focused on discussing the redesign of his bijou apartment. Part of me was pondering the Caleb problem. Did I meet with him, let him say whatever he needed to say, so I could move on? Or did I decide he didn’t deserve that chance and cut him out of my life entirely?

  Since both options made me feel sick with uncertainty, it was proving a very difficult decision.

  After the client meeting it was lunchtime. Nervous about heading back to the office in case Caleb turned up again (and also because I didn’t want to answer Stella’s inevitable questions), I stopped at the Earl of Sandwich in the Common and grabbed a tuna melt and iced tea to go.

  I hadn’t eaten much the last few days, but I was determined to nibble through the wave of nausea that had clung to me since my conversation with Caleb. Lost in my thoughts as I strolled from the Common toward the Public Garden, I was jolted back to my surroundings when a man blocked my way.

  “Ava?”

  Blinking in surprise, I needed a moment before recognizing him. And honestly, I didn’t know how to feel when I did. “Leo?”

  He gave me that handsome boyish grin and waved a half-eaten sub at me. “I’m on the go too. Where you off to?”

  I gestured toward the Charles Street entrance into the gardens. “Just walking. Eating.”

  “Can I join you?”

  Something about the interest in his eyes made me exclaim, “I’m no longer looking for just sex. You should know that.”

  Leo, thankfully, laughed good-naturedly at my embarrassing too-much-information declaration. “Well, I just thought we’d walk and eat and talk. If that’s okay?”

  I blushed and nodded as he fell into step beside me. “How have you been?”

  “Good.” He bit into his sandwich and waited to speak until he’d eaten the bite. “After we discussed the whole casual relationship thing, I decided it was the right move for me and I’ve just been … you know … having fun.”

  I grinned. In other words, he was slutting himself up all over Boston. “Having fun. Right.”

  “Obviously, things have changed for you.”

  Despite my weird announcement to him, I really didn’t want to explain it to Leo. “I decided casual relationships aren’t for me after all.”

  “I knew it was too good to be true.” He chuckled.

  “What do you mean?”

  Leo shrugged as if it was obvious. “You’re the kind of woman a man marries. You’re not the kind of woman he casually sleeps with.”

  “Can I ask what the hell that means?”

  “There are women you want to marry and women you just want to have sex with.”

  “What’s the difference between them?”

  If he heard the agitation and growing annoyance in my voice, he pretended not to notice. “Smart, successful, witty, and beautiful and doesn’t need your money. You know, if she falls in love with you, she’s actually fallen in love with you and not the kind of lifestyle you can provide for her. Dumb or pretends to be dumb because she thinks it makes you feel like more of a man, focused a lot on her looks, and not interested in anything but stroking your ego and other sensitive manly areas, then she’s just a casual sex partner.”

  “You know, before you said all that I was actually feeling pretty good about being your best buddy.” I scowled at him.

  “What?” He shrugged before wolfing down the last of his sandwich.

  “That’s chauvinistic crap.”

  Leo wiped his mouth with his napkin and gestured to a bench on our right. I reluctantly followed him, hoping he was going to save himself. We settled onto the bench and I continued to nibble at my tuna melt, waiting for a response.

  “It’s not crap. I wish it were. But there are a lot of women out there like that in my experience. Some guys see her as the marrying kind because that’s all they want. Someone to stroke their ego, etc. But men like me, if we’re smart, we learn from that lesson and move on.”

  Understanding dawned. “Your first wife?”

  “Interested in nothing but my family money.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, now I know better. If I’d done it the right way the first time, the thought of marriage wouldn’t make my balls jump back up inside my body.”

  I’d just taken a sip of my iced tea and it promptly exploded out of my mouth in my shocked amusement. Leo threw his head back in a rich, deep laughter, and I coughed and laughed along with him. As our hilarity faded to gentle mirth, Leo handed me a clean napkin so I could wipe the iced tea off my chin.

  It was as we were sharing a smile that I felt the burn on the side of my face.

  I knew that sensation.

  Tense, I followed it, and my breath stuttered at the sight of Caleb standing in the middle of the path. I didn’t have to wonder how long he’d been there, because the furious glower on his face told me it was long enough to have witnessed my camaraderie with Leo.

  “Caleb.” My voice came out in a surprised croak. I cleared it and stood up, sensing Leo stand too. He shifted his body, almost protectively, close to mine.
“Uh, what are you doing here?”

  “Stella told me you take your lunch in the gardens when the weather is nice.”

  Damn Stella.

  His glacial stare suddenly fixed on Leo.

  “Uh … this is my friend Leo. Leo this is my … this is Caleb.”

  Caleb’s nostrils flared at the introduction and I cursed myself for forgetting that I’d told him Leo was the guy I was going to date when I thought he wasn’t returning from Scotland.

  “Nice to meet you.” Leo stepped forward and stuck out his hand.

  Caleb stared at his hand like it was a piece of dung.

  I winced.

  Leo, however, cool as you please, just dropped his hand. “Or not.” He shrugged, like he didn’t care, and I decided I liked him all the more for it.

  “We need tae talk,” Caleb said. I knew it was directed at me, but he was still staring at Leo like he wanted to rip his head off.

  I shouldn’t have cared.

  But I did.

  I felt a smug, soothing satisfaction that I could still make him jealous. It meant he cared. And although it didn’t change what he’d done, it was a small kind of balm to my pain.

  “Leo.” I turned to my companion with an apologetic smile. “I should …” I gestured to Caleb. “But it was really nice to see you again.”

  “Let’s do lunch. Properly.” He leaned down to kiss my cheek and whispered so only I could hear, “Best bud.” When he pulled back, he winked at me and I knew that all he was asking for was friendship. However, he was deliberately provoking Caleb.

  I shook my head, biting back my nervous laughter at his mischievousness, and gave him a little wave as he walked away.

  Caleb’s gaze followed him and I swear he looked ready to stalk Leo and murder him.

  Ignoring the zing of dangerous thrill at being in his presence again, I started to walk away. “So talk.”

  “Where have you been?” he demanded as he caught up with me, grabbing hold of my arm to stop me on the bridge. A young girl passed us, giving us a quizzical look, and Caleb sighed, easing his hold on me.

  My arm tingled and I had to force myself from taking the last step that would bring us chest to chest. Instead I looked up into his face, feeling too many emotions—anger, grief, loss, love, hate—to choose one. Anger, however, autonomously decided to trump them all. I yanked my arm away. “Not that it is any of your business anymore, but I had to go to New York to meet a new client.”