Providence

by Jamie; Ginger Hunter McGuire

  It’s like I’ve been addicted to her, but I didn’t know it until tonight. As if I didn’t already have to be near her to protect her, now I just need to be near her. It’s infuriating.

  So now I’m here, watching her talk to Cynthia. I still don’t know what my problem is. For the first time, I was afraid that I would fail. And not just fail—that I would fail HER. Claire accuses me of being a perfectionist, maybe that’s what it is. Or maybe I just didn’t want to let her down. But why the hell should I care? She wouldn’t know either way. I don’t want her to die, but that should be obvious, right? She dies, I die.

  Maybe I just care. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing… for me to care about her. She’s a sweet girl. She’s kind to others. She’s intelligent. She’s comically stubborn. She does that cute tuck-her-hair-behind-her-ear thing when she’s nervous. She’s beautiful… unbelievably beautiful. Anyone with any sense would care about her…spending all this time around her, I guess it was inevitable. But this is more than just caring. If I wasn’t bleeding all over myself I would have grabbed her and…I don’t know. What am I thinking? She can’t know about me. Maybe that’s what I’m angry about. Maybe I want her to know I’m protecting her. I think a part of me wants her to know. She’s walking around her house and has no idea that I saved her life today. And that should bother me WHY? She shouldn’t know. She shouldn’t know that I protect her or that I care about her or that I think she’s beautiful. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous if I had feelings for her? But maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that.

  I think I’m in love with her.

  I looked up from the pages of Jared’s journal to see that he was watching for my reaction. I pulled myself up quickly and scrambled to kiss him. His mouth turned up into a smile as I pressed my lips against his, so I pulled back to look into his eyes. His expression was triumphant.

  I took in a deep breath to speak, but Jared’s face twisted into a frown. “Don’t say ‘aw’.”

  I shook my head quickly. “I wasn’t! I was most certainly not going to say ‘aw’. That was amazing, thank you.”

  “You should read the night of your sixteenth birthday. Or the day you graduated from high school. Or the night you went out with Philip Jacobs.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think I want to relive my sixteenth birthday. And I know I don’t want to relive the three hours with Philip Jacobs. Yech.”

  Jared smiled. “I could read it to you. And I’ll leave out the parts you don’t want to hear.”

  I leaned back against him, settling in to hear my life through Jared’s eyes.

  I was amazed at how much he loved me for so long, and how he fought the sometimes insufferable longing to speak to me. There were parts that were difficult to listen to, and parts that—if I had wanted to interrupt him, which I didn’t—I wanted him to go back and read again.

  He skipped to the entry he wrote the day of my high school graduation. He wrote how proud of me he was, and how beautiful I looked in my cap in gown. He spoke of how happy I felt and wondered where my college years would take us. Jared wrote a lot about being worried that once we gained distance between us and Gabe and Jack, that he would introduce himself.

  His eyes clouded over as he read to me his fears that I would fall in love with someone at college, and the unknown reaction he would have watching me be with someone in that way. I learned how devastated he was at the prospect that I would never know how much he loved me, and how he dreaded the day I got married and had children with someone else. Jared’s voice broke as he read the words.

  When he turned to the entry on the day that my father died, tears welled up in my eyes as he described watching Gabe fade away. Jared’s hand tangled in mine as he spoke of the moment he stood a few feet away from me, watching me sob on the bench. When the bus left the curb, the fight in him to stay away from me was gone. The tone of the pages changed significantly after that.

  Jared smiled as he cited the joy he felt every time he ran into me, the expressions and feelings I would have, and how it felt the first time I’d said his name.

  “Read what you wrote today,” I smiled.

  “I will later. The rain stopped,” he said, shutting the book.

  I looked up as I listened for the rain, but the only sounds were the intermittent dripping from the roof and the fronds of the palm trees, and the birds singing brightly just outside the cabin.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, sitting up and stretching.

  “Why don’t you show Cynthia around the village?”

  I smiled at his selfless suggestion, kissing him before I made my way to my mother’s cabin. She was drying her chair with a towel, a book in her other hand.

  “Hello, Dear,” she said. Her sunglasses moved up with her smile.

  “I was wondering if you’d like to go to the village with me. It’s really eclectic. I think you’d like it,” I said, resting my arms on the wooden railing.

  Cynthia sat in her chair and opened her book. I knew the answer before she’d given it.

  She smiled politely as she always did before she diplomatically turned down an offer. “I think I’ll just relax here, Nina. Why don’t you and Jared go exploring?”

  “We’ve been almost everywhere,” I shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

  Cynthia didn’t look up from her book. “I’m sure. Go have fun.”

  I clambered up the railing and leaned far over it to land a kiss on her cheek. She simply grinned and continued reading.

  Jared waited for me outside his cabin. “No dice, huh?” he said, opening his arms to hold me.

  “She’s never been this way. I don’t understand it,” I said, pressing my cheek against his chest.

  “She just misses Jack,” he reassured me. “What do you say we rent one of those cycles from the village and take a ride up the coast…try to find a village we haven’t seen, yet?”

  I smiled enthusiastically and nodded.

  Jared took turn after turn, indiscriminate of dirt or paved roads. A few huts came into view, and moments later we were in more of a town than a village. It looked like it might have been one of the more populated places on the island. Jared parked the bike and we walked along a cobble stone road. The buildings were less primitive than in the village we frequented.

  The sunlight began to wane when Jared squeezed my hand. “We should head back. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  I sighed, sad that another perfect day was over. Just as we turned around, a bell began to ring. I turned my attention in the direction of the beautiful tolling and noticed a group of people standing together on a street corner a block away, staring in the same direction.

  “Let’s go,” I said, tugging on Jared’s hand. “I want to see what all the commotion is about.”

  Half way down the road, a bright white chapel came into view. I gasped as I watched a newly married couple walk slowly down the steep rock steps to the small crowd that cheered, chanted and sang. Soon, they all began singing the same, happy song.

  The group followed the couple down the street, clapping and singing in unison. The bell tolled a few more times and, as if on purpose, rang one last time before the last of the joyful procession disappeared.

  I looked back to the chapel, hypnotized by its beauty. It stood taller than the other buildings with its meager two stories.

  “Do you want to look inside?” Jared asked, gently tugging on my hand.

  “I don’t think so. I just want to stay here.”

  “Okay,” Jared murmured, obviously curious at my emotions.

  I couldn’t explain it, but I felt a bit weepy. It was as if the building had spoken to me, asking me to stay a bit longer. Jared wrapped his arms around my middle, touching his lips to my hair. I felt the sweat bead on the skin of my back that pressed against his chest.

  “What is it?” Jared asked after several moments.

  “It’s just so beautiful,” I said, my voice breaking.
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  “No…there’s something….” he said, clearly confused by my mixed emotions.

  I leaned my head back against his chest. “We’re going to get married in this chapel.”

  “Right now?” Jared asked. I turned to scold him for mocking me, but he had a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

  My grimace instantly turned into an appreciative grin. “I’d like to come back here…when the time comes.”

  Jared’s irises glowed with the same azure blue as the sea. “I would travel to the ends of the earth to marry you.”

  He grazed the line of my jaw with his thumb and pressed his lips against mine. I melted against him. Jared’s grip tightened as he sensed my elation, and my imagination transformed my clothes into a white dress and Jared’s khaki shorts and t-shirt into a suit.

  “We’d better get back,” he said, looking up at the dark clouds rolling in from the horizon.

  I nodded, and he led me away from our chapel. I watched it as we walked down the block until it disappeared behind the palm trees.

  Friday morning came too soon, and Jared became the authoritative personality he transformed into when organizing the progression of our things from one point to another. Once in the air, Jared put his hand on mine.

  “You’ve been quiet all morning. You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t ready. It went by too fast,” I murmured, looking out the window of the plane.

  “We’ll take another vacation soon. The moment you finish your last final, I’ll have Robert take us to the airport and we’ll get on a plane…just you and me. Somewhere with air conditioning,” Jared promised, kissing my hand.

  I sighed and nodded. Even though the prospect was infinitely appealing, I couldn’t rise above the morose I felt.

  Jared lifted my chin to look into my eyes, appraising my mood for a moment. He seemed to deliberate something, finally pressing his lips together. “I was going to wait, but I think I should give this to you now,” he said, standing up to dig inside his duffle bag.

  He sat down beside me and placed a small woven box in my lap. “Open it,” he smiled.

  I pulled at the lid. Sitting on tiny shreds of palm fronds sat the ring I’d tried on in the village. A smile broke across my face.

  “You liked that one, right?”

  “I loved that one,” I said.

  The sadness from our departure intertwined with how touched I was that he somehow went back to the village and bought the ring without my knowledge. Tears formed rapidly in my eyes.

  Jared lifted the ring and held it between his fingers. My eyes darted from his hand to his eyes; he seemed nervous about something.

  “I have a request,” Jared said, smiling sheepishly.

  I raised an eyebrow. “A condition?”

  “No, no…just a request. Once I put this on your finger, I’d like for you not to take it off until I replace it.”

  My pessimism all but forgotten, I didn’t hesitate. “I promise.”

  “You don’t have to promise, it’s just a request,” he said, heartened by my reaction.

  “I promise,” I insisted.

  Jared beamed as he slipped the silver band on my left ring finger. It fit perfectly.

  “You had it sized?” I asked.

  His smile widened. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

  He laughed at me each time he caught me lifting up my fingers to stare at my left hand. I was still sad to say goodbye to our island, but knowing I had brought a piece of it with me made the trip home a bit easier.

  Once we landed, I stepped onto the wet tarmac and pulled my coat tightly around me. The bitter cold wind swirled around me, and I was glad when Jared offered his warm arms as insulation.

  “Why don’t you go ahead with Cynthia? You don’t have to stand in the cold with me,” Jared said.

  I began to argue, but I saw the clouds in his eyes. “What is it?”

  Jared’s brow fell inward, and I could see he didn’t want to tell me. Beyond Jared’s shoulder, a tall dark figure caught my eye.

  “Samuel?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said through his teeth. “It must be pressing, or he wouldn’t have come.”

  “I’ll meet you in the car.” I choked back the tears. We had barely touched the ground and already the harsh reality of our lives in Providence insisted we pay it attention like a spoiled child.

  “If you love him, you’ll have to accept that this is the way it will be,” Cynthia said apathetically.

  I watched Jared from inside the car. His expression was grave; it was not good news. He nodded once and walked towards the door Robert dutifully held open. Samuel was no longer there. He didn’t disappear, he didn’t fizzle out or his form blink from the space it occupied; he was there one moment, and then he wasn’t.

  Jared slid into the seat beside me. “You can go, now, Robert.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robert said, nodding in the mirror and then looking ahead.

  I watched Jared work to keep the tension from his face. I didn’t need supernatural perception to know what he was feeling. He had the same look on his face when he pulled the book from the safe. He was afraid.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Last Supper

  Jared instructed Robert to drive us to the loft, and then take my things to Brown. I noticed that he didn’t speak much on the way, but there was no point in trying to talk to him. Not with Cynthia sitting on the other side of me.

  When the car slid in next to the curb, I kissed my mother goodbye. Jared led me up the stairs with one hand, his duffle bag and luggage in the other. He put a few things away, and then trotted down the stairs.

  From the railing I watched him mill about. I wasn’t sure when reality would finally set in. His perfection was something only seen on the silver screen or a magazine cover, and yet he casually walked around just below me. He was thumbing through his mail until he paused to look up at me.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I?”

  “No, not necessarily, why?” His face was too relaxed, his features intentionally at ease.

  “You’re not going to tell me what Samuel said?”

  Jared smiled, seeming to ignore my question. “If you’re worried about your things, I had Robert take them to be laundered. We’ll pick them up later and swing by Andrews to get anything else you need.”

  “Jared…Samuel—,”

  “Lillian wants to meet you,” he interrupted.

  “She wants to meet me? But…I’ve met her,” I said, bewildered.

  “Nina, you haven’t been around her since you were a girl. And she wants to be properly introduced to my girlfriend, not to mention Bex has been dying to meet you. You’re sort of a celebrity at my house.”

  “A what?” I said dubiously.

  Jared laughed. “Imagine your father guarding the king, and your big brother, whom you idolize, guards the princess. You’ve never met either of them….wouldn’t you be excited to hear that a princess is coming to dinner? He’s eleven. He’s excited.”

  “Yes, Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Crime,” I grumbled.

  “Tomorrow night. She’s making pot roast.”

  “Ugh! You’re not fighting fair!”

  His face contorted from playful to concern. “You don’t want to meet my family?”

  “Of course I want to meet your family. It’s just that…being around your mother—who I desperately want to like me—and in the same room is Claire…who wishes me dead. It’s going to be awkward.”

  Jared smiled warmly. “It will be fine. Claire will be on her best behavior, I assure you. My mother is less forgiving about Claire’s attitude than I am. And you don’t have to worry about Lillian. She’s always loved you.”

  I nodded, wondering what I had ever done to deserve her kind regard.

  We set out on perfectly normal errands. He held me against his side while we waited for our developing film, and while walking the aisles o
f an antique store to find the perfect frame for our new picture. On the surface it appeared that our normal days on the island hadn’t ended, but Jared had purposely made it seem that way. He was hiding something.

  He seemed to have to work harder to hide his unease when he wrapped his arms around me for the night.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  I felt him tense. “I was hoping you’d let it go.”

  “Why? I thought truth was the cornerstone of our relationship? That was so important to you before Spring Break,” I pointed out.

  “It’s still important,” he sighed.

  “Then what is it? Why are you keeping what Samuel said from me?”

  He sighed. “Before we left you needed normal. While we were gone, we had normal. I want you to have that here, where we live. If that’s what you want then you should have it. We could live like Jack and Cynthia. She didn’t ask questions, he didn’t divulge information, and they made it work.” He pressed his lips against my hair. “Leave the details to me.”

  I considered that for a moment. “That’s what you want?”

  “I just want to make things easier on you.”

  I kissed his shoulder. “And when do things get easier on you?”

  “You’re safe in my arms. I’m not outside Andrews in my SUV listening to you talk about some guy you’re dating, wishing it was me. The fact that you know what I am and that we spend so much time together, my job is easier than it’s ever been. This will end soon, sweetheart. I just need you to trust me.”

  “Sweet potato fries?” I whispered into the darkness.

  Jared pulled me closer to him and kissed my neck. “Sweet potato fries.”

  Saturday morning I awoke to Jared standing beside the bed. He held out my buzzing cell phone and I took it, noting the unhappy look on his face.

  “Hello?”

  “Good mornin’, sunshine. How was your trip?” Ryan said.