by Dale Mayer
She said, “I’d like to head downtown. I want to experience and see everything I can. The sights, the smells, the noise—all of it. I doubt I’ll be back at least in the next decade. So, for the next couple days, I want to see, to breathe Baghdad and all that it means.”
He smiled. “In that case that’s what we’ll do.” He held out his hand and said, “Let’s go.”
Chapter 13
They spent some incredible hours as they walked through the main part of the old city. There was so much to see, to absorb. After they picked a spot with an open balcony to sit and have breakfast, they went to the Victory Arch. They then visited the aquarium, the park and places she couldn’t even name. She barely made the trip to another half-dozen tourist spots. She didn’t think she could lift her feet up one more flight of stairs nor do one more set of crowds. In a park she pointed to a set of benches. “I’m sitting down there, and I’m not moving again,” she announced.
And sure enough she sat down and relaxed. He laughed and said, “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the crowd. She wondered what he was up to but was too hot, too tired to really care. The temperature wasn’t bad, but, after taking pictures until her fingers were cramped, she realized just what a joy it was to spend a few days experiencing something so very foreign from what she normally did. She was contemplating what she might still have energy left to do when Ryder reappeared with huge ice creams. She gasped. “Oh, my God, they’re so huge.”
He grinned. “Not that bad.” He handed her one and said, “I might be able to finish yours when I’m done with mine.”
In the heat the ice cream melted rapidly. When she’d eaten as much as she could, she handed hers over to him and said, “I’m so full. It’s all yours.”
He snatched it from her fingers, and, in three bites, it was gone. She stared in amazement and started to laugh. “Your face is covered in ice cream.” She took one of the napkins and tried to wipe it away, but he was laughing too hard.
The glint in his eye told her she was in trouble. “Do you think your face looks any better than mine?” he said threateningly. “Because you are so wrong.” He held the back of her head with one hand as he scrubbed her face with the other. She shrieked with laughter and finally gave up fighting and just rested against his chest as he completed his ministrations. He held her close, dropping his chin to rest on the top of her head.
“It’s beautiful out here,” she whispered.
“Any place with you would be beautiful,” he said quietly.
She squeezed his chest and said, “I’m so happy to be here with you. You were the best part of my life before, and I missed you. I haven’t laughed this much in a long time.”
“As in several years by any chance?”
She tilted her head back, looked up at him and nodded. “Absolutely. All I did was cry for months.” She stared at the crowd that surrounded them. The sounds and the sights here were so much more foreign. But the crowds and the families were the same. Something was very comforting about that.
He hugged her gently. “I’m sorry you were crying.”
“I’m not. I needed to. I had a lot of stuff to get rid of. A lot to reassess. It took emotional energy, but it also meant releasing a lot of garbage. And, for women, crying is a great way to release all kinds of stuff,” she said with a half smile. “And, if it felt like it was a punishment I deserved, maybe it was something I needed to go through.”
When he didn’t say anything, she turned to peer at his face, and seeing the sadness, she winced. “I never did say I was a fast learner,” she said quietly. “As you remember, some subjects in school were really hard for me.”
“Like math, English and science …” he said way too fast for comfort, a lopsided grin on his face.
She sat up in shock. “There was nothing wrong with my math or my English or my science.”
He rolled his eyes. ”Don’t you remember trying to understand calculus?”
“Okay, so anything but calculus,” she snapped. “That’s not a math. That’s just made-up stuff. It makes no sense.”
“That was your take on it.” He groaned. “Calculus has a flood of applications in the real world.”
“Can’t possibly be.” She shook her head. “It’s all gobbledygook.”
He chuckled. “And what about trying to figure your own personal horsepower when you were in physics class? That was easy …”
She gasped. “I can’t believe you would bring that back up. That was what? Eleventh grade?”
“Hey, you’re the one who brought up not being a fast learner,” he said in a teasing voice.
She slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Once I got it though, you have to admit I got it.”
He tilted his head and said, “I’ll give you that. The trouble was, it took you forever to get it.”
“Only with things like calculus,” she protested but knew he was right.
“As I recall there were a few issues in English too.”
She groaned. “Any other English teacher and I would’ve been fine. But Mrs. Dragon …”
“It was Travon not Dragon,” he said, chuckling. “And she did love you so.”
Good-naturedly the two wrangled about school from decades ago. “I can’t believe you still remember all that stuff.”
“How could I forget?”
“I did fine in nursing school.”
“You did indeed,” he admitted. “Graduated top of your class.” He hugged her close. “And you’ve made an even better nurse. For that I’m really proud of you.”
Surprised, she turned to look at him. “Thank you. I really wanted to do something to help people.”
“It’s part of the reason why, after your tour’s up, you’re heading possibly to a small town?”
“Maybe. While I’m here, I’m busy. I’m active. I’m helping, but I’m not necessarily building relationships.”
“We’re back to that feeling of being rootless. As I recall, not having a family of your own was an issue at various points in your life.”
“I’m close with my adoptive family, so it’s more about not knowing where I came from. I feel like I need to put down my own roots. I was hoping maybe in a small town I could do that. Build relationships with people I’ll see more than a few months a year. Where I see people marry and have children and watch them grow up.”
“People still move away,” he pointed out. “Divorces still happen. People still die. And new people still come in.”
“True enough. But they also do it in smaller amounts. Because it is a smaller population.”
“Are you staying in California or moving somewhere else?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I think California. I’d like to stay close to San Diego.”
“Good, that means we can still see each other.”
She smiled. “And that’s one of the reasons I want to stay close. After I walked away, I wanted to head Back East. Spend a few years a long way away where I couldn’t be tempted to follow you around, trying to find the words to clear up all the misunderstandings and excuses for my behavior,” she admitted. “You should ask Mac about it sometime,” she said sadly. “Another aspect of my personality I’m really not fond of.”
He frowned and looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
She groaned and said, “If you get me a coffee, we can sit over there by the pond, and I’ll tell you.”
He hopped to his feet and held out his hand. She placed her fingers through his, and together they walked to the coffee stand. Iced coffee seemed to be the drink of the day. Drinks in hand, they walked to the pond as she thought about how to express what she needed to say.
“Once I figured out what was wrong with me,” she said, “why I did what I did, I needed to tell you. I kept thinking, if I could just call you and talk to you, that we would be fine again. And I did call, but, as soon as you answered, I hung up.”
Startled, he turned and stared at her. “Was t
hat about six months after our weekend together?”
She winced and nodded. “Yeah, it was. I think I must have called and hung up at least a dozen times.”
His jaw dropped as he stared at her. “You almost made me buy a new phone because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening.”
“Yeah, that was me,” she groaned. “I used a different phone because I was afraid you wouldn’t answer if you saw it was me.”
He stared at her in shock.
“You were always in my thoughts, and I wanted to fix things. But the right words wouldn’t come out. Every time I heard your voice, I clammed up.” She shrugged. “That went on for months.”
“All you had to do was arrange to meet me somewhere, and we could have talked face-to-face.”
“Exactly,” she said in a long-drawn-out voice. “Hence the next thing I did. I started to track you down and figure out where you might be. So I could follow you around and casually run into you and maybe set up a meeting that way.” At the look on his face she laughed. “I know it sounds silly now.”
“Hang on a minute. You were following me around, and I didn’t know it?” He shook his head. “Not possible. I’d have known.”
“Well, you might want to talk to Mac about that. It went on for a long time. When he found out, he told me it was really creepy, and I needed to stop.”
She watched as Ryder deflated in front of her. “I can’t believe it. Several times I felt somebody watching me. For a long time I basically put you in the back of my mind because it seemed like I was seeing your face everywhere. I mentally had to stop or go nuts. Chances were you were there in the background, but I never saw you.”
“That was probably around the same time,” she said. “I was trying to find you alone. Mac used to see me every once in a while.” She shrugged. “And he often ran interference between us. He wanted me to call you and just get it out. But every time he tried to make me contact you, I would refuse. The longer it went on, the worse it got.”
“Mac did that?”
“You told me that he was a good friend.” She shook her head. “You have no idea.”
“I got that much. But, when you arrived on his arm at the barbecue, I figured you had crossed the line from friends to a lot more,” he admitted. “That’s why I left when you showed up.”
“I begged him to bring me there. I wasn’t sleeping well. I wasn’t eating well. This was a month after Mac got me to stop stalking you everywhere.” She rolled her eyes. “And then I didn’t know what to do. I had no way to get a hold of you in person. So, when I found out you and Mac would be at this barbecue, I was desperate to go with him. He was fine with it until he realized I was hoping you’d be there. Then he didn’t want me to go.”
“Why not?”
She smiled at the surprise in his voice. “Because he figured that, with everybody around, it wasn’t the best place for me to see you again. And he was right, but I was being bullheaded and stupid and pressured him into it.” She sighed. “And you know the rest. Instead of letting me actually approach, you got up and left.”
“Because it was a knife to my heart. You had walked away from me, and the next time I see you is with one of my friends.” He shrugged and stared off in the distance. “That was an incredibly ugly day for me.”
“And then you were sent on a mission and then another one and another one, and I realized I’d lost my chance with you. And one of the few ways I could be close to you was to volunteer to be overseas where I knew you would be. Not that working to save our injured soldiers wasn’t important, because it was—and is—but I also had the potential to see you.”
He sat in shock, thinking. She worried when he remained quiet for so long. Finally he said, “And I thought you hadn’t given me a second thought.”
“And instead, I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” she admitted.
“Guilt?”
“Maybe a little but mostly fear. Some was a need for forgiveness,” she said quietly. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of what we had for so long being stomped on like that, and it was all my fault. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to fix it.”
“Talk to me about it?” he said simply. “That would’ve been the thing to do. And from day one, not putting it off like that for things to fester on both sides.”
“The longer it went on, the more stupid it got, and the more foolish I acted, and then I didn’t know what to do. When you walked out on me at the barbecue, I realized I didn’t have a hope in hell.”
He shook his head. “I would’ve met you for coffee any day in the last couple years, except for the day I saw you with Mac. I was so angry, so hurt, and suddenly aware of how much you had moved on in your life, and I hadn’t.”
She winced. “Well, there is a little bit more truth maybe you need to hear. I’ve gone out on several occasions since that weekend,” she admitted. “And every one of them with Mac. I have not gone to bed with anyone. I have not wanted to.”
He tugged her chin gently toward him, and he said, “Now that is the nicest thing I’ve heard yet.”
Tears welled up and slid down her cheeks.
“Oh, Caitlyn, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
She sobbed against his chest. “I’m so sorry. Oh, dear God, I am so sorry.”
They sat for over an hour just holding each other, letting the newfound peace between them heal what they hadn’t been able to heal themselves. As it started to darken, she looked up and said, “Can we go back to the hotel now please? I’m really tired.”
“Do you want to take a taxi?”
“No. I’d like to walk, have a hot shower and go to bed,” she said quietly. “All this emotional stuff is more exhausting than playing a tourist.”
He stood, and, with an arm over her shoulders, they walked back.
Her insides felt like they’d been stomped into the ground and then somebody else slowly rebuilt them. There was joy and a strange disconnect. So much had changed … “For all the pain we have been through, I’m really glad I’m here with you right now.” She cuddled up against his chest, her arms locked around his waist.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead and said, “I am too. I’m still struggling to understand how the girl I used to know is the woman I see before me now.”
In peaceful silence they strutted the last mile, arms around each other. The time together truly was a gift.
As they got closer to the hotel, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. “Honestly I’m too tired to eat. Besides we’ve been eating all day.”
He led her inside the hotel and took her to her room. She really wanted him to stay with her, but she was so exhausted that she didn’t know how to make that happen or if she should even try. He opened her door and waited until she walked inside. In typical Ryder fashion he did a quick search to make sure everything was okay; then he turned to look at her. “You’ll be okay here overnight?”
She nodded and smiled. “I will. I’ll shower and crash.” She hesitated. “Do you want to stay with me?”
He’d been in the act of walking to the door. But he stopped, studied her for a long moment and then said, “I want to, yes. But I don’t want to take that step because it caused so much trouble last time. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to hold you in my arms all night. Except I couldn’t leave it at that. I’ve wanted you for so long. You were my everything. And yet, you just went through boyfriend after boyfriend, then a marriage, and I kept thinking you would get there one day and see me as I really was. But you didn’t until that one weekend.”
Weary and emotional as she absorbed his words, she sat down on the bed, grimacing. “I guess our relationship was foreplay, building up to that weekend. I just didn’t realize that was happening.”
He chuckled. “Well, we’re back to being friends. It’s up to us if we want to move forward into something more. You had a hell of a day, and so did I for that matter. You need to sleep.”
�
�What are you going to do while I curl up in bed?”
He laughed. “I’ll have another talk with Mac.” And he closed the door behind him.
She sat on the bed for a long moment, thinking of all the things she’d said about Mac and realized she really needed to warn him. She pulled out her phone.
He answered immediately. “How did it go with Ryder?”
“It was special,” she admitted. “We talked and talked.”
“Is he there now?”
She knew what he was asking. “He’s on his way to you.”
Silence followed. “Me?”
“Yeah, I told him about the stalking. I told him about you running interference. I told him about me asking to go to the party with you.”
Mac started to laugh. “Wow, it must have been a hell of a good day for you to come clean. I admire you for doing that. That’s what a relationship should be about. Trust and honesty. Everything else can come later.”
And she knew that was his reference to his ex-girlfriend who’d cheated on him. When he’d found out, she had continued to deny it, believing she’d done such a good job of hiding it that he couldn’t possibly know the truth. She hadn’t wanted to let him go, and things had gotten ugly. “True enough. Now I’ll jump in the shower and wash off a very long day of playing tourist and breaking my heart wide open for Ryder to see so I can do it all over again tomorrow,” she said quietly. “Have a good night, and please tell him the truth so he can put himself back together again.”
“Oh, I’ll tell the truth all right, not that I have all the details,” Mac said in a gentle tone. “I wonder if it’s the truth as you see it. You always were too hard on yourself.”
He hung up before she had a chance to question, and instantly her energy drained. She got up and headed for the shower, getting through it, then readying for bed. After that she figured she’d run out of all the energy she had available.