The request seemed somehow inconsistent, but my body recognized what she’d asked of me, and I was no longer in a position to deny her anything.
Chapter Fifteen
I felt Jody’s absence the minute she slipped from my embrace, and I reached for her instinctively.
Catching her arm without even opening my eyes, I asked, “Where are you going?”
“I have to get ready for work.”
“Work?” The word didn’t make sense.
“It’s a school day.”
“We just fell asleep,” I mumbled, my body refusing to come fully awake even for this conversation.
“School starts whether I’m well rested or not.” She still lay warm and soft and close to me, but her voice conveyed none of those things. Finally, I forced my eyes open, squinting against even the faint light of dawn. She lay on her back beside me, the thin sheet doing little to hide the perfect shape of her body. Even in my exhaustion, she stirred a fire in me, one that might have given life to my aching limbs and bruised muscles if not for the ice in her eyes.
“Jody, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Why did women always say the word “nothing” in a way that suggested they meant “everything”?
I rolled onto my side and tentatively pushed a strand of hair from her face, savoring the silky, light texture. “Last night was amazing.”
The corners of her mouth quirked up.
“You’re amazing.”
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Be sweet and sexy and charming right now. It’s already hard enough to get out of bed this morning.”
“Then don’t.” I stroked her cheek with the back of my hand. “Call in sick.”
She sat up abruptly. “I have to go to work.”
“You really won’t stay with me?” I tried to tamp down the hurt in my voice, but her distance stung. I hadn’t expected a marriage proposal, but what we’d shared the night before had shaken me. How could she face this morning like any other school day?
“You won’t be here. You’re flying back to New York. You have a whole life to return to today, and I—” She finally turned and looked at me fully, pain crossing her beautifully delicate features. “All I have to cling to then is my work. So forgive me if I’m not eager to give up the one thing that might keep me sane when you’re gone.” She headed for the bathroom while I flopped back onto the bed.
I had a five o’clock flight out of St. Louis. After counting the hours, the weeks, maybe years of trying to get out of here, I was finally headed back to New York. I needed to go back. I couldn’t just abandon my life, my apartment, and the opportunities for my career. I liked New York. I liked my apartment. I liked the freedom to be whoever I wanted. I didn’t like the person I’d been there a few weeks ago, but if I wanted to test the changes I’d made, I needed to do so in my real life, and in the future, not clinging to the past or to Jody’s skirt. We’d shared an amazing night, but much like my time-traveling odyssey, how could I trust anything I couldn’t carry back into the real world?
Still, this morning didn’t have to be good-bye. Not the permanent kind. Why did Jody insist on putting a period where I wanted a comma? We didn’t need to end the exploration we’d begun. No, we’d done more than explore last night. I’d found all the important answers. She belonged in my future. What did the details matter? We could work them out along the way.
The bathroom door opened, and the woman I’d spent the night with was gone. Ms. Hadland stood in her place, her hair pinned up, her smile polite and professional, the perfect expression to complement her respectable skirt and sensible shoes.
“Jody,” I said, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed but refusing to drop the sheet, second-guessing the vulnerability I’d welcomed last night. “Can we please talk?”
“Of course. We can talk on the way back to Darlington, but not until you put some clothes on and have some coffee.” More distance. She wanted to expand the divide between us even as I tried to close it. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I listened to the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor as she walked away. The sinking feeling in my stomach was worse than the one I’d had when passing out. Part of me wished I’d lose consciousness now if only I could guarantee I’d get to relive last night in my dreams.
I showered quickly, trying to wash off the feeling I was losing the only thing I’d ever really needed to hold on to, but the ache in my muscles served as a constant reminder of how we’d claimed each other the night before. I wasn’t naive. I hadn’t thought making love meant we’d rent the U-Haul, but I hadn’t expected her to unceremoniously dismiss me. We had to find some sort of middle ground.
I exited the bathroom and found my clothes from last night folded neatly on the freshly made bed. I wanted to wreck it all. I wanted to rip the sheets off and throw the pillows to the floor. I didn’t want her to erase the evidence of my existence so easily when I carried her in every part of me. Instead, I bit my bottom lip to keep it from quivering while I roughly pulled on my jeans and Rory’s hoodie.
Jody met me at the front door. She held out a travel cup nervously as though it were a peace offering. “Half caf, part skim milk, right?”
I froze mid-step. “How did you know that?”
She shrugged. “You must have said something sometime.”
“We didn’t get coffee last night.”
“No.” She raised her eyebrows.
“We haven’t gotten coffee at all this week, or before I passed out.”
“I guess we haven’t. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
A now-familiar chill raised the hair on my neck. “We got coffee together in my dream. I ordered half calf, part skim, and we talked about what a coffee snob I am. It’s not a common order.”
Her lips parted, and for a second her eyes lightened within the dark circles of sleeplessness. Then she shook her head. “Maybe you told me that.”
“I didn’t, Jody. You know I didn’t.”
She opened the door, and I followed her across the porch. “This is a sign.”
“You’re grasping at straws, and I won’t join you.” She sighed. “I can’t do it. I can’t stretch for a reason to hold on while you walk away.”
“You’re the one walking away.”
She spun around fiercely. “Don’t pin this on me. Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up right here, right where I have every morning for ten years. Where will you be?”
“In New York, but—”
“But nothing. You’re doing what you have to do. Don’t you dare judge me for doing the same.”
“It doesn’t have to end this way,” I said halfheartedly. “We could find a compromise.”
“I don’t want to be your compromise.” She got in the car, and I followed reluctantly, the ache in my chest spreading into my limbs.
She pulled onto the county road leading toward Darlington as the sun broke free over the cornfields. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know you didn’t mean I was the compromise, but I also know that’s what we’d end up being to each other with nothing but miles between us. Maybe an established relationship could handle the strain of separation, but you’re still finding yourself, testing everything. You’re still not sure what you believe is real, and I don’t want to be one more piece of a puzzle you leave behind.”
“I could stay a few more days, try to figure a few things out.”
She took my hand. “A few days would only give you time to get into my system deeper. Then what?”
“Then we can talk on the phone. Get to know each other. Take things slow.”
She grinned a little bit. “I think the slow ship sailed the moment you took me up against my living-room wall.”
I sucked in a sharp breath at the memory of being on my knees in front of her, but she pressed on. “Could phone calls and e-mail be enough for either of us any more?
That doesn’t sound like a relationship. It sounds like a long good-bye.”
“Maybe,” I said, sadness settling into my core at the realization she was probably right. I thought about everything that had changed in the past two weeks. Who would I even be in three months?
“Then come with me,” I pleaded. “You said yourself, Drew is on your back. Your students have changed. Maybe it’s time for you to change too.”
“And you said I’m meant to be here, at least for now. I can’t leave my students in the middle of the year. What kind of message would that send if I gave in to a bully?”
“Okay, stay and finish the year, but then reevaluate.”
She didn’t reply as we pulled into Rory and Beth’s driveway.
“We can write old-fashioned love letters. It’ll be romantic. And it’s only three months. Then this summer you can come stay with me in New York for three months.”
“The three-month compromise,” she said sadly.
I didn’t want to compromise, but I didn’t want to let her go either. I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it gently. “I waited eleven years for you. What’s three more months?”
She shrugged and sighed. “Fine. Let’s just see how it goes.”
I should have felt better. It should have been a victory for the side of hope. Instead, it felt like a surrender to the inevitable.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing, right?”
The tears in her eyes suggested she wasn’t sure she agreed with my assessment, but she nodded anyway.
I took what little comfort I could find in this moment and kissed her softly, slowly, sadly. She returned the kiss in much the same fashion, without opening to me the way she had before. She was trying to guard our hearts, and I didn’t want to hurt her more, but I had nothing left to protect. She already had the best parts of me.
“I’ll call you tonight when I land, okay?”
She sat back, then gripped the steering wheel as if to keep herself from reaching for me again. “Travel safely.”
“I…I—” The next word stuck in my throat, the word I shouldn’t be ready to say, the word she didn’t want to hear, the word that would only make this harder on both of us. I swallowed it. “I will, thanks.”
I closed the door and jammed my hands in the pockets of my jeans. Clenched fists, clenched jaw, the muscles in my back rolled and rippled with the urge to chase her as she pulled away. I stood rooted like an oak tree to the open plains while the winds of pain and sadness swirled around me. I remained there long after her car faded on the endless Midwestern horizon. I stayed fixed to that spot of prairie even when I heard the porch door slam behind me and footsteps fall along the gravel driveway.
Rory clasped a hand on my shoulder and stood beside me in the silence for a few minutes before nudging me toward the house. “Come on, Dr. Who. Breakfast is ready.”
I smiled sadly and followed her inside. What else could I do?
*
“You ready to get home?” Beth asked as I dropped my bag by the front door.
Home. That ever-elusive concept. Was I ready for it? Maybe, but I wasn’t sure I was headed there by going back to New York. “I suppose so.”
She hesitated like she wanted to say something but didn’t know how, or if she should. Instead, she hugged me tight.
“Thank you for everything. I’ve been a pretty high-maintenance house guest, but you’ve been wonderful, and welcoming, and such a good listener.” I thought of sitting on the porch with her, both over the last few days and in my time travels. As I wondered how long it would be before I saw her again, her words came back to me. “I’d live every minute in present tense instead of always planning for some future I had no guarantee of.” A spike of dizziness rushed to my head, and I held her tighter to steady myself.
“Hey,” she said calmly, “you okay?”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “Just the past rushing up through the cracks again.”
Rory and Beth exchanged one of the glances that suggested they could communicate telepathically.
“I’m fine, really. I just remembered something Beth said in my dream.”
Beth teased me. “Was it very wise?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Good. I hope you listened.”
“I did.” I turned from her to Rory. “At least for a while.”
“How’d that work out for you?” Rory asked.
Images of Jody with her head thrown back in abandon flashed through my memory—the taste of wine on her lips, the warmth of her body pressing down on me. “It worked out…perfectly.”
They both smiled like they were already two steps ahead of me.
“Then I got scared and started looking for a middle ground. Shit.” Energy surged through me, fueled by a sense of purpose I hadn’t experienced since…“High school.”
“What about it?”
“Would you drive me to the high school instead of the airport?”
Rory pumped her fist triumphantly. “Yes!”
Beth kissed me on the cheek, then pushed us both out the door.
We flew through town with Rory pushing her Prius faster than any hybrid had the right to go until we skidded to a stop, throwing rocks across the school’s gravel lot.
We both jogged through the double doors, but as I rounded the corner into the main hallway, I collided with Drew Phillips. Damn. How did he manage to always be there when I most needed him to go away? Did he have some sixth sense for detecting gay people approaching his building?
“You two can’t be here,” he said sharply. “Distinguished alumni or not, this is school hours, and I’m the principal.”
“Stevie’s just here to pick up some paperwork from Jody,” Rory said quickly.
“Then you can wait here while I walk her up.”
Double damn it. I couldn’t say what I had to say with Drew listening. Even if I wasn’t afraid of him, Jody had good reason to be.
“Actually,” Rory interjected, “I wanted to talk to you while she runs up.”
“Make an appointment like everyone else,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Or maybe I should just go right to the school board with my idea for a gay-straight alliance at the high school,” she said nonchalantly.
It must have taken a second for the comment to sink in, but once it did, his neck turned a deep maroon, and the veins in his forehead stood out markedly. “A what?”
She grinned like a kid who’d been told she got to go to the candy store and the ice cream parlor in the same day.
“Why don’t you go on up, Stevie, while Drew and I step into his office.”
I didn’t wait for Drew’s explosion. I knew she’d keep him occupied for long enough, so I turned and jogged down the hallway. Taking the stairs two at a time, I was almost to the second floor when the bell rang. Students flooded the corridors, and I struggled against the crowd. The universe wasn’t making this journey any easier on me, but I no longer expected it to. Forging on through a sea of adolescents, I finally made it to Jody’s classroom before freezing in the doorway.
She had her back to me as she stared out the window. My heart lurched at the sight of her in profile. It was the same angle I’d enjoyed this morning in her bed, but this time she looked so stable, so stoic. She knew her place, she knew her role. This was her arena. Once again I felt like a bumbling teenager nervous and unworthy in the shadow of her gracefulness.
She turned and met my eyes with a sharp gasp. “God, Stevie. You startled me.”
“Sorry.” I grinned at the tiny thread to our past. “You were just so stunning standing here I forgot myself for a second.”
She blushed. “I was lost in my thoughts.”
“A penny for them?”
She glanced past me to the students still milling about in the hallway. “It’s my prep period. I need to go over my lesson plans.”
My hopes sank a little. She wouldn’t jump into my arms simply because I showed up. She needed
more from me. I needed to give her more, but the prospect of complete vulnerability caused me to tremble and hesitate, lost in fear once again. What if I couldn’t do it? What if the words I’d choked back this morning failed to come? What if I passed out again? Or even worse, what if I managed to say everything in my heart and Jody still rejected me? Sweat prickled my skin, and the blood whooshed through my ears.
Jody refused to throw me a line as she continued to cling to her own lifeboat. “The students are doing monologues this week, or monologue subtexts. I’m not sure if you remember that lesson—”
“I do,” I choked out. “I remember it twice.”
“Because it was doubly agonizing for you?”
“Yes, and for more reasons than you can ever know.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, you’ve made yourself clear. I believe you said exposing yourself on paper was nerve-racking enough and you could never lay yourself bare in front of any audience.”
Did she remember everything I’d ever said to her? No wonder she doubted my staying power.
“What are you doing here, Stevie?” she finally asked. “Saying good-bye once in one day hurt badly enough. If you stopped in to rip my heart out one more time, you’ve done that. Why are we still talking about subtexts and your fear of public exposure?”
“Because I have something to say to you.”
“I don’t think I can take any more discussion. Just seeing you is enough to wreck me. I still have one more class to teach today. I can’t give you any more of me if I’m going to survive. I need to be a teacher right now.”
“Okay.” An idea formed slowly in my mind. “Then don’t say anything. I’ll do a monologue.”
“A monologue?”
“Yes. You can sit there in the front row and listen. Grade me if you have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to audition for you.”
“You want to audition? For what? The high-school play?”
“No.” My heartbeat raced like a thundering herd of wild horses. “I’m hoping for a bigger role.”
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