The One That Got Away

by Jamie Sobrato

  Not now.

  Except she was.

  Swiping at her eyes, she hurried off toward the bathroom before Ginger could see what was happening. Once she’d locked herself into the cool little room, with its white tile floor and pale blue walls, she was aware that if she let any banshee sounds escape from her throat, they’d probably echo through the whole house, thanks to the acoustics in here.

  So she buried her face in the nearest towel and heaved a mighty sob. Grief, her mom had once said, was like getting caught in a whirlpool, and Izzy thought she finally understood what that meant.

  It wasn’t like going from one place to another. Like, now you’re sad, the next day you’re a little less sad, and a little less, and then finally one day you’re happy.

  Instead, you went around and around, feeling the same awful feelings again and again—better, worse, better, worse, worse, worse and worse still. Down, down, she went. Down the toilet.

  When the sobs had stopped racking her body, she was sitting on the floor. She could hear Lulu scratching at the door, trying to get in so she could do her tear-licking routine.

  A soft knock sounded.

  “Izzy?”

  It was Ginger.

  The last person she wanted to see.

  Or…maybe not.

  Maybe she wanted to see Ginger, who was living proof that someone could get through having her parents die before she grew up, right when they were supposed to be taking care of her. Ginger looked like she was okay, didn’t she?

  Izzy tried to shut her brain off to the bad feelings. She stared at the tiles on the floor, visually tracing the lines of white space between them as they made a zigzag pattern across the floor to the door.

  “Izzy?” Ginger knocked again softly. “Can I come in?”

  At least she knew not to ask stupid questions like, “Are you okay?”

  The answer was always no, no, no, of course she was not okay. But Ginger would know that, because she’d been through it.

  Maybe Marcus had been pretty smart, after all, bringing Izzy to Ginger’s house. Maybe he was trying to take care of her…or pawn her off on someone who knew what to do with her…

  She crawled across the bathroom floor and unlocked the door, then pulled it open before sitting back down on the towel. Lulu came barging in first and hopped on her lap, licking anything she could get her tongue on.

  Ginger came in and sat down next to her, but she didn’t say anything. She just sat there, silent, and Izzy felt some little frozen place in her chest crack open and start to thaw.

  MARCUS PARKED IN GINGER’S driveway, his rented truck loaded down with lumber. He loved the way his body felt after a day of physical labor. It reminded him of what a sedentary life writing could be. He usually balanced it by going on long runs, grueling day-long hikes, riding his mountain bike over tough terrain, but all the leisure activity in the world couldn’t equal a day of construction work.

  He was exhausted, and he loved it, and he hadn’t even gotten started on the real work of repairing the house yet.

  He climbed out of the truck and crossed the gravel driveway, admiring the simple, classic lines of the house as he approached. No wonder Ginger had fallen for the place in spite of its many obvious flaws. He was happy to be helping her out in this way, giving her a more solid home in exchange for the immeasurable help she was providing him and Izzy.

  He entered the house and went to the kitchen, where he was surprised to see the ingredients for making pizzas scattered about, yet no one was around.

  “Hello?” he called.

  Heading down the hallway, he glanced in each empty room until he found Ginger and Izzy sitting on the bathroom floor. His stomach tensed at the sudden notion that something was terribly wrong. Izzy’s face, red and puffy… She was crying.

  They both stared up at him, blinking in surprise at his arrival.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t.

  “We’re fine,” Ginger said quickly. “Just, you know, working through things.”

  Izzy stiffened visibly, pulling her knees to her chest and crossing her arms over them as she stared at the floor. Marcus wished for the hundredth time that he had even the slightest clue how to help her, what to say, what to do.

  So much for the sensitive male he’d always thought he was. All it took was a thirteen-year-old girl to unravel his self-image.

  “Did something happen?” he probed, grasping in vain for the right thing to say.

  Ginger shrugged. Izzy started shaking her head, but then her shoulders began to shudder and a mournful wail escaped her.

  “Ginger’s parents,” she managed to gasp between sobs, “died…in a car wreck.” Then she buried her face in the towel and collapsed in a despair so wretched it shook her entire body.

  Marcus gaped at the scene, frozen in terror.

  Okay, Ginger’s parents had died, what—twenty-something years ago? Hadn’t she made that clear to Izzy?

  He stared at Ginger, hoping she could make sense of things for him.

  She turned from him without missing a beat and directed her attention to comforting Izzy. “It’s okay,” she murmured as she smoothed the girl’s hair back from her face. “Just let it out. Let it out.”

  The sobs got louder, more mournful, as Izzy lay on the floor shuddering and shaking.

  Some part of Marcus split open, baring him to an unwelcome pain. He had felt affection for Izzy before, even the slightest bit of connection, a sense that she was his flesh and blood. But this…this was the first moment when he knew he loved her in a deep-down way that he’d never loved anyone before. And he couldn’t bear to see her suffer.

  The scent of the lavender bouquet on the bathroom counter teased his senses, and he realized he should be doing something besides standing there like an idiot. The bathroom was too small for him to wedge himself inside and get closer to his daughter. Besides, Ginger was doing a fine job of comforting her.

  He opted to kneel down next to Ginger so at least he wasn’t towering over them. He watched as her soothing hands and murmurs slowly calmed Izzy down from hysteria to quiet sniffles, and he wondered at the big, intense feelings that had been bottled up in such a slight body. How had she contained all that grief? And how much more was there for her to let out?

  Marcus couldn’t imagine.

  He turned his focus onto Ginger for a moment. Her long hair was swept back into a messy knot, her strong but feminine back only half covered by a halter top. At that moment she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes upon. And he was sure it wasn’t just intense gratitude coloring his vision.

  She turned to him, and he was struck all over again at how beautiful she was. Dear God. How had he never noticed this in college?

  “Could you bring her a glass of water and maybe a cool washcloth?”

  Marcus got up and retrieved a cloth from the basket on the counter, wet it with cold water and handed it to Ginger. Then he disappeared into the kitchen to get Izzy a drink.

  By the time he returned, Ginger was walking Izzy to her bedroom. She took the glass from him and continued on, so he followed behind them, feeling awkward and unnecessary.

  “She wants to lie down by herself for a bit,” she said to him when they reached the door.

  Lulu, who’d been in the bathroom next to Izzy, was now following at her heels down the hallway, and Izzy bent to scoop her up. She carried the dog to the bed and lay down next to her, the crying jag gone but the afternoon still evident on her blotchy face and in her slumped shoulders.

  She’d lost something bigger than Marcus could even conceive. She’d lost the one person in her life who’d taken care of her, and he couldn’t begin to imagine how he would fill the hole Lisette’s death had left.

  He couldn’t, but maybe Ginger could….

  Whoa.

  The moment the thought formed in his head, shame washed over him. She’d been a better friend to him than anyone else ever had, and he couldn’t ruin that with…with
whatever these weird feelings were.

  Ginger set the glass of water on the nightstand and placed the washcloth over Izzy’s eyes. “This will help with the puffiness. I’ll come back in a bit to check on you, but just give us a yell if you need anything, okay?”

  The way she took care of Izzy…it must have felt incredibly soothing to the girl. Marcus himself had longed for someone to care for him when he lay in the hospital after the shooting. Occasionally, a nurse would come on duty who had such warmth he felt truly comforted, but for most of them, it was just a job, of course. And he had no one but himself to blame for the fact that the only person who’d attended his bedside was a publicist he barely knew.

  As Ginger left the room, he gave her a questioning look. Should he go in? Do something?

  She took him by the arm and led him out, then closed the door partway.

  Once they were in the kitchen, she turned up the African music playing on her iPod speakers, and leaned in close.

  “Let’s just give her a little space, and then you can go in if you want to, in a while. But I think she probably just needs quiet right now.”

  “What set her off?”

  “I talked to her about how I’d lost my parents as a kid. I think it brought up a lot of feelings that are just too painful for her.”

  Ginger began spreading tomato sauce on the pizza crusts.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Shred cheese?” She nodded at a hunk of mozzarella and a shredder sitting on the counter.

  Marcus got to work, but he kept his attention focused more on Ginger than the task at hand. “You never talked about your parents’ death in college.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Just that one time.”

  She let out a short laugh, but it sounded hollow.

  “The whiskey shots.”

  “Truth or dare.”

  “God, I can’t believe we did that,” she said, shaking her head, a half smile playing on her lips.

  “Truth—what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” That was what he’d asked her, expecting to hear the kind of answer most people gave. “When my grandmother died,” or “When I couldn’t swim and my dad threw me in the lake.” Not “Being woken up by the babysitter…the police at the front door…both parents killed…drunk driver…”

  The image of that scene was forever burned in Marcus’s memory even though he hadn’t witnessed it. He could imagine Ginger as a girl, groggy from sleep, stunned out of innocence forever.

  Or he could almost imagine. Because he’d never gotten close enough to anyone to experience such loss. Even his father’s death didn’t measure up, because they’d always had a turbulent relationship, and his dad had been so depressed for so many years that he’d already been partly dead to Marcus when it finally happened.

  How pathetic that the first huge loss he’d felt was when he’d almost lost his own life last month. How very self-centered.

  “I didn’t talk to people about it, period. I just couldn’t. Not back then.”

  “You avoided me for a week after you told me,” he reminded her. He hadn’t had a clue what to do back them.

  “You never asked me about it again, though. I was relieved.”

  “I guess I got the hint that it wasn’t a welcome subject.”

  And, of course, it had felt way too intimate, too close for comfort, all that revealing the deepest secrets of their hearts.

  “You were the only person at school who knew.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I can talk about it. I tell people if they ask. I don’t tell them my parents are living in Australia or anything like that.”

  Marcus remembered that had been her old standby line to keep from having to answer painful questions about her parents.

  “What do you think changed to make it easier for you?”

  “Years of intensive therapy.”

  “Oh, yeah, that helps.” He’d had a little therapy himself over the years.

  “I was so confused after my last boyfriend and I split up, I had to try to understand what went wrong. It felt like the same things were always going wrong with me and men.”

  She had finished with the tomato sauce and was sautéing chopped vegetables in a skillet as she talked. Marcus had a pile of cheese that looked like enough to cover two pizzas, so he stopped and leaned against the counter to watch her cook.

  “I still find it hard to believe you have any trouble with men.”

  She sighed. “I’m done trying to find Mr. Right. I think I want a kid more than I want a partner, you know?”

  “I’m here to tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, half joking and half serious.

  “Give it a few months. You’ll adjust, I bet.”

  “Have you thought about going the sperm donor route?”

  “Yes, but I still wish…I don’t know. I guess I have all these ideals when it comes to having a child, adopting a child, whatever. Some part of me isn’t ready to just give in and head down to the sperm bank.”

  “Good,” Marcus blurted.

  What on earth was he doing?

  She said nothing.

  “Maybe you’ll find another partner,” he suggested. “That would make it easier.”

  Where the hell was he going with this?

  He was trying to picture himself in that role. That’s what he was doing.

  She still said nothing in response.

  “So what did you figure out in therapy?”

  She looked up from the skillet and met his gaze for a moment, then turned away again. “I figured out that I avoid intimacy to keep from having to experience another big loss in my life.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “And I figured out that I hold every guy up to an impossible standard.”

  “What standard is that?”

  “The standard of my idealized version of the perfect man—the perfect love.”

  Marcus’s chest went tight. He frowned, trying to make sense of her words. “What do you mean?”

  She half sighed, half laughed, shaking her head. Then she stopped and looked at him. “You never had a clue. You really didn’t have a clue, did you?”

  He was genuinely lost here. “About what?”

  “The fact that I was in love with you all through college.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE TIGHTNESS IN Marcus’s chest moved up to his throat, and he sputtered, unable to speak.

  “What?” he finally managed to croak.

  Ginger almost looked bemused. “I was secretly pining after you all that time. I never had the guts to tell you how I felt, because I knew you didn’t feel the same.”

  “Ginger, I…I never knew.”

  His thoughts became a senseless swirl. Did this mean they might have a chance at— At what? What did he want? He panicked at every idea that formed in his head. Ginger had loved him back then? What about now? What did she feel now?

  And what about their priceless friendship?

  Looking self-conscious, she turned off the burner on the stove and drained the excess water from the pan. The onions, peppers and mushrooms were nicely browned, beginning to caramelize. She set the pan aside on the stove and took a deep breath.

  “I finally figured out that I had fallen for you partly because you were so inaccessible to me. I knew you wouldn’t return my feelings, and I knew I could keep you close but not too close. And then for years after, I used those feelings as a barrier to prevent me from getting close to anyone else.”

  “Wow,” he whispered. How had he missed all of this back at school?

  “No one else could measure up to a fantasy love that didn’t really exist. I mean, I could make you as perfect a lover as I wanted, since you weren’t around to upset my fantasies with reality.”

  “I wish I’d known. I’m sorry I was so…dense.”

  But was he? a little voice nagged in the back of his mind.

  Was he sorry, or relieved? He
would never have stuck around as a friend if he’d known how she felt. He’d have run, just as he did from every other woman who’d ever loved him.

  “It’s better that you didn’t know, don’t you think?” she said, a wry smile playing on her lips.

  What did he say to that?

  “Anyway,” she continued. “I’m only telling you all this to get it out in the open. I’m in a much better place now, and I value our friendship far too much to mess it up with any weirdness.”

  “I, uh, I appreciate your telling me all this.”

  But the feeling growing inside him…he didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t good, though. Not good at all.

  “When I heard you’d been shot, I knew I needed to see you again and reestablish our friendship. But I also had the selfish need to set things right between us so that I could move on with my life and maybe eventually have a healthy, romantic relationship with someone.”

  “You mean without having to compare them to me?”

  “To my idealized version of you, right.”

  He forced a smile. “Happy to oblige. I can behave like a bigger jerk if that helps.”

  “No, no, your normal level of jerklike behavior will suffice,” she said, not a hint of joking in her tone.

  Then she looked up and caught his hurt expression.

  “Kidding! I’m kidding,” she said, laughing. “I swear.”

  He laughed along with her, but he felt as if she’d just smacked him in the head with that skillet she was holding.

  If he valued their friendship so damn much, why had he kissed her on his first night in Promise? And why did it feel like a loss to hear she was ready to move on and be nothing but friends?

  GINGER WATCHED THROUGH the door for a moment as Marcus sat on the edge of Izzy’s bed and talked to her. She didn’t want to intrude on them, though, so she slipped quietly down the hallway and into the kitchen.

  A half-empty bottle of merlot sat on the kitchen table. She grabbed it, along with her empty wineglass, and went out on the back deck.

  The sun was setting, and it was almost dark. The air had taken on the first hint of an early evening chill, but the day had been hot, and was still warm enough for her to sit for a while without needing a jacket. Crickets chirped in the growing darkness, lulling Ginger into a meditative state.