“What happened?” She looked at me and then narrowed her eyes at Xavier.
“I didn’t win the competition,” I said, trying to hold fresh tears back.
She then closed the space between us, enveloping me in her arms. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”
Before I knew it, there was another pair of arms on me. Jade had joined the group hug. Once they let me go, I breathed a heavy sigh. I had only hours left with Xavier, and I refused to let this ruin what little time we had.
“How was last night?” I asked Lana, wiping the last tear to escape.
“Fucking fantastic.” She glided to her bottom bunk and flopped into it. “Literally.”
Her happiness was infectious, and a smile pulled at my lips. Even though it was just a whisper of one, it was more than I thought I would get that morning. I walked over to Jade, who was folding clothes on her bottom bunk, getting ready for our departure. “Thanks for last night.”
“Of course,” she said back.
“How was your night?” I fought the guilt that she had gone out even though she hated it.
Jade poked the tanned hand hanging from the top bunk. “We painted the town red, didn’t we?”
Her question was answered by the guttural groan of one of our Israeli roommates who had way too much to drink the night before.
“What time are we leaving?” I wanted so badly to suggest that we stay another day, but Jade wanted to get moving. I had asked too much of her already.
“After lunch,” she said stuffing the folded clothes in her backpack. “Hear that, Lana?”
“Uhhh huhhhh,” Lana hummed back with a big smile on her face, no doubt playing back the montage of last night’s antics with Leo.
Once showered and dressed, Xavier and I walked to the natural hot spring about twenty minutes away. After he helped me into the boiling water of the pool next to the river, we slowly sank into it, letting our skin adjust to the heat. I wrapped myself around him, and we barely spoke as he held me, the word failure still ringing in my head.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I told him, finally breaking the silence.
“I miss you already,” he said.
I held him tighter, and my head spun at the speed and strength of how attached we had become to each other. We barely knew each other, and he flew thousands of miles, putting himself through such an ordeal to find me. And as I was about to say goodbye to him, it felt as if we had been lovers for years, not days. But there was something that didn’t sit right. There was nothing special about me. I was your average, run of the mill, idealistic, twenty-something of no exceptional beauty or talent. The email I received that morning drove the latter point home.
So what was it that he saw in me?
Once our fingers began to prune we walked back to the hostel and I packed up my stuff. As he loaded my backpack into the trunk, and when Lana took the seat behind the wheel with Jade sitting shotgun, I decided to ask, “Why do you like me so much?”
Before he answered, he held my face and gave me the most devastating kiss of my life.
“You’re amazing. You’re strong and vulnerable. You have passion in your life.”
I knew he meant my photography and without thinking, I shook my head.
“Don’t measure your worth based on some competition. Harper, you inspire me. When we met, I could barely get a word out. You saw my writing, it was terrible. But the lyrics I’m writing now…You have to read them.”
And there was the kicker. I stepped back as the wind left my lungs.
“You’re using me for inspiration?”
First my job, then Miles, and now him?
“No.” He reached for my hands, but I pulled them out of reach and gripped the handle of the back door. “Harper, no, that’s not what I mean.”
I slid into the backseat and slammed the door shut. I knew it was too good to be true. Xavier knocked on the glass.
“Don’t you see, you’re my muse?” he said with both hands splayed against the window.
It wasn’t that he cared so deeply for me — it was what I could do for him. Or more specifically, what I could do for his music. And the sex was the icing on the cake. After Miles, I refused to let anyone else use me without my consent.
I met eyes with Lana in the rear-view mirror. “Drive,” I ordered, keeping my eyes straight ahead. I had to get out of there. I had to get away from him.
“Harper, are you sure you want to —”
Before she could finish I repeated my command. “Drive…please.”
***
Date: May 14, 2010
Rotorua, New Zealand
I pulled the neck of my shirt over my nose to block out the sulphur smell and raised my camera. Peering through the viewfinder, I tried to line up a shot of the bubbling volcanic mud pool. We had passed into Hell’s Gate that morning, but I felt as if I had been in hell since we left Taupo the day before. After leaving Xavier’s figure shrinking into the distance, I told the girls what he said, and when they both began playing devils’ advocate I asked to not talk about it. I didn’t want to think about him, or how we left things. Everything had been so perfect up until the revelation. I hoped that I could distract myself from thinking about Xavier by throwing myself into my photography, but after losing the competition, I felt like what was the point of it? I was going home in two weeks and would have to save my money just to get back on my own two feet again. It would be years before I could save enough to travel out of Ontario again. I know I could drive the area, but how could I call myself a travel photographer if my book was full of images from home?
“Excuse me,” a voice woke me from my daydreams. I looked up from the bubbling mud to see a man and a woman. “Would you mind taking a photograph of us, please? We’re on our honeymoon.”
I nodded and lowered my camera so it was hanging around my neck. I took the small silver Canon point-and-shoot from him and stepped back to frame them with the blue sky, and green hills on either side in the distance. They stood in front of the wooden railing with a large rust-coloured pond behind them. As the lens focused, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer. As I pressed the shutter, a plume of acidic water shot from the pond, startling them. I kept snapping as they jumped and screamed and then fell into each other laughing. They repositioned, and we got the posed shot. Handing the camera back to him, he took a moment to flick through the playback.
“These are great,” he said showing the comical series of shots to me.
“Wait, scroll back,” his wife said. He skipped back three shots, and she said, “That one. That’s the one.”
It was a moment of them, looking at each other with a spark in their eyes reserved for lovers.
“These are better than our wedding photos,” he said. “You could do this for a living.”
I laughed and replied, “Maybe one day,” before saying goodbye.
That image remained burned in my memory and reminded me of why I loved photography. And reminded me that even though I didn’t win the competition, I still had a voice. And there were options in the photography world other than travel photography.
Feeling ever so slightly better, I decided that I had to make the most of what I could while I was still out of the country. I had gained nearly a thousand followers on my Facebook page and received hits from around the world on my Flickr and blog, so I felt I needed to keep it going. And despite my disappointment, I knew I wouldn’t feel this way forever. That was the thing about bad times, as I learned with my battle with grief and depression: they’re like a tunnel, and you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, trudging through the darkness with the faith that there is a light out there somewhere, and one day, with some work, you’ll come out on the other side stronger, more mature, having learned lessons to take forward for when you face the next tunnel.
I had to honour my feelings while at the same time practicing gratitude. Each night in Mumbai, hundreds of thousands of homeless beggars find their beds on the cold
concrete of the city sidewalks — I, at least had a home to return to. And a loving one at that. In Cambodia, landmine victims make the most they can of their lives after losing limbs, feeling lucky to have survived at all — and I had my health and all limbs intact. And with each happy ending joke made, there is a prostitute in Thailand who has to give sexual favours just to feed herself. I had options and the world’s oldest profession would never be one of them.
I knew I always had so much to be grateful for, but after this experience, for which I was also grateful, my eyes were opened to the potential fates I could have been born into. Though, as I had learned in grief counseling, we are all allowed to experience our emotions as they come and we can’t shame ourselves, or others, with the knowledge that others have it worse, but as I keep walking through this tunnel, their stories remind me that the light is out there. And when I acknowledged it, I could see a pin-prick of light in the distance, and they reminded me to keep walking, inspired by the strength of each person I met in a less fortunate situation who held happiness in their hearts. If they could do it, I could, too.
***
Date: May 16, 2010
Waitomo, New Zealand
After two days in Rotorua, Jade took the wheel and with Lana riding shotgun we headed west to Waitomo to see the glowworm caves.
“What’s next for you guys after this?” I asked, trying to ignore the handprint on the window that I had left on my night with Xavier.
“I think I’m going to work as a yoga instructor back home,” Jade said, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. Her tone then turned serious. “I have something to tell you guys.”
“Uh huh…”
“My name is Jade Robinson, and I am a hippy.”
Lana and I gasped in mock horror.
“I had my suspicions,” Lana said, rubbing her shoulder. “How do you feel about this revelation?”
Jade swatted her hand away. “I always knew, but I just didn’t want to be like my parents, they’re just so weird. But I can be a different kind of hippy, a mainstream one.”
It turned out that once Jade stopped trying to fight who she was, she found what she was looking for: herself.
“Oh,” she added, “I’m going to quit smoking too.”
Lana and I cheered and clapped.
“Well,” Lana said turning around to look back at me, “I think I’m going to go back and finish school. I’m going to get a business degree.”
“That’s great!” I reached out for a high five.
“Yah, maybe I’ll go for my MBA afterwards; I hear debt’s the new black,” she deadpanned.
Turns out the failed yogawear business led Lana to realize that she had a keen mind for business. I was so happy that they both had futures that they were excited about. Maybe my failure was directing me to something better, too.
***
After being strapped into rock-climbing harnesses and rubber boots, Jade, Lana, and I took turns abseiling on a rope and pulley system into a dark gorge. Trudging through freezing the freezing water of an underground stream, we followed our guide into a network of caverns. Thousands of iridescent glowing strands hung from the ceiling, and though we were deep under the earth’s surface, it looked as if we were standing under a brilliant night sky. I couldn’t fight how romantic it felt. And when my toes were numb, frozen from the cave water, I wished someone were there to rub them and warm them. There was one person I could think of, but I was still too mad to talk to him. And the more I thought of him, the angrier I was that I missed him.
***
Date: May 18, 2010
Bay of Islands, New Zealand
I had avoided the Internet since leaving Taupo and the morning after checking into our hostel in the Bay of Islands, I decided to give in and see what, if any, messages were waiting for me. Part of me wished that Xavier would forget about me and find someone else to be his muse, but the other part hoped that there would be a message from him. I couldn’t understand why I cared for him so much and hated him at the same time. I hated most that I couldn’t just get a grip on my feelings and feel one way about him.
Nerves overcame me, and instead of checking Facebook first, I looked at a celebrity gossip site, and then my email. I had three unread emails from Meghan, my former boss’s assistant, the subject title read “job opportunity.” I pressed my face into my hands. I would have to accept the reality that I would have to go home and rejoin the real world. But I left the emails unread, deciding to deal with the real world when I was back in it.
I sucked in a breath when I saw the Facebook notifications blinking with two messages from Xavier Northam:
May 14
The taste of your lips sent me high,
But this addict is now in withdrawal,
The further you run, the closer I need to be,
Each moment we spent I wish were an eternity.
May 15
If only for a second, you were in my arms,
I could hold you close and inhale your scent,
I’d take you to ecstasy and kiss your skin,
Committing sins I would never repent.
These were the lyrics he was talking about. I checked the time and closed the browser without responding. I didn’t know how to respond; I could barely string together an email let alone a response to poetry. I didn’t know what to say. So many emotions flooded my mind. I was scared, still afraid of being hurt, scared of doing something that hurt him, but mostly afraid of the heartbreak of having to walk away from him after getting even more attached to him in Fiji. If I missed him now, I couldn’t imagine how the finality would feel to leave him in Fiji.
***
The next morning, we booked a tour to the northernmost tip of New Zealand, Cape Reinga, and Ninety-Mile Beach. A bus picked us up from the hostel, and we drove through the warm northern countryside next to the meandering cost, the cobalt blue bay dotted with emerald green islands to the beach that stretched past the horizon and mountainous sand dunes. As we drove, Xavier’s lyrics rang in my consciousness. I could practically see his perfect mouth as he sung it, and hear his raspy growl, and feel his voice shaking the innermost parts of me.
After dinner that evening I opened my laptop again to read the poems, and another message was waiting:
May 19
You have my heart
You’ve seen my soul
I’ve shared your bed but I need more,
My Beautiful Runaway, please stay.
And the next day when I was uploading photos to my blog after spending the afternoon on a boat bay spotting wild dolphins in the bay another message notification popped up:
May 20
My sails are full, my soul is empty,
A void I never knew was there
If you could stand for just a moment,
I could show you my soul laid bare.
***
Date: May 20, 2010
Auckland, New Zealand
I hadn’t heard from Xavier since leaving from Bay of Islands and arriving in Auckland, our final destination in New Zealand. As we wandered the city streets, stocking up with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from Mrs. Higgins Cookies, and staring across the city towards the green hills and blue water bay on the horizon, I worried that Xavier had given up on me. I hadn’t responded to a single message, and he would have been forgiven to think I had given up on him.
After packing up on the day we were due to leave for Fiji, I checked my messages and my core melted as Xavier finished the song:
May 22
You may be carried by the wind,
But I’d cross oceans and deserts,
Following you to the Earth’s end,
Its four corners can’t contain my love within.
You have my heart,
You’ve seen my soul,
I’ve shared your bed, but I need more,
My Beautiful Runaway, please stay.
Guilt twisted as I truly realized the extent of my overreaction in Taupo. Xavier was
nothing like Miles, who used me to comfort his solitude. Xavier was nothing like my boss who used me for my ideas. The lyrics Xavier wrote were about his feelings for me. He truly did care about me in spite of what a total nutjob I had behaved towards him. I was embarrassed by how I had acted, and I was scared that he might wake up and not want me anymore, favouring someone more level headed instead. Certainly, if I was his friend, I’d tell him to forget about that crazy older girl who flips between hot and cold more times than a Canadian summer. And then it hit me…
Wait, did he say, “love”?
I reread the stanza, and then stared at the word. Was this love in the general sense like I’d tell the girls I loved them? Or was this Love with a capital L. Was he in love with me?
There was a final message: Please check your email.
I felt lightheaded and struggled to control my fingers as I pulled up a new browser and logged into the email account listed on my Facebook profile. The email contained an audio file attachment. Pulling the Skype headphones that were plugged into the tower onto my ears, I double-clicked on it. Windows Media Player opened, and Xavier’s voice rumbled through the headphones:
Harper, I wanted to tell you in person, but this is the best I can do. You inspire me, for who you are, for the reasons I told you back in Taupo: you’re passionate and vulnerable and strong. You inspire me to do better. But what inspires my writing is what I feel for you. My love for you is what smashed my writer’s block. I know we barely know each other, but I fell for you the moment I laid eyes on you. We live a lifestyle where we have to make quick decisions and follow our instincts. I can’t explain it, but something, like a voice, kept telling me to go after you. And each moment we spent together, I fell deeper and deeper for you. We come from different worlds, and we’ll only have two nights together, but I’m not ready to let you go. The pain of watching you leave me at the end of those two nights rips my heart out, but there is no greater pain than regret. And I would regret it forever if I didn’t see you one last time. Please, please, come to Fiji. I’ll be on Malolo Island. Bure 5.
Je t’aime, mon étoile.
Runaways Page 29