Runaways

by Rachel Sawden

  ***

  We barely spoke on my last morning in Malolo. Up until then, we spent each moment basking in the denial that I had to go home. After drying off from our last shower, we dressed, and he took me by the hand through the sliding glass doors saying, “I want to show you something.”

  I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun, and he led me through the bushes behind the bure and to the threshold of the resort property. Reaching into his board short pockets, he pulled out a small padlock and unlocked it.

  “In Paris there is a bridge known as the Love Lock Bridge. Lovers from around the world write their names on the locks and secure them to the bridge with the intention that no matter what happens to them, what they shared still exists somewhere.”

  He pulled a permanent marker out from his pocket and wrote our initials on the lock, drawing a heart around them. Then he attached it to the chicken wire fence and locked it. Tears pricked my eyes as I bit back the thoughts of how unfair it was to finally feel this way, and have it end so quickly.

  “Hold out your wrist,” he said.

  Not sure which one he meant, I held them both out. He took the clasp of the bracelet he had given me in Goa between his fingers and released it. From his pocket, he pulled out, and held up, a small key and strung it on the bracelet. With a barely audible clink, it hit the Ohm charm. He then closed the clasp around my wrist, and I felt hot tears pooling in my eyes.

  “What we shared will always be,” he said taking out a length of string and stringing an identical key on it, tying it around his neck.

  When he dropped his hands, I reached up, taking a fistful of his hair and pulled his lips to mine, wishing the moment could last forever. As he sucked on my bottom lip, I lost control of my tears.

  He enveloped me in his arms and held me steady as I cried into his chest. “There’s no way you can stay?”

  I shook my head and looked up. “If there were a way, I would not be getting on that plane tonight. I can’t change my flights, I have no more money left.”

  Regret set in as I thought of the unnecessary expenses I had made along the way — the SCUBA certification, the dress for my date with Miles, the sailing and camping excursions, bribing the cops in Pushkar, and I still had to pay the girls back for Triple-A and the cost of them having to buy new plane tickets. Had I been a little smarter with spending I could have stayed an extra week or so. I was just so sure that I would walk away with the prize from the Awesome Adventures competition. How stupid could I have been?

  “I wish I had the money so you could stay with me,” he said, squeezing me tighter. “The resort is paying me in accommodation and food and I only have enough savings to get myself to my next paying gig.”

  I looked up at him and forced a smile, “C’est la vie.” As he let me go, I glanced at my watch. “The ferry arrives any minute.”

  He pressed his fingers to his eyes for a moment, then interlaced his fingers with mine and led me back towards the bure. He carried my backpack to the pier while I took my daypack. As we stepped onto the wooden paneling, the ferry was docking, the welcome band played, and once my backpack was secured on the boat we kissed until the captain threatened to leave me behind.

  “Please don’t forget me,” I said as I looked up at him from the bow.

  “I never could,” he said with a slight smile.

  The engine sputtered, and we kept eye contact until I could no longer make out the features of his face. I kept my gaze fixed on his body as he shrank to a speck in the distance, clasping the key that hung around my wrist, and kept staring long after the island had disappeared, my heart tearing with each passing moment.

  I barely noticed when the boat pushed itself upon the beach on the mainland. Once my feet touched the sand, reality set in, and my heart shattered.

  I took my bags and trudged up the beach towards the guesthouse, finding Jade and Lana on a row of beach chairs. When they saw me, they placed their cocktails on the small plastic tables between them and ran over. Jade took my daypack and paused, resting her hands on my shoulders. She pressed her lips together, sighed, and pulled me in for a hug. When she released me, Lana swung her arms around my neck. I then followed them to the chairs.

  “How was it?” Jade asked as she lay back.

  I inhaled a deep breath and tried to put together the words as they caught in my throat. “It was perfect.”

  But as the words came out, so did a stream of tears. Pressing my hands into my face I repeated to myself: I am grateful for these past months, I am grateful for the support of my family, I am grateful for the most wonderful friends I could ever ask for, and I am grateful that you brought Xavier into my life even though it hurts like hell to leave him.

  “So what’s next for you?” Lana asked.

  I paused and stared off across the sea. “Move back in with my parents and start all over again. My dad lined me up with an internship ad his friend’s advertising agency.” At first, I felt a pang of rage as my bubble of denial popped, but I thought of that speck of light at the end of the tunnel. It was out there somewhere. “I’m not going to give up on my photography. I’m going to keep learning, keep practicing. Maybe one day I can branch out on my own.”

  “Good for you,” Lana said, and Jade nodded in agreement. “Don’t give up on your dreams, this was your first stab at it and no one makes it on their first try.”

  She was right. Just because I had failed once didn’t mean I would never succeed.

  All is well.

  We still had about twenty minutes before the taxi was due to pick us up, so to keep my mind off of the crushing disappointment of leaving, I took my daypack to the guesthouse patio bar and asked if they had Wi-Fi. After being given the password, I sat on a barstool with a fresh bottle of water and pulled out my computer. After checking my Facebook, unable to re-read Xavier’s messages, I scanned the news, and then a celebrity gossip site before checking my email. The email from my former work colleague, Meghan, was still waiting for me. I was heading back to the real world, and so I decided that it was best to get started on reintegrating into it as soon as I could. Four more unread emails were waiting for me. Curiously, one was sent by Rob and Jack from Madcap Travels. Ignoring the others, I clicked it open.

  Hello Harper,

  It’s Rob and Jack from Madcap Travels. Your former colleague gave us your email, we hope you don’t mind. We were appalled to hear about what happened with your being let go, especially since we informed your boss that we preferred your vision for our marketing campaign and felt that you were the best candidate for the job. We cancelled our contract with your former employer shortly after.

  A few weeks ago, we stumbled across your blog and Facebook page and saw that you were not all talk, you implemented and executed the vision you presented to us, and to say we were impressed is an understatement. We would like to hire you to be a content creator for the site and will pay you upfront for the work you have already done with the understanding that your images and blog posts will be moved to our platform. We would also like you to run our social media pages as you travel and will pay you accordingly.

  If you are interested, we would like to get started as soon as possible, and once you name your price, we can move forward with purchasing your existing work and transferring you the money.

  Please advise if you are interested — we really hope you are!

  Kind regards,

  Rob & Jack

  Madcap Travels

  I stared at the screen with my mouth on the table and smacked myself for not opening Meghan’s email when I had seen it a week ago. Now I had two options, and one offered me exactly what I had wanted. My dad’s offer would put my original five-year plan back on track. It was a great opportunity, a stable job, and I could get back in the dating scene, and so the prospect of having a family in the next two years wasn’t out of reach. But with Rob and Jack’s offer, I could continue my vision, keep traveling for the summer, but I had no idea what would happen at the end when Xavi
er has to return home. Love waited for me a ferry ride away, but I knew I couldn’t keep him forever. My dad’s offer was a safe one, and I’d be taking a big gamble on the unknown if I took Rob & Jack’s.

  “Harper,” Jade’s voice brought me back to Earth. I looked up, and she and Lana stood on the threshold of the beach and patio, backpacks and daypacks secured to them. “The taxi is here. It’s time to go.”

  I turned back to my computer and hit reply.

  Chapter 32

  With tears and smiles, I kissed the girls a bittersweet goodbye. I loved them as if they were my sisters and mourned the end of our adventure. Standing and waving in the street until their taxi disappeared into a cloud of dust, I felt a renewed sense of independence. Though nervous stepping into an unknown future, I decided to accept life as it came. I had spent so much time, effort, and anxiety rigidly planning my life, and even the best plans can, and will, go awry. I also realized that I had misinterpreted goal setting — it isn’t about the goal but taking pleasure in the process of trying to reach a goal, whether it ends in success or a lesson. I learned so much about myself and my craft as I strove to win the Awesome Adventures competition, but almost sullied my amazing journey with being too focused on the grand prize. Maybe one day my images will grace the cover of National Geographic next to Steve McCurry’s, or maybe they won’t. But I am sure that his journey to greatness began with a decision to start, and his journey to greatness was rife with failures and lessons. And where life takes me is where I’m supposed to go.

  As I made my way to the water’s edge, I decided that I was done with my five-year plan. I was done planning for happily ever after, I wanted to live for happiness in the present. After all, the present is all that exists.

  When the sun hung low in the sky, the last ferry left for Malolo, and I managed to squeeze aboard. Pink, orange, and gold clouds splattered the sky as the boat berthed at the wooden pier. With the gentle evening breeze rustling the palm fronds, I followed the path towards his bure.

  My stomach tied in knots as I knocked on the open sliding glass door. After several uncomfortable seconds, I heard the creaking of rope behind me.

  “Harper?” I heard his voice, and at the same time, I saw a silhouette rising from the hammock outside of his bure. I set my bags down, leaning them against the cream walls, and when I turned he was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. “You’re back.”

  “I’m staying,” I said, finding those stormy grey eyes.

  He enveloped me in his arms and kissed me, pressing my back against the glass. One hand splayed across my lower back, but there was something in the other. When he released me, I reached for it. It was a book. My cheeks seared when I recognized the cover.

  Tahitian Heat.

  “You left this earlier,” he said as I tried to hide my embarrassment. “It’s given me some ideas.”

  Then, he threw me over his shoulder and carried me inside the bure to show me his new ideas.

  ***

  Date: May 30, 2010

  Malolo, Fiji

  When word reached home that I was going to continue to travel and had a job that would pay me to do so, I received an email of support from my parents. It was an email that filled me with joy, and I will always remember the moment I read it. While waiting for Xavier to return from playing his set, I took a break from updating my blog in the hammock, and as a warm breeze washed over me, I read their words:

  Darling Harper,

  We are so proud of you for going after your dreams. Even if you came home, we would have been equally proud. Thank you for getting us out of our comfort zone and giving us the incentive to come to Australia. Your mother and I have been bitten by the travel bug, and when the housing market improves, we want to sell the house and retire somewhere warmer than Canada. Maybe buy a boat in the Caribbean or a condo in Rio. Who knows?!

  Please be safe on your travels, but we know your big sister is always watching over you.

  Love,

  Mom and Dad

  “Hey, put your computer away.” Xavier’s voice broke my concentration as I stared at the screen. “Come, Moksha awaits.”

  Closing my laptop, I bit my lip and looked up at him. “And then we can watch for shooting stars?”

  I stood and he pulled me into his arms and his lips covered mine. Whimpering as he withdrew, he gently pulled my chin so my eyes met his, and I wished that I could have him right then and there.

  He smiled, and with that voice I could never tire of hearing, he said, “Mon étoile, we can watch for shooting stars all night.”

  ***

  The moment I decided to continue my adventure, I released the vice grip of control I had over my life and surrendered to the whims of the Universe, knowing that it will send me not only great things but also things so bad that I could never hope to make sense of them. Control, after all, is nothing but an illusion. As I reflected on my journey across the world and gave thanks for the irreplaceable people in my life, I realized the point of this wild ride called “life”: to experience the ups and downs, to explore our world, to listen to those voices inside guiding us to who we are and towards the discovery of our purpose. It is up to each of us to find our own meaning for our existence, and the events that occur in it, and to discover the passions that keep us awake at night and pull us from our beds in the morning. Some people, like Audrey, are taken from this world before having the chance to truly live. And I learned that I shouldn’t feel guilty that I was blessed to still be able to. Living my life wasn’t flaunting her death; it was honouring the precious gift of life.

  I believe the Buddhists have something going with the idea of embracing impermanence. Life is a beautiful tragedy as each moment we are given an opportunity to tell someone we love them, to do what we love, to find what and whom we love, because someday, on a day we may never see coming, it all has to end. So I decided to pour my soul into my art and chase every day as if I would not be given another, because another is never guaranteed. Every second between our first breath and our last is nothing more than borrowed time, and every experience earned during that small amount of time becomes a part of who we are, and gives us memories to look back on and be grateful for, especially during the hard times. And, ultimately, memories are all we ever truly possess.

  Before Xavier became one of my fondest memories, we had an entire summer to run wild. And for that summer, we laughed without restraint, loved without shame, and lived without fear, not just in honour of my sister’s memory, but for everyone who never had the chance to live their dreams.

  The End

  Thank you for reading.

  I hope you enjoyed Runaways. If you did I would be forever grateful if you left a review on Amazon.

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost I would like to thank my parents. If I did not do this first and dedicate the book to them, my mother would yell at me. But seriously, I couldn’t have published this novel without their unwavering support and encouragement. They have supported all of my crazy ideas I’ve had in life, believing more in my success at times than I did. I would like to thank my friends who believed in me, and the ones that read my book and provide feedback - Heather Willens, Kelsey Bacon, Kimberley Fisher, Chloe Kempe, Heidi Hess, Sophie Claire Francis, Lizzie Sheard, Sarah Summersgill, and Jackie Stevenson. I would like to thank the developmental editor that helped me rewrite it in 2015, Sara Lovette, my final copy-editor, Parisa Zolfaghari, and the book cover designer, Caroline Teagle. Thank you to my brother Paul for helping me one evening with a photograph for the cover that didn’t end up being used (and thank you to Helen and again my parents for holding up our makeshift studio).

  A very special thank you to Ashley Aitken, Sarah Summersgill and Jesse Mitchell who were the best travel partners on the trip that inspired me to write this story. I’d also like to thank everyone I met on that trip and in my journey in life who inspired the events and characters of the story.

  Thank you to any and everyone w
ho encouraged me to put this story out into the world.

  Dreams really can come true.

  About the Author

  Writer, traveler, content creator, master of random jobs, avoider of the 9-5. In 2010, Rachel Sawden set off on a trip around the world hoping to be given a sign of what to do with her life. That sign never appeared. It turned out the entire trip was the sign. When she returned to her home in Bermuda, she began to write about the countries she traveled to because she was still obsessed with them and had run out of people to listen to her drone on about her trip. She turned a life-long personal challenge of ‘write a book’ into Runaways, her debut novel. She has continued to travel, take photos, and write ever since.

  Follow her on Instagram: @rachelsawden