by Naomi Niles
“Lizzie,” I said pleadingly. “You and I, we make sense together, don’t we …?”
“Does it matter?” she answered tiredly. “My home is here and yours is not.”
She turned and walked away before I could say another word. I wanted to call out after her, I wanted to stop her, I wanted to do a great many things, but I stayed where I was and let her go. I was older and wiser now and I could finally understand myself, but how could I explain to her that my only home had only ever been with her.
Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth
I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. It didn’t matter what I was doing; my thoughts eventually drifted to that moment in the woods when he had pulled me to him and kissed me like we were teenagers again.
We hadn’t spoken much after that. Dylan took me home on his bike and said goodbye at my door. He didn’t mention the kiss and neither did I, but it stood between us all the same. I had hoped that work would help take my mind off Dylan but instead I was distracted and disorganized in the library and I had made three cataloguing mistakes already.
In the end, I decided to simply focus on the kids who came into the library. I was kneeling beside one of the students, trying to help him with his reading when the library door opened and I turned instinctively to see who it was.
My breath caught as Dylan entered, dressed in dark jeans and a white t-shirt. He looked so out of place in the library and I was suddenly conscious of my appearance. He looked like Prince Charming and I looked like a dowdy old maid in comparison. He looked around searchingly and then his eyes caught mine. He smiled and I realized he was holding a single white rose.
I had always loved white roses, and on every birthday, I received one from Dylan. I narrowed my eyes and walked towards him. “What are you doing here?” I asked trying not to look too enthusiastic to see him.
“I came to see you,” he said simply. “I thought of going for a drive today and I was hoping you’d join me.”
“I’m working.”
“I see that,” he nodded unfazed. “I can wait till you’re done.”
“Dylan …”
“I brought this for you,” he interrupted me as he held the white rose out to me.
I stared at it for a moment.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said without taking the rose.
“What am I doing?” Dylan asked innocently.
“You’re trying to evoke all those memories of the two of us when we were young and in love,” I said. “So that I won’t be able to say no to you.”
He smiled mischievously. “Is it working?” I groaned and he laughed. “Come on Lizzie,” he said lowering his voice. “I’ve missed you. Let’s enjoy the time we do have together.”
I knew he was making perfect sense, only because I really wanted to spend time with him too. If I had possessed a little more self-control I would have turned him down now so that I could save myself some pain later.
“You’ll have to wait an hour,” I said.
“I’ll wait as long as I need to,” Dylan replied. “Can I sit in here?”
“You can wait outside,” I said firmly.
“Are you sure?” he asked with a wink. “I’m happy to sit back and watch you.”
“I’ll see you outside in an hour,” I said sternly.
He laughed and left the library without complaint. I turned back and realized that every single child in the library was staring straight at me. They wore smug, little looks on their faces and I prepared myself for the questions.
“Is that your boyfriend, Ms. Miller?” a chorus of voices went up and I was positive that Dylan could hear them all.
“No,” I said, shushing them with my hands. “He’s not.”
“Then why did he give you that rose?”
“Because … he knows I like them and he’s my friend,” I said reasonably.
One little girl shook her head at me as though I was in need of guidance. “A boy only gives a girl a rose if he likes her.”
“Thanks, Lucy,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“He’s so handsome,” Rachel said. “Don’t you think so Ms. Miller?”
“He’s … all right,” I said trying to act as though I was unimpressed. “Now why don’t we get back to our books?"
No one turned back to books in their hands and I was forced to spend the next hour fielding off questions from a bunch of inquisitive eight-year-olds. I walked out onto the parking lot, tired and relieved to have finished for the day. Dylan was leaning against the car, watching me as I came forward.
“Did I ever tell you that I have a thing for librarians?” he said as I approached. “Always thought they were seriously sexy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “There’s nothing remotely sexy about being a librarian.”
“I beg to differ,” he said as he opened the door for me.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we were driving peacefully down Carrey Drive.
“I thought we’d go down to the old farm houses out in the country,” he said. “Like we used to.”
“That’s an hour’s drive,” I pointed out.
“It’s too late,” Dylan, said wiggling his eyebrows at me. “You’re already in the car and the doors are locked.”
I shook my head and leaned back. I was only pretending to care; the truth was I didn’t mind the drive or the time. It was enough to just be with Dylan. Getting to know him again after eleven years was exciting and scary. It had been such a long time since I’d felt anything apart from boredom that I simply could not turn from him now.
“Do you like teaching?” Dylan asked.
“I don’t really teach,” I admitted. “I just help the kids out a little when they come into the library, but I’m not a teacher.”
“Maybe you should be?” Dylan suggested.
“One day,” I said.
When we were half way there, Dylan pulled to a stop at a grocery store by the roadside. We parked the car and went inside and again I was reminded of the impromptu dates we used to have when we were teenagers. We never really went to fancy restaurants; we’d just whip up something at home with the leftovers in the fridge or get a bunch of junk food from a convenience store and find some place to eat.
“Choose whatever you’d like,” Dylan said extravagantly. “Anything you want: sky’s the limit.”
We walked around the store together, buying sandwiches, pastries, chips, and candy bars that we hadn’t eaten since we were children.
“How about a slushy?” Dylan asked as we came up on the machine.
“All this and a slushy too?” I asked playfully. “It’s too much.”
Dylan winked at me. “I insist,” he said. “Actually, choose two flavors.”
“Wow,” I said. “Big spender.”
We laughed together, made the purchase, and went back out to the car. Half an hour later, we pulled up next to wide-open spaces dotted with little farmhouses and herds of cattle. The air smelled so fresh and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been down there in eleven years. I knew I couldn’t have come without Dylan though; it just wouldn’t have held the same magic.
“Wow,” Dylan breathed. “It feels the same.”
“It does,” I nodded as Dylan appeared from the rear of the Jeep with a blanket and a bottle of wine.
“You came prepared,” I said.
He smiled and took my hand as we walked down the open expanse of land searching for the perfect spot to sit down and have our meal. The sun was close to setting and I knew we’d be treating ourselves to a magnificent sunset. It was getting a little cooler too and I was glad that Dylan had thought to bring blankets.
“How many did you bring?” I asked gesturing at the blanket.
“Just the one,” Dylan said with a tell-tale smile.
I shook my head at him. “I could take it.”
“But then I’d be cold,” Dylan said. “And you wouldn’t want that would you?”
I gave him a dirty lo
ok and turned to face the sparse dotting of trees that lined the huge meadow. “How about that one over there?” I suggested.
“Perfect,” Dylan agreed and we walked over.
I sat down first with my back resting against the tree so that Dylan had no choice but to sit down next to me. He was closer than I was comfortable with but I didn’t gripe. He spread the blanket over our legs and then he handed me a sandwich.
“It feels the same,” he said. “Like no time has passed.”
I looked away from him. “It doesn’t really feel that way to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said soberly. “I didn’t mean … I just …”
“I know,” I said quickly. “It’s ok; I just don’t want to pretend like things are the same. You’re leaving in a few weeks and that won’t change no matter how much time we spend together now.”
“I know.”
“Will you be deployed again?”
Dylan nodded. “Once my leave is over, I go back to prepare for the deployment.”
“What do you feel just before you leave?” I asked.
“I don’t have time to concentrate,” Dylan said slowly. “It’s when I’m on the plane that I start getting nervous.”
“So you haven’t got used to it?”
“You get used to it,” Dylan explained. “But you never get rid of certain things … like the nerves and the fear. That will never leave you.”
“When you first told me that you were planning to enlist, I thought you were joking,” I admitted. “I thought you were playing some sick joke on me. I think that I only really supported in that decision because I believed you wouldn’t really go through with it.”
“I didn’t think I would get through training,” Dylan said. “And after I did, I just had to see it through.”
“I’ll admit I was upset and hurt,” I said slowly. “But I also understood why you wanted to do it. You wanted to make your father proud.”
Dylan smiled. “I never told you that.”
I shrugged. “You didn’t have to.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dylan
There was a quiet, calming stillness in the air. It clung to me like dew on fresh leaves. I glanced at Lizzie, wondering whether she felt it too. She was looking up at the sun. It was just a big ball of orange fire, half hidden behind silver-crusted clouds that seemed to give off their own ethereal glow.
I realized that it had been eleven years since I’d marveled at the wonders that nature held. I hadn’t stopped to sit down and think in so long that I’d missed so much. My eyes fell back onto Lizzie. She was illuminated in warm, golden rays of sunshine that were getting duller as the minutes ticked away. I hadn’t been this comfortable in so long that I’d forgotten the sensation. It was like a caress, it made you feel safe and content, and contentment in my books had always been a cut above happiness.
Happiness made you silly and excited and prone to making mistakes and rash decisions. Contentment was stillness.
“Have you forgiven me?” I asked before my courage abandoned me.
“Forgiven you?” Lizzie asked as she turned her gaze back to me. “For what?”
“Leaving.”
She looked at me for a long moment and I could see the memory in her eyes and the sadness it held for her. I wanted to reach out and touch her but I didn’t want to intrude on her thoughts. She reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Can I be honest?” she said at last and I felt my breath catch.
I swallowed down my fear and nodded. “Of course.”
“I thought I had forgiven you,” Lizzie started slowly. “But then I saw you for the first time in eleven years and I felt … something. Something I couldn’t quite place. It was only later that I realized what it was. I was resentful and I was still hurt. And when I realized that that was what I was feeling, I knew that I couldn’t have forgiven you … at least not completely. But I think a part of me has since then.”
“And the other part?” I asked slowly.
“I’m still working on that,” she said softly. “It was really hard after you left. And then …”
“Yes?”
“The letters stopped coming,” Lizzie said.
I could hear the hurt in her voice. It was palpable and it hurt me in the process. I hated knowing how much pain I had caused her. She had deserved more than that. She had deserved something from me.
“We never really broke up,” Lizzie went on. “We just drifted and then we stopped communicating and then … we lost contact completely. Even when I knew what was happening, I still couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it.”
“It was my fault,” I said. “I should have tried to explain better, I should have done more than I did. It was just that the training was so much more intense that I would ever have imagined. I threw myself into the fray and I didn’t have time to look back.”
She flinched at my last words and I reached for her hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to hurt you, I’m just trying to be honest with you.”
“I know,” Lizzie replied. “I want you to be honest with me.”
It was the first real conversation we had had in over a decade and we both knew it. This was not small talk or casual flirting; it wasn’t even the beginnings of a courtship. It was two people who had a massive history between them, it was two people trying to put their past behind them and find some closure in the present.
“Once I passed my training, I was sent off on my first deployment,” I said.
“I remember,” Lizzie nodded. “You sent me a letter telling me about it; June seventeenth was when you told me you would be leaving. It was one of the last letters you sent me.”
“Afghanistan,” I said. “That was the first mission.”
“It changed you,” Lizzie said before I could finish.
“Yes,” I nodded. “It changed me, more than I could have thought. All the training in the world can’t prepare you for certain things. Everything was going according to plan and then suddenly … it wasn’t. We found ourselves in the middle of enemy fire and we had no choice but to defend ourselves. I killed three men that day.”
I fell into silence as the memory of that day overtook me. I could still remember the first man. His eyes were wide with anger; his skin was burnished brown and covered in scars. He looked at me like I was the devil. I had panicked and the moment he took a step towards me I fired. I didn’t think and I didn’t aim: I just shot blindly.
“The first man I shot,” I said after a moment. “He was unarmed. I looked, but I couldn’t find a weapon on him.”
“Dylan,” Lizzie’s voice was soft as a whisper. She clutched my hand in both of hers and squeezed. “You didn’t know that.”
“I was trained better,” I said. “I was scared and my fear took over.”
“It was your first mission and your first real fight,” Lizzie said. “If you hadn’t killed him, he would have found a way to kill you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “That’s what I realized once the dust had settled and I was alone in my tent. It doesn’t matter what the justifications are, it doesn’t matter if he’s the enemy, and it doesn’t matter if I was acting in self-defense. I killed a man; I took his life like I had a right to. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I couldn’t understand that.”
Lizzie looked at me with those sad, blue eyes of hers and I knew instinctively that she understood what I was saying. She had always been a pacifist. She had always been the girl to stop a fight, to make peace, to swallow her own pride simply to avoid an unpleasant situation.
“I know,” she said and I felt better instantly. “And it’s ok to feel like that.”
“You’re the only one who’s ever said that to me,” I said with a small smile. “I’ve tried explaining that to a few people and it doesn’t matter who they are. They’ve always tried to explain away my feelings. I just wanted them to understand those feelings.”
“I do.”
&n
bsp; “I wish I had spoken to you then like I’m speaking to you now,” I said with a sigh that went ten years deep. “But at the time, I couldn’t talk to anyone. I retreated into myself and I didn’t resurface for a long time.”
“You send me a letter a few months into your deployment,” Lizzie recalled. “Do you remember it?”
I searched my head but it came up blank. “No I’m sorry,” I said.
“I still have that letter,” she admitted. “I cried the first time I read it … not because there was anything definitive about us in it. You didn’t mention that you needed time or you wanted to take a break from us. You just spoke about your first combat mission and I could tell from the way you wrote that … that you had lost yourself.”
“What did I say in the letter?”
“It was this one line in particular,” Lizzie said. “You wrote ‘I’m tired, Lizzie, my body aches but it’s bearable compared with the ache in my conscience, my soul. I don’t know why I’m here ... not just in this war-torn place but also in this world.’ I memorized that line because I knew there was a secret hidden in it somewhere. You were confused and you were alone and I knew I couldn’t help you. So when the letters stopped coming, I guess I wasn’t surprised.”
“I didn’t know what to say anymore,” I admitted. “Bastrop seemed like another life. I felt as though I wasn’t a part of it anymore. I felt that if I came back, I would taint it somehow, I would ruin everything beautiful about it: including you. I’m not trying to justify anything, I’m not trying to pretend like I stopped writing for some noble reason. The truth is I was confused and alone and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just …”
“It’s ok Dylan,” Lizzie said squeezing my hand. “You were so young, we both were. We weren’t supposed to know the best way to deal with things.”
“I know,” I replied. “I just wish it had been different. I wish I had never stopped writing to you, I wish I had never given you cause to question my love for you. I wish I had chosen differently.”