by Naomi Niles
Max was shorter than Tyler was, but he was well built and well dressed. He had light-brown eyes and strawberry-blond hair and I saw Maddie’s pointed expression, as she looked him over. Lacy was short with a head full of wild, black curls and dark eyes. I remembered her from school, but Max was completely unfamiliar to me. We shook hands and then sat down together.
It turned out to be a more enjoyable evening than I had anticipated and I ended up having fun. When I excused myself to visit the restroom, Maddie excused herself as well and followed me to the ladies room.
“Well?” she demanded the minute we were alone.
“Well what?” I asked her in surprise.
“Max!” she said. “He’s cute, right?”
“I guess so. Does it matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t he with Lacy?”
“No! They’ve been friends forever and Lacy’s engaged to marry some British guy,” Maddie said excitedly. “I asked Tyler already and he said that Max is completely single and … he’s looking.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is not a setup, is it?”
“No it isn’t,” Maddie replied. “It’s kismet. Come on, Lizzie, you said it yourself: this guy is cute, he dresses well, and he went to Stanford.”
I laughed. “He seems really nice,” I had to admit.
“I’m glad you agree; now it’s time to kick it up a notch,” Maddie said wiggling her eyebrows at me.
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
“Aw, come on,” Maddie said with a sigh of frustration. “You’re not exactly turning on the charm.”
“Excuse me?” I asked defensively.
“Flirt a little, Lizzie!” Maddie exclaimed.
I sighed. “I hate flirting; I was never any good at it.”
“That’s what happens when you have one, steady boyfriend throughout high school,” Maddie teased. “Well, there’s no time like the present to learn.”
I was about to say that I wasn’t sure if I was ready yet but I knew that Maddie wouldn’t accept that as an answer. Plus, she would know immediately why I was being so reluctant and I didn’t want to give her more of a reason to be annoyed with Dylan.
“Fine, fine,” I sighed. “Let’s get out there.”
We got back to the table and sat down. Maddie subtly orchestrated out seating positions so that I was sitting next to Max. He was a good-looking guy and I noticed that he seemed to have kind eyes. I knew that if it hadn’t been for Dylan’s image in my head, I would have been able to muster up some form of interest. Still, I did my best to try and focus on Max and the conversation at hand.
“So, Elizabeth,” Max started as we drifted off into smaller, individual conversations. “Tyler told us that you are a teacher?”
“He’s being kind,” I smiled. “I’m the librarian, actually.”
“Are you hoping to teach one day?”
“That’s the dream,” I replied and had a pang of sadness at how small my dreams had become. “I’m working up to it. What do you do?”
“I’m a doctor,” Max replied. “A surgeon actually.”
“Wow,” I said impressed. “What’s your specialty?”
“I specialize in pediatric surgery.”
“Geez, I would imagine that can be difficult,” I breathed.
“More than you know,” Max said with a sigh. “It’s emotionally draining, but when it works out, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
I smiled as I watched his eyes light up. It was obvious that he was the kind of guy that wanted to make a difference. “I can imagine,” I nodded. I was about to ask him a question but at the last moment I changed my mind.
“What?” he asked, picking up on the question I hadn't asked.
“Nothing.”
He laughed. “Go on,” he said. “Ask me anything, I don’t mind.”
“Well, I guess I was wondering how much your work, especially your line of work, affects you. I mean, it must be hard to see all those kids come in everyday with all kinds of terrible problems. Does it ever sour you?”
“Sour me against the thought of having kids myself you mean?” Max asked hitting the nail on the head.
“Yeah,” I said. “If that’s too personal a question, feel free to ignore it.”
Max smiled. “No it’s a valid question,” he said. “My mother asked me the same thing when I told her what I was going to be specializing in. I guess the answer is no. I mean, it does affect me sometimes and there are days when I bring it home with me, but it still hasn’t taken away my desire to have kids. I would love to raise a family one day.”
“That’s great,” I said, feeling myself warm to him more and more.
“That was actually the reason my last girlfriend and I split up,” Max said abruptly. “She didn’t want kids and I did.”
“How long were you together?”
“Almost two years,” Max admitted. “It got to the point where we started talking about our future and I happened to mention the white picket fence and the kids piled up in the land rover and she … well, she had a different image in mind.”
“That’s sad,” I said honestly. “It must have been a painful decision to make.”
“It was,” Max nodded. “But the thing is, I have a stressful job and I need something normal to come home to, you know?”
“I do know,” I nodded. “It’s just heartbreaking when you think you’re at the finish line and you realize the person you’re with is not the right one for you.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” Max asked pointedly.
“I am actually,” I nodded. “I’m divorced.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said with a shrug. “It was the right thing for me.”
Max nodded and we relaxed into a comfortable conversation. He was easy to talk to and it seemed he felt the same way about me. He opened up about his job and his past relationships and by the end of the night, I felt I knew him as well as I knew Tyler.
The five of us left the bar together, but Max pulled me aside while the others were saying goodbye to one another.
“Elizabeth,” he said. “I know this might be sort of a weird question but … would it be ok if sometime in the future I ask you out.”
I raised my eyebrows and smiled. “I … well sure … that would ok,” I nodded at last.
He smiled. “I would have loved to ask you out now, it’s just that I’m doing this fellowship at the hospital that takes up all my time and I don’t think it would be fair to you to start a new relationship and then disappear suddenly.”
“I get it, Max,” I smiled, touched at how thoughtful he was. “Say no more. But hey, if you ever have a stressful day and you can’t stand your silent apartment anymore, you can always give me a call.”
“Thanks,” Max nodded. “I just might take you up on that offer.”
He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, we said goodnight, and Maddie and I headed back home. The moment we were in her car, she rounded on me.
“Well?”
“He’s nice,” I said. “More than just nice actually.”
“I had a feeling you two would hit it off,” Maddie said with glee. “He asked you out didn’t he?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” Maddie repeated in confusion.
“He’s busy with his fellowship at the moment,” I explained. “And he didn’t want to be an absentee boyfriend at the start of the relationship so he said he’d ask me out later, when he’s schedule is a little more free.”
“Oh,” Maddie said in disappointment.
“But I did tell him he could give me a call anytime he needed to talk.”
Maddie’s eyebrows went up with interest once more as she turned to me. “Is there a hidden meaning in there?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean like, you can call anytime you need to talk is really code for you can come over anytime you’re horny?”
“Eww no!” I said trying to stifle my laughter. “Geez, Maddie.”
“What?” Maddie asked defensively. “I don’t think it’s the worst idea.”
“You’re serious?”
“Totally,” Maddie said. “You’re both young and hot and single; why shouldn’t you fool around when you have a moment to spare?”
“How is that not a relationship?”
“Because there are no expectations place on either one of you,” Maddie said. “At least until things become more official.”
“As usual, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” I said.
“And as usual, you refuse to just let go and live a little.”
I rolled my eyes at Maddie and turned towards the empty road ahead of us. But I had to admit, it didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world. He was cute and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Which was why I could not understand why my mind still fell back to Dylan.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dylan
The club was dimly lit and filled with intense plumes of smoke that held different scents. The waitresses were especially attractive and I noticed that they all wore the same, alluring wrap that bared their naked shoulders and the tops of their breasts.
I sat at the corner of the bar watching the boys drinking a few tables over and I could tell from their pathetic singing that they were all drunk. The beer was particularly strong here and what’s why I had championed this place. I wanted the strongest buzz in the fastest time. Ironically however, I had been sipping from the same beer for the last half hour, unable to down it like I had originally intended.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be drunk; it was just that the more I drank, the more my thoughts kept drifting back to Bastrop and Lizzie. I realized that when I was sober, it was easy not to think of her, but when I was drunk, I had no control over where my thoughts travelled. They went to their natural resting spot and that was always Lizzie.
I took another swig of beer and turned my focus on one of the waitresses. She had those sultry, exotic, Japanese features with straight, silky hair that flowed down her back. Her voice was slightly accented, which meant I could understand her perfectly and every time she passed by me, she gave me a little smile that hid a wink.
I nodded to her and she smiled back. “Can I get you anything, sir?” she asked.
“I’ll let you know when I need something,” I said.
She gave me another smile and disappeared with a tray in hand. I noticed that I wasn’t the only guy in the bar who was checking her out. I turned back to my beer and stared at it as my thoughts travelled back to Bastrop.
This last tour had really opened my eyes to the reality of what I wanted and instinctively I knew this would be my last deployment. I couldn’t do it anymore and it was starting to show. My heart just wasn’t as committed as it used to be. My head was always somewhere else and I knew that if I stayed on, then it would end up getting my killed, or even worse, getting someone else killed.
It was time to be a man, fess up, and admit that my time in the Navy was done. I was still playing around with the idea of opening up a rehabilitation center for war veterans and it was becoming less like a far off dream and more like an imminent reality. I could almost touch it; it was so close to being real. The amazing thing was that I felt good about it. I felt like the next logical step for me.
The only thing was I had no idea how to get it started. I had no idea what I needed to do in order to get this idea off the ground.
“Lizzie will help me,” I thought to myself and then I stalled.
It was unfair of me to expect her to be there for me whenever I called. I thought back over the last couple of months and I felt shitty all over again. I had written to her twice before the letters had dried up again, just like the last time. It wasn’t ever that I stopped thinking about her or stopped caring. In fact, I thought about her more than usual and I cared about her more intensely than before … but now I could see what was constraining me. It was fear.
I was scared to let her down; I was scared that I was going to ruin her life if I entered it again and I was scared off putting her through all the baggage I had been carrying around for the past decade. She was the kind of woman who deserved a life without complication. She didn’t need to see me freak out when I had a dream in the night or when the unpredictable bouts of PTSD hit.
She deserved someone who wasn’t broken, someone who still had hope, who still craved adventure. The only adventure I wanted anymore was a quieter, more subtle version; the version that included a piece of land that was mine, a partner to share my life with, and children whom we could bring up together.
It sounded so simple, so perfect when I imagined that life that for a moment, it didn’t seem possible that it could ever belong to me. I pictured a little house, I even pictured a couple of kids … but the woman who stood beside me was cloaked in shadow. I knew who I would like her to be, but I knew it was unfair of me to place that choice before her, especially when I had chosen an alternate life that didn’t include her. Especially when I needed more time and Lizzie was ready for all those things now. It wasn’t fair for me to ask her to wait.
I picked up the beer and downed it in one. I shook off the sting that shot down my throat and glanced up. I spotted the waitress I had seen earlier and walked over to her.
“Hi,” I said and she turned around immediately.
She blinked up at me and then smiled. “Hello, sir,” she said as her black hair shone under the dim lights of the bar. “What do you need?”
“I need an hour of your time tonight,” I said boldly. “After your shift is up.”
I thought for a second that she might turn me down, but then her eyes looked over my body and she nodded. “My shift finishes in ten minutes,” she said with that wink of hers.
I met her outside in ten minutes and we shared a cab back to her place. I barely paid attention to her untidy, box apartment in the middle of nowhere. All I was interested in was getting her naked as soon as possible. I wanted to drown my fears and doubts in her body; I wanted to lose myself in her so that I wasn’t forced to think about all the things that were important.
I remembered how long it had been since I’d slept with a woman who was a stranger to me. It felt odd, somehow, as though I wasn’t really in the room with her pulling off her clothes and squeezing her small, pointed breasts. It felt as though I wasn’t really there at all. It was the strangest feeling in the world. There was disconnection there and it was so large that I might as well have been sitting by the window staring out at the world, daydreaming. There was nothing tying me to this moment.
Even when I pushed myself inside her and she squealed like a little girl, I did not feel a thing. I went through the motions because my body was so well practiced in the art, but I felt nothing, not even pleasure. I could feel my erection beginning to die inside her and instinctively I shut my eyes and imagined Lizzie.
I imagined what it had felt like to touch her and kiss her and make love to her. I saw her face in my mind’s eye clear as day as she lay beneath me under the fading light of the setting sun. She was perfect, she was smiling, and I could count the freckles on the bridge of her nose. She was the girl I had grown up with; she was my best friend and my confidant. She was my lover and my counsellor.
Slowly, I felt my erection come to life again. I kept my eyes closed and my mind focused on Lizzie as I rammed into the nameless, Japanese girl underneath me. I came with my eyes still closed and the intoxicating presence of Lizzie all around me.
Chapter Thirty
Elizabeth
I bent to place Elvis’s breakfast at his feet when I was overcome by a wave of dizziness. I straightened up quickly and felt light headed. I walked slowly to my sofa and sat down, waiting to see if the feeling would pass. Instead, the feeling grew worse and worse until I was running towards the bathroom, hoping I would reach the toilet bowl in time.
I threw up nosily, my stomach heaving forward as though
it had a mind to jump right out of me. I could hear Elvis meowing with concern at the bathroom door, but I couldn’t even look up. I threw up until my insides felt hollow, then I flushed quickly and washed out my mouth. I stood in front of the mirror, leaning against the sink, breathing deeply and wondering what had just happened.
I felt better, but I was a little concerned as to what had just caused that. I walked back into the kitchen with Elvis at my heels and poured myself a glass of orange juice to further cleanse my tongue. I had taken only a few sips when another wave of nausea hit me and I had to run right back into the bathroom. By the time I was done, I felt weak and lifeless and the worry had turned into a full-blown panic.
I reached for my phone and dialed in my mother’s number. “Mom,” I said before she could even say hello.
“Elizabeth?” she said with concern. “Are you all right dear?”
“No. I threw up a couple of times and now I feel really weak, ma,” I said as I sat down.
“Sit there and wait for me,” mom replied quickly. “I’ll be over in a trice.”
Fifteen minutes later and she was knocking at my door. I walked over and opened it for her. She looked me up and down as she moved inside. She placed her hand against my forehead as though she were studying me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said. “I just feel weird.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
“Get your coat,” mom said immediately. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” I asked.
“Yes,” mom replied in her no nonsense voice and I was forced to follow her out of the apartment with my coat and my bag in tow. She drove me to the hospital and we walked into one of the general waiting rooms while my mother filled out my details and we waited to be seen by one of the general practitioners.
“Mom, could you call Maddie and tell her where we are. It’s Saturday and we always have breakfast together. She’s going to wonder why I’m not there.”
“Of course, darling,” she nodded as I went in to see the doctor while mom stayed outside to make the call.