“Right,” I offered, really getting into it now, “but in both scenarios, there will be a day that the toothpaste will run out. It’s inevitable.”
“Good point.” She quickly commented. “And you know that there will still be a little bit of toothpaste hanging out in the tube just teasing you.”
“So either way, you’re fucked.” I concluded.
We had just talked about toothpaste for a full three minutes. It was fascinating, and riveting, and not at all dull. And for the next two hours, we talked about everything: how we each liked to sit on the floor, and then we talked about our bad habits, and we argued over comedians and the window seat versus the aisle seat, and we touched on close calls and bad advice, and even talked about God.
And I didn’t hesitate to open up to her. I didn’t fight myself once. I just stayed in the moment with her. And I was free.
We got to the campsite and quickly set up our tents. I shouldn’t have been surprised at her ability to set up the site; she had far well exceeding every expectation I had of her since I knew her. She told me that every year her mother went away with her college roommates to New Orleans, and every year that he wasn’t deployed, her father took that week off to take her camping. It always fell the week after her birthday, and the real reason she looked forward to each birthday was because of the trip that laid ahead.
“But… well, my fifteenth birthday was the last trip. I haven’t been camping since.”
I could see the pain on her face. I hesitated to ask if she wanted to talk about her father’s death, but decided in the end that she would when she was ready. We were having such a good time; I didn’t want to push her.
“Apparently it’s just like riding a bike.” I looked around at the clearing containing a tent, a fire pit, and even our food tied up on a high tree branch.
I offered to give her a little tour of the canyon, reminding her that I hadn’t been to the spot since I was about six or seven, and she held out her hand to mine, telling me to lead the way. We ended up hiking for a few hours. I showed her the waterfalls, the bluffs, the pools, the boulders, and the sandstone cliffs. I pointed out the places I had been and the memories I had made, and offered up a few options for making our own memories. She chided me for only ever having sex on my mind, but I assured her that it was she who brought that out in me. Normally I was an angel.
Understandably, she refused to believe me.
The week was perfect. We hiked for at least three hours every day, during which I taught her how to forage for food. Sure, we had brought provisions for the entire week, but the things we found were wonderful additions to our meals. The first day, we grabbed some Virginia Pine. I spent the next few days infusing the citrusy and piney fragrance into Vodka, and then I mixed my concoction with lemonade. Hannah suspiciously pointed out that my creation tasted like gin, but I told her to be quiet because my way was more fun.
She continued to make fun of me for the rest of the trip.
We collected Allium Vineale, or field garlic, and used the chopped up shoots as you would chives, and the bulbs, as you would garlic. I also managed to come upon some Purslane, which Hannah suggested we mix with some Stellaria Media, or Chickweed, to make a salad. The nutty, pea-like flavor of the Chickweed mixed with the crisp, lemony taste of the Purslane, made for a delicious, and quite healthy blend.
“We’re quite good at this.” Hannah smiled at me over dinner that night.
We were, actually, quite good at this. The week had been nothing but relaxing, and exploring, and finding out new things about each other, and ourselves, in the process. And the biggest thing I found out about Hannah was that the girl can’t fish to save her life.
“Well, you’re good at everything except for fishing.” I winked at her.
“Hey!” She threw a blueberry at me. “But… yah,” she quickly surrendered, “you’re right.”
Hannah was hilarious. She didn’t want to kill the fish. I explained to her that the point of fishing was to then eat the fish after you caught it, but her face showed a look of horror.
“But… the poor fishy.” She pouted her bottom lip.
“Don’t you eat fish?” I asked a question I knew the answer to, as I had seen her eat fish on many occasions.
“Yes!” Her shoulders sunk. “At restaurants…”
She was adorable. She had beat up a group of bullies that refused to stop picking on her, she patched up my leg when a bone was sticking out of it, she saved my life when a bullet had gone clear through my chest, and yet the thought of eating the fish she had caught was just too depressing for her to handle. For such a badass, she had quite an adorable soft side.
So instead, I offered her a beer, and we sat next to each other on the edge of the water. I told her about a time when I had gone on a mission that lasted two weeks longer than any of us were prepared for. While we always brought more food than necessary in case we ran into such a circumstance, this was a rough one, and our food supply was dwindling quickly. We had to survive, and therefore, we had to hunt our own food.
“You ate a rat?” Her eyes just about bulged out of her head.
“I ate a few rats.” I admitted, remembering the gamy taste.
In the end, Hannah won. She didn’t take too kindly to my story of survival, and so, we didn’t eat any of the fish. Luckily, Purslane is full of fatty acids and Omega-3. That was good enough for her.
We ate so much, that if I never see Purslane again, I might just count myself blessed.
“Night swim?” I suggested on our final evening in the woods.
“Race you?” She barely got out the words before she started running.
I followed her lead and tore off my clothes piece by piece as we made our way down to the pool. By the time we got to the cliff where we had left our little rope swing, we were both naked, spare our shoes, which we pulled off together and left at the top of the bluff.
“Same time?” She suggested, holding out a piece of the rope to me.
“Let’s do it.” I pulled her naked body against mine, and held tightly around her torso as I propelled us both off the overhang and into the chilled water.
We came up together, both laughing as we spit the water from our mouths and wiped our hair out of our faces.
Hannah put her hands around my shoulders for a moment. The look in her eyes was unfamiliar and unsure. I had a brief moment of panic, but reminded myself quickly that there was nothing to fear. I trusted her with my life. Whatever she was thinking, we could get through.
“Okay.” She finally spoke.
“Okay what?” I tried desperately to seem unshaken, though inside, I was honestly frightened.
“I’ll run away with you. Let’s do it.”
Well, I hadn’t expected that.
Chapter Seven
Hannah
It just seemed too good to be true. The entire month that Charlie and I had lived together had been nothing short of a dream. Well, I guess it would have been better if he didn’t get shot and didn’t have to devise a plan to stop my ex-lover from trying to kill him, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.
The point is that I was worried about our little camping trip. I was worried that I’d realize that it was all so stupid: that we didn’t actually get along or like each other at all. I was worried that I’d soon find out that all the hours I had spent fantasizing about him were wasted.
Or maybe I was more worried that I would realize the exact opposite.
I didn’t need to try with him. Sure, in the beginning it was nothing but trying. I tried to hate him, I tried to prove myself to him, I tried to pretend I didn’t care about his approval, and then I tried to make him fall in love with me. But now that all that was over, so was the trying. I said what I wanted, I did what I wanted, and he did the same. And yet, we fit.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all a perfect ray of sunshine. We fought. The jerk likes to sleep on the left side of the bed. And by saying that ‘he likes to’, I mean that he refuse
s to sleep otherwise. But that’s my side of the bed. I don’t know how it took me so long to catch this, but I guess any other night we spent together was a product of circumstance. We spent our evenings having sex until all hours of the night, and then passing out wherever we ended up, as we were too tired to move otherwise. And lately, since we found ourselves at our parents newly shared house, we’d been doing the sleeping part in separate rooms.
But this week, we actually slept next to each other. And he absolutely refused to compromise. I even offered to trade off every other night; he wouldn’t budge an inch.
I know it seems like a silly fight. Of course there were a few more intense things we disagreed on, but the side of the bed thing was an ongoing battle that I never won. And I wasn’t yet ready to give up.
But the fact of the matter was that I could still fight. I didn’t feel like I was being overpowered or made to feel like the lesser person in the relationship. I don’t know why I feared loving him so much. He had given me something that no one had been able to give me: something to care about more than my career… someone to care about more than myself.
And when I saw him lying there with a bullet through his chest, I almost died myself. I wasn’t ready to lose him. He needed to know how important he was to me, and how much I valued him. There was no question about that.
So in that moment, while we were both submerged in the cold, crisp water of the canyon, I decided to tell him.
“Okay.” I nodded, telling both him and me at the same time.
“Okay what?” He tried to smile, though it was clear he had no idea what I was about to say.
I took in his face, his eyes, and his spirit, and I didn’t even hesitate to say the words. “I’ll run away with you. Let’s do it.”
I couldn’t believe I had said it out loud. I had made a decision that I never thought I’d make. I was giving up, but it didn’t feel like that at all. Instead, it felt like I was getting everything I always wanted.
The fear in Charlie’s stare turned to confusion, and then to understanding, and then to shock.
“Wait… really?” He could barely get out those two words.
“Yes. Absolutely.” My eyes started to get teary, though I tried to blame it on the river water.
Neither of us spoke for a bit, both trying to wrap our heads around what we had just promised to do. I thought I might scream, or cry, or laugh, or maybe all three. Instead, I kissed him. And he kissed me back.
And although neither of us could touch the bottom of the pool floor, we somehow stayed afloat, wrapping our limbs around the other.
Maybe Amanda was right… we had passion… and it didn’t seem like that passion was going anywhere for a very long time. Just maybe that passion would be enough.
We settled on New England. Neither of us had spent much or any time there, and we thought, as two people brought up in the south, that the changing seasons might be something spectacular. As neither of us wanted to be on the run, or have the letters AWOL attached to our names, we agreed that we would go home, pack up our things, and then stop by Fort Bragg, where we would both tender our resignations.
It was a perfect plan, and one that we both were so excited to execute.
But then little things started to happen.
On our trip back home, when we finally got cell service back, Charlie got a notification that he had received eleven voicemails. He listened to each on speakerphone, as we had definitely gotten to the point where we weren’t hiding anything from each other. But, I kind of wish I didn’t hear those. One by one, his teammates left him their own messages about what he had missed, how they hoped he was well rested, and how they were psyched to have him back. They all kept repeating that it hadn’t been the same without him. I couldn’t shake the building guilt with each passing tone. After the final one, he gave me a shrug.
“I guess they’ll have to get used to it.”
Maybe that wouldn’t have been too bad in time. Maybe we would have agreed that they were men and they would get over one of their buddies leaving the group. We didn’t need to feel guilty. But then, when we got home, my mom pulled me aside to tell me how proud she was of me. She admitted that she’d been all wrapped up in wedding planning, but my accomplishments hadn’t gone unnoticed. She just gushed, saying that from the moment I was born, my parents knew I was special, and they never had doubts about what I would achieve, but she wished my father could see me now. He would be beside himself.
“I have something for you.” She tilted her head as she looked at me.
“Mom, you didn’t have to get me something.” I tried to stop her, afraid that the gift wouldn’t be appropriate once I told her that I was leaving and not turning back.
“I didn’t.” She pulled an envelope from her pocket and held it out to me. “This is from your father.”
My skin froze. “What?”
She sat me down, rubbing my knee. She shot her eyes up and blinked repeatedly, afraid a tear would fall if she continued to look at me. Just looking at her slight struggle made me realize that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to the end of this conversation without being in that exact same position. Finally after a deep sigh, she spoke. “See, we never told you this, but each time your father left for tour, he wrote you a letter… just in case.” She threw the last threw words out casually, but her voice choked a bit. “And then every time he came home, he would tear it up. But,” she nodded, letting me know where this was going. “In the event that he didn’t come home, this letter would be his goodbye to you. So,” she held her breath for a second, but was able to keep it together. “I’ve had this for awhile.” She flipped the envelope around in her fingers. I could see it had been opened. It looked like she had read it many, many times. “I knew I’d give it to you one day, I just wasn’t sure when you’d be ready to read it.” She tried to smile as she handed it to me. “But now, Hannah, I think you’re ready.”
I don’t even remember if I thanked her. It was doubtful though, as I knew if I spoke I would instantly cry.
After that, we decided not to tell our parents about the resignations until we were on the road. It might have been childish and cowardly, but it didn’t feel like the right time. For any of us.
“Hey.” Charlie peeked his head into the doorway of my room, carrying a large duffel bag over his shoulder.
I shoved the envelope in my pocket, promising myself that I’d read my father’s letter soon… just not now.
Charlie graciously tried to ignore my hesitation. “You ready?”
I swallowed the giant lump in my throat.
No I wasn’t.
Chapter Eight
Charlie
The air was thick in the truck. Or maybe it was the tension between us or between our own selves, but any which way, something was fucked up. We lightly joked, we laughed, we smiled… but our words had all become somehow fake. It wasn’t us in the car anymore. Instead, it was two people who had made a promise that they weren’t sure if either could keep.
I could tell Hannah was having reservations; she wasn’t even trying to hide it. She kept fumbling with some piece of paper, but every time I asked her what it was, she just said ‘nothing’ and tucked it away. And she kept doing it. There was absolutely no way it was ‘nothing’. What had gotten into her? And why wasn’t she telling me about it?
Of course I wanted to run away with her. Fuck, I had spent the last nine years of my life fighting fights with enemies I had never met, and living with dudes who smelled like ass. And after a week of hiding out in the trenches, waiting for those enemies to slip up, by no means did the smell of ass get better.
Hannah, on the other hand, smelled like a mix of calla lilies and mac and cheese. Don’t ask me where the mac and cheese part came in; the only connection I could make was to comfort. Her scent made me feel the way I felt when I ate mac and cheese as a kid. It made me happy.
It’s probably fucked up, but that’s the way I see it.
But even addi
ng that into the picture, I couldn’t stop questioning for myself whether we could have it all. Could we both have a career we love and we’re proud of, and also have the person we love and we’re proud of. Would the pride part go away if we were without our jobs?
Would she still love me if I weren’t the officer in my Special Forces group? Would I be enough if my only purpose was to make her happy? Would I even be the same person she fell in love with if that was the case?
And then what about her? I at least had those nine years of service to my country. Hannah had zero years living out her dream. She wanted to be a doctor for as long as she could remember. And she was still years away from making that dream a reality. Who was I to take it all away from her after she had gotten so far on her own? And if I did, how long would it take before she resented me for doing it. Love only goes so far. At what point would she blame me for not supporting her?
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