If Only

by Yvonne Beattie

  I don’t stop at the sculpture but follow the flow of pedestrians to the security check-in desk. I see mum and dad hovering impatiently waiting for me, and mum beckoning me over, again. Patience is not at the top of my mother’s list.

  I stop suddenly as a couple of young children whiz past me and feel relieved I was able to stop in time before barreling into them. With my heart rate slightly raised, my gaze follows them as they start jumping up and down, walking back and forth over a floor piano. Just like the one I always wished I could play in the movie ‘Big’ with Tom Hanks, when they are in the toyshop. I love that movie and make a mental note to watch it again sometime soon. I feel my lips curve upwards as I watch the kids laughing and enjoying the noise they are making. I almost want to join them.

  “Rachel? Come. On. We are going to miss our flight at this rate,” mum is standing with her hand on her hip looking at me like she might commit murder if I don’t get a shimmy on.

  I inwardly sigh in delight at having annoyed her already. Some things will never ever change.

  “I’m here, I’m he….” I start to tell her as my words suddenly escape me, and my breath seems to have been stolen.

  “Rachel? For goodness sake, what is wrong with you today?” I vaguely hear mum screeching in the background.

  I am stuck to the spot, speechless, looking at a big glass cylinder erected right beside the security check-in line. I can’t seem to find the words as I stare at the small snow globe sitting in the middle of it. The very same snow globe that Joel and I bought in Aviemore and gave to Maggie on New Year’s Day. There is no denying it, the four small figures, two boys and two girls, the cottage, the snow-covered ground. I take the few short steps over to it, to get a better look, and just stare blankly at it, while I hear mum falling out with dad behind me. I don’t care if I miss the bloody plane, I hear myself think silently. I glance back over at the painting, which is just and no more still visible from the corner, then at the sculpture, the floor piano, and then the snow globe again.

  “What is going on?” I ask out loud, to nobody in particular, to anybody that might know, to someone that might just be listening.

  I take a small step backwards starting to feel uneasy and confused, spooked even. I’m not sure if any of this is real, what if I’m hallucinating? I start to feel warm, too warm, and fan my face with my passport and boarding ticket, I must be dreaming. It’s all a silly nightmare and I’m going to wake up very soon.

  I slowly turn around to find mum and dad both now silently looking at me, agape. No more arguing. No more harassing me. Mum apparently no longer caring about her stupid flight.

  I feel my forehead crease and I somehow manage to start breathing again, it sounds quick and forced, but I inhale quickly as the noise of the airport seems to filter back into my psyche.

  As if in slow motion, I turn my fuzzy head slightly and see the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen standing only a few feet from me.

  “Marty?” I whisper feeling confused, excited, angry, exhilarated, scared.

  I have no idea how I feel right now.

  He walks over to me quickly and takes my limp hand from my side, “Rachel, it’s so unbelievably good to see you.”

  I watch as he seems to take me all in, his thumb caressing the back of my hand like he used to do, at Christmas when we met. When things were so very different from how they are now.

  “Marty… What are you doing here?” I ask searching his face for answers.

  He looks at my hand while he continues to rub it gently, “These last few months, Rach, I’ve missed you so much. I thought that I couldn’t be the man you needed, the man you wanted, the man you deserve in life, but I… I just keep thinking, ‘if only’. I mean, what if I am wrong. I know I’m broken in so many ways, but I know now that I was given a second chance, and you were it. I don’t know if I’m too late, but when I heard you were heading to Spain for a year, I had to at least give it a shot,” he says almost shyly.

  I can’t help but simply stare back at him.

  Spain for a year?

  Is he really here?

  “Rachel?” he squeezes my hand slightly, prompting me to say something, anything.

  I just don’t know what to say. I feel completely numb. It’s not often I’m completely lost for words, but my brain just can’t seem to compute what he is saying.

  “I, um… I have a flight to catch,” I tell him and look at my watch.

  He looks at me strangely, “I know, I’m sorry for doing this, but time wasn’t on my side. Will you give me another chance, Rach? Please?”

  I feel his grip on my hand tighten in desperation, but I just can’t help but feel betrayed, I know he went through a lot, but I’ve suffered these last few months being hung up on a guy that told me we could never ever be. I feel like I am just on the cusp of accepting that, and now he seems to expect me to jump back on the bandwagon and start all over again?

  “I have to go, Marty. It’s been a long time, and things have changed. I’ve moved on,” I hear myself say but I don’t know where it is coming from.

  Marty drops my hand and looks at me as though he’s been shot, and not by cupid’s arrow.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I say and I quickly turn on my heel with my wheeled hand luggage, and walk past mum and dad into the security check-in.

  I seem to be the only one there, dumping my bag on the scanner, separating my mobile from my luggage and walking through the metal detector. My bag shows fluid or something in it and the lady pulls me aside to check through my bag. She finds a hand sanitizer and rescans my bag, handing it back to me when I’m free to go. I have no idea if she said anything to me, or if I answered.

  I take my bag and start walking away, when someone taps me on the shoulder, “Excuse me, you left your passport in the tray,” the woman says handing it to me.

  I take it from her and stand silently staring at her for a moment as my brain seems to come back to life.

  “Are you ok?” the woman asks me now cupping my elbow in her hand. “Do you need to sit down?”

  “Oh my God,” I say as reality finally kicks in. “Oh… Oh my God, I need to get back out there,” I shout pointing at the way I came in. “Sorry!” I glance back at the woman that gave me my passport and she gives me a strange look, she must think I’m on the spectrum. I realise mum and dad are coming through security now, “I’m not coming to Spain!” I shout and wave at them excitedly, and they both immediately start smiling and waving at me, “Call us!” I hear dad shout.

  “This way, Madam, you can’t go back that way,” a security officer sternly tells me and redirects me. I follow the way he says and quickly find myself back out in the general airport hall.

  “Marty!” I shout, turning in circles, looking for him. “Please don’t have left already, please, please, don’t have left already.”

  I’m aware that I’m causing a scene and that people are starting to look at me. I start running up the hall back to the main entrance and just as I get to it, I see Marty standing by the door rubbing his temples and talking to someone animatedly on the phone, “Marty!”

  He turns immediately and looks in my direction.

  We both stand for a moment, unsure of what to do next, thankfully my legs take care of it for me, and I start running to him. Just as I get about a foot away from him, I stop, “I didn’t mean what I just said.”

  He seems lost for words this time.

  “I, really didn’t mean what I just said, Marty. I don’t want Spain. I want you. All of you. Broken or not. I haven’t moved on, not even in the slightest. I can’t move on, I want you… that’s if, you’ll still have me?” I’m not good when I’m flustered.

  Finally, I see the slight incline of his lips and he opens his arms to me, which I don’t hesitate to fall into.

  “I love you, Rachel,” he says into my hair as he breathes me in. “I kept playing everything over and over in my head… for the last few months… if only I wasn’t in this horren
dous predicament, if only I hadn’t met you, if only Mags hadn’t ingrained in me that life was for living… she was right, you know? It’s just taken me forever to realise that she was so very right. And then I thought, if only it hadn’t taken me so long to realise just how much I love you, maybe you’d still be mine. I’m sorry, really. I love you so much it hurts to think of a life without you in it.”

  “I love you, too,” I say as his lips claim mine and I giggle with embarrassment as someone wolf whistles at us.

  As we pull apart, he dips his forehead to mine, “I know for sure I couldn’t have spent the rest of my life thinking ‘if only’, you know?” he smiles adoringly at me as he tucks my hair behind my ear.

  “I know,” I smile back up at him.

  “I never, ever, want to think or hear, ‘if only’ ever again, Marty,” I playfully scold him.

  “Life is for living, right?”

  “Right.”

  Chapter 35

  “Why did you think I was going to Spain for a year?” I ask Marty as he entwines his long fingers through mine and pulls the duvet up tighter around us as we lie and listen to the pitter-patter of morning drizzle on my bedroom window.

  “It’s a long story,” he says and runs his finger lightly over my skin from my neck down to my belly button. “Simon called me and told me that you were undecided about what to do since your work contract had finished, and said you were leaving for Spain for a year.”

  “Simon said that?” I ask amazed, Simon has become quite the little matchmaker, so it would seem.

  “Hmm, he said you were going to work in a bar,” he tells me further.

  “Really? Did he tell you what I was going to work as in this so called bar,” I ask.

  “As a matter of fact, he did,” he says and runs his finger back up to my nipple, moving the duvet back to watch as it pebbles.

  “Humour me, then,” I wait in anticipation of what he might say.

  “I would say that he said something about a professional pool player, or a cocktail waitress, or simply a barmaid, but we both know any of that’d be a complete lie coming from Simon’s mouth, so I’ll be completely honest. Obviously, he informed me that you were going to be working as a pole dancer,” Marty tells me straight faced.

  “Right,” I nod and watch his finger. “Obviously.”

  “It’s just as well that I don’t believe every single thing that comes out of that man’s gob,” he nods agreeably with me, and I stir as I feel something hard and fully loaded prod my thigh.

  “Are you doubting my talents as a pole dancer?” I ask him seriously.

  He leans up on his elbow to look down at me through his steely pale blue eyes, “I’ve learned the hard way never to doubt you, Rachel, I know of a pole which you’re exceptional on,” he says as I feel another twitch at my thigh.

  I can’t help a snort as I burst out laughing.

  “Did you just snort at me, Rachel?” he asks, pinning me down on the bed.

  I can’t help sniggering again, “I think I just did,” I whisper playfully.

  He solemnly climbs off of me, putting his feet firmly on the floor, he then grabs my feet and pulls me down to the edge of the bed.

  “Hey!” I giggle some more.

  He eyes me greedily and quickly pulls me up to a seating position, and then leans down and cups my butt cheeks in his hands, lifting me so I naturally wrap my legs around his waist. I kiss him eagerly, nothing about the last day has been patient between us. Patience is for losers, and don’t I know it now.

  He walks me over to the wall, and while kissing me like he’s making up for all the lost kisses we missed over the last few months, he slides into me, and I think I may orgasm on the spot if he moves again too quickly.

  Just as I grab his shoulders for support, he pulls back to look at me, “I’ve been dying to fuck you like this, Rach.”

  “Fuck away…” is all I manage before he really shows me what fucking is all about.

  I knew he was strong, but I didn’t know just quite how strong. He is holding me up and sliding effortlessly in and out of me, while kissing my mouth, my neck, my breasts, he is insatiable, and I’m lost in him. For good. And I never ever want to return to the person I was pre-Marty. As I scream his name and he finds my sweet spot to make me scream some more, I dig my nails into his shoulders and mark my territory. As he finally lets himself go, I watch his beautiful features go rigid before loosening and pulling me flush against him, kissing me more gently, but not letting me go.

  We stand slick with sweat, embraced as one, united together. Our breathing rhythms finally starting to relax again, but our grip on each other, most definitely not.

  “Would you consider moving up north with me?” he plucks out of thin air.

  I feel my legs slide down his and I shakily find my balance, feet on the floor.

  “Marty… I wish I could say ‘yes’, but what about my house? What about my job?” I stare at him feeling worried as I don’t want this to be a maker or breaker.

  “Your contract is finished, I thought?” he replies.

  “Yeah, but I need to find another job,” I look down at my fingers and pick at my cuticles, a nervous habit I seem to have started lately.

  He tucks his fingers under my chin, pulling my head up to face him again, “Rach, what else do you have to stay in Aberdeen for? Hmm?”

  “I… My…” I was going to say because of my job but I currently don’t have one, like he just said, then I was going to say for my family, but mum and dad are pretty much permanently in Spain now. “Wait, I thought you were abroad on some medical mission?” I remember what Joel told me.

  “What?” Marty looks perplexed. “Where did that come from?” he asks.

  “Joel said that’s what your dad told him. I wanted to know why you weren’t at the house, or around at all during Simon and Bex’s wedding,” I tell him.

  “I wasn’t invited to their wedding,” he says with a shrug. “I wasn’t abroad, I was in my own house.”

  “Your own house?” I ask. “I thought you lived with your mum and dad?”

  He nearly chokes, “Rach, I’m nearly thirty years old, I do not still live at home,” he says. “When you were up at Christmas, I had just closed on selling my old house, I’ve moved into my new house now.”

  “Oh, you never said,” I reply, with a shrug back at him. “You didn’t tell me anything, at all, apparently.”

  “I didn’t not tell you, it just never came up,” he says and strokes my neck with his finger.

  “Please, lets try to make a proper go of things,” he asks again. “You can keep your house here to see how things go, you’ve got a few weeks of the school holidays to go yet and maybe you’ll find a job in Aviemore? We have schools too, you know.”

  I know he’s right, but I can’t help feeling slightly unsure about what to do.

  “Please, Rachel? I’ll beg if you want me to! I’m due back to work next week at my old medical practice, I don’t have a choice right now otherwise I’d say I would move down here to be with you. They’ve been so understanding with everything, and they’re short staffed because of maternity leave, I can’t let them down now,” he says and I know it’s me that needs to make the call.

  “OK, lets see how things go, I’ll come up for the rest of the holidays,” I relent and run my fingers lightly over the hair on his chest.

  “Oh, that turns me on so much,” he says with an earthy gravely tone that very much turns me on.

  I give him a seductive look and as I take a very small step, closing the distance between us again, it forces him to take a small step back, but he loses his footing and reaches back to grab something to steady himself. As he does so, his hand catches a drawer handle that makes the drawer slide open and as he loses his balance forwards this time, he falls on top of me on the bed and we both end up a half laughing, half crying mess, and awkwardly stuck in positions that are not all that easy to get out of.

  “You need to get up first!” I tel
l him while trying to push his heavy weight off of me.

  He struggles up onto his feet trying not to hurt me, “You ok?”

  “I’m fine!” I tell him as I struggle to sit up.

  We are both still completely naked, and this whole scenario is totally at odds with my shy and usually pretty reserved self.

  “Well, he-llooooo,” Marty has swiveled round on his heels and is looking at the contents of the drawer that are now strewn all over the floor.

  I am mortified, “Wait, I can explain!”

  Marty has already bent over and picked up a pair of crotchless panties in one hand, and a dildo with the other, “Last time I checked, these didn’t need much explaining.”

  I cover my eyes with my hands, completely embarrassed, “I… I didn’t mean…”

  “I don’t care what you meant, Rach. You had better get comfortable, we’ve got a long, extremely fun day ahead of us now,” he says cheekily. “You better have an extra suitcase to bring along, we aren’t leaving any of this lot behind!”

  I peek through my fingers at him and see him peeking through the ‘less’ part of the ‘crotch’ in the panties.

  “If only!” I squeal and squirm back up the bed as he crawls hungrily after me.

  Epilogue

  “Marty, do you think Maggie would be happy to see us like this?” I ask as I wipe down the kitchen counter.

  “I don’t think, Rach, I know,” he replies from behind his newspaper.

  “Don’t you ever think it’s strange?” I ask feeling nostalgic today.

  He lays his paper down and looks over at me, “Not any more,” he says.

  “I talk to her all the time,” I admit sheepishly.