Liz barked out a laugh. “You, my dear, are not coming to dinner tonight. I’ll tell Rob’s friend you had to cancel. And suggest he not get too hopeful about rescheduling.”
“There’s no way this is happening. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Julia. You’re not marrying him. You’re just telling him he doesn’t have to wait on the sidewalk. Did you know he was in the States?”
“No.”
“That’s a long way to come to say hello to you through an intercom and turn around again.”
Julia didn’t move.
“Do it,” Liz said.
Julia still didn’t move.
“Do it before he thinks you don’t want to see him and leaves.”
Julia’s breath caught. The thought of him buzzing up to her, knowing she was there, knowing she knew who it was, and then waiting for an invitation that never came…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blake kicked his toe against the front stoop, waiting. She’d heard him, right? It was possible she hadn’t known who it was, but he doubted it. He’d heard her inhale as soon as he’d said her name.
And then nothing. No hello, no buzz of the door letting him in. Did he have the wrong apartment number, scratched on a piece of paper she’d given him with her email and mobile before things went sour for them? Or was this her way of saying, Go away?
But he could wait for her to be ready to see him. He could wait however long it took.
He’d already waited for the months he’d been traveling, for the time he’d been back home, for the end of the school year so he wouldn’t be interrupting when he knew she’d be at her busiest. He’d waited for the more than twenty-four hours it took to get from Sydney to Chicago, the image of her dark hair spurring him on. He’d even waited once he arrived, spending the night in a hotel so he wouldn’t show up completely bedraggled on her doorstep, despite the fact that it was torture to be in the same city and not rush over in the middle of the night.
And then he’d waited all day while she was at work, giving her what he hoped was enough time to come home.
Hoping she’d come home and wasn’t out with friends or colleagues or—an unimaginable thought, he pushed it aside right away—a boyfriend, someone she’d met since her return.
It didn’t matter. He was here. And this time he wasn’t going anywhere.
He was done making mistakes, done running away, done stopping himself from going after what he wanted no matter the difficulties that stood in the way. She might not want him, but that didn’t mean he was going to slink off without giving it a try.
He buzzed again, squinting up at the building to see if he could tell which window was hers. Let me in, he willed from afar. He stamped his feet against the pavement and looked down the street. Chicago was massive, sprawling, and colder than he was used to—he should have brought a jacket now that evening was settling in. He tried the door again, thinking maybe he hadn’t heard it buzz. But it banged uselessly, locked.
It occurred to him then that she really wasn’t going to see him. It had been too long, he’d done nothing but send one lousy postcard and a few brief emails that could never stand to capture all that he’d wanted to say. She had every right to turn him away. He raised his hand to the intercom one more time and then dropped it. He’d known it was a possibility as soon as he’d booked his ticket. It could be a trip for nothing. She could be done with him.
But it wasn’t nothing, he reminded himself. Trying wasn’t nothing. Nothing only happened if he walked away, waiting for life to happen to him, waiting for love to knock him out cold like he didn’t have to put in any effort when the right person came.
Nothing was how he’d felt when he was alone in Australia, going through the motions, missing the fullness he’d once held inside. Realizing how much he’d lost when pride and fear kept him from taking that trip to São Paulo and telling her he wanted to give them a try—not for a week while they were traveling, but for however long they could make their lives intertwine. No matter how many plane rides it took.
Blake knew the opportunities he’d had as a writer had come because he’d made them happen, pursuing what he wanted even when it seemed the whole world was telling him no. He’d had to make hard decisions and be persistent to make his dreams come true. Why did he think the rest of life, and love, would be any different? Why did he think he shouldn’t have to work for any of it?
Standing outside Julia’s apartment, though, he worried that he’d come to his senses too late. He had no right to assume she’d open her door after so much time had passed. He had no right to her heart anymore.
He took a sip of the fresh coconut water he’d gotten from one of those overpriced health food stores he’d gone to way on the other side of town. The sweetness reminded him of her lips and the way her eyes had lit up the first time she tasted coconut on the beach.
But the taste wasn’t the same. It was an imitation of the thing they’d once had, the kind of thing he knew now could never be recaptured. He was going to have to go back to his hotel, email Jamie to let him know he’d failed, and book the next flight home.
He was turning away when the noise he’d been waiting for suddenly came.
He leaped for the door, pushing it open before she could change her mind and stop buzzing him in. There wasn’t an elevator and he raced up the stairs, heart pounding in his throat. He tried to slow down but he couldn’t hold himself back.
This had to work. There was no other way.
He’d imagined this moment countless times since he’d left Rio in a rush. Long before he fully understood that he had to go to Chicago and see her he’d imagined her apartment, where she lived, what her life was like. Now he was here, standing in front of her door, and he couldn’t believe it was real. He raised his hand to knock but before it came down the door swung open, and he was face to face with Julia, her eyes wide and an almost frantic look on her face, and she was so beautiful, she was so goddamn beautiful, he didn’t so much step into her apartment as fall into her arms.
But he didn’t fall into her, not really, because she pulled away immediately, as though she’d been reaching out for him and then stopped herself short.
It hurt, but he understood.
For so long he’d been thinking about this moment and now that it was here, he almost didn’t know what to do.
“Hey,” he said gently, eyeing her up and down. She looked tired, softened, and he wanted to run his fingers through her hair, press his cheek to hers, tell her it was going to be okay.
But he couldn’t. He hadn’t earned that yet.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was quiet, flat, nothing he could read except that he knew her well enough to know what it meant when she was hiding, putting on that calm exterior, keeping everything else in check.
But no, he thought suddenly, that wasn’t quite right. The smallness in her voice was different than anything he’d heard from her before. She wasn’t pretending, acting tough and in control. She was showing her uncertainty, her fear. She was showing herself to him.
He extended the large plastic cup. “I brought you something.”
Julia eyed him uncertainly. “What is it?”
He grinned. “Taste.”
Gingerly she took the cup, looking at him like he was a wild animal who’d stepped out of his cage. Safe for the moment but ready to bite.
Still, she didn’t toss the liquid in his face and kick him down the stairs. Slowly, watching him, she brought the straw to her lips.
Realization dawned over her face as she drank. “Where did you find this?” she asked breathlessly, staring at him not with the same caution but with something else now, as though he were a creature she’d never seen before.
He couldn’t stop the smile. “It’s not the same as the real thing, but it’s as close as I could get. Better than the packaged stuff, that’s for sure.”
She took another sip. So far, so good.
But then she turned and put
the cup on the kitchen counter, and when she faced him again her arms were folded, eyes narrowed with the same suspicion they’d held when he walked in.
“Blake,” she started, and he took a step forward, holding up his hand.
“Don’t say anything,” he pleaded before she could give him the piece of her mind he so deserved. “I’m here because I have to explain.”
He’d thought about it the whole flight over. But in the end there was no planning. He didn’t have the perfect thing to say, because there was no perfect thing. There was only the truth, and the force of his feelings for her. He stood in the doorway to her adorable apartment, filled with so much Julia and messier than he’d expected—books, clothes, an empty bottle of red wine—and spoke.
“I fucked up,” he said. “I fucked up as soon as I got on that plane to Santiago. No, even earlier—as soon as I walked out that door. Don’t think I didn’t realize I’d made a mistake.”
Julia sank into a kitchen chair. She didn’t invite him to sit with her so he leaned against the counter, taking her in.
He went on.
“I was afraid of what I had with you, what I felt for you. I thought that if I ran away from it I could keep going with my life as though nothing had ever happened. That way I wouldn’t lose anything. I wouldn’t have to risk being hurt.”
Julia looked away, the pain of what he’d done clearly etched on her face.
“You could have come back,” she said quietly. “You could have met me at the airport. You could have called me from Chile. You could have emailed at any point during your trip.” But even though her voice was small, she wasn’t backing down. Her eyes locked into his and held him there. “You could have done any number of things to give me some kind of sign that you cared. That the week we spent together was more than some random fling.”
A million protests came into his mind. That it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t known what to do, she hadn’t come after him either, and anyway what did it matter—he was here now. But he pushed them aside. That was the old Blake, making excuses and running away. Instead he said simply, “I know.”
She seemed surprised by his admission. “Then why are you here?” she asked, confused.
Blake sighed. “I went out to dinner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I went out to dinner with Jamie and his new girlfriend, Laura.”
Julia’s eyebrows shot up. “So Chris is still with Lukas?”
“Shocking, isn’t it? I haven’t been in touch with her, out of loyalty to Jamie, but she included me in an email announcing that they’re opening up that inn on the coast like they said. But that’s not the point.” He paused, considering. “Actually, I guess it sort of is. They’re happy doing what they want to do, building the life they want to have together—even if it doesn’t quite make sense to me.”
“It sounds like they decided to never come back to the real world.” Julia rolled her eyes.
“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” He was getting excited now, wanting her to see. “It is the real world—for them at least. It’s the world they want to be in, the life they want to live. They’re not holding themselves back because it’s complicated or impractical or not what they were expecting or whatever else people might say. They’re doing it. And Jamie and Laura—they’re doing it, too.”
“You like her? The new girlfriend, I mean,” Julia asked.
“They work together. She’s brilliant, caring, great for Jamie. Plus she wants to settle down, have a family, travel sometimes but have a home in Australia with him. It’s still early, but I’ve never seen him so…happy. Content. They click in this way that’s so obvious. As soon as you see them, you know.”
“So you had dinner with them?” Julia prodded, getting him back to that strange revelation that had changed everything for him. Or not changed it, but brought it into focus so clearly that for the first time, he couldn’t turn away.
“It’s not like I hadn’t seen them together before,” he continued. “But there was this night when I’d been working late. I’m writing a new show. I kind of thought it up when I was with you, and I’ve been trying to get it into production.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to get into that yet. “Anyway, when I met up with them, I was late. Tired. Focused on other things. I got to the bar after them and I was looking around, trying to find where they’d sat, and it was this moment—it’s hard to explain, but there was this moment when I saw them before they saw me, and it was so unscripted, so incredibly intimate. So real. I saw the way they were looking at each other, laughing over their drinks, and she touched his arm and I—”
Blake broke off, looking away. He felt his voice catching. It had been ridiculous even then. What he’d seen hadn’t been significant. It was what couples did when they were together, in their own little bubble even when they were out in the world.
But it was exactly that normalcy that got to him. How comfortable and happy they were. How they’d found each other at last. He’d walked up to them and sat down and ordered a beer and they were glad to see him; it wasn’t like he’d interrupted. But even when they were talking and laughing, he kept thinking about the way Jamie and Laura looked at each other when they thought no one was looking. When there was no one else in their world.
It wasn’t just that he wanted that—to love someone, and be loved in return. It was that in that instant somehow it all slammed into him. That he’d had that—once, briefly—and it wasn’t with Kelley. It wasn’t with any other ex.
It was with Julia, in Brazil. At dinner with her, walking with her, holding hands with her on the beach. It was trembling in her arms after they’d jumped off a cliff and let themselves soar. It was early in the morning when she rolled over, half asleep, and curled her body against his. That wasn’t a time-out from the rest of his life. That was his life. That was what he’d shared with her.
He tried to explain all of this, but he wasn’t sure she understood. It was so clear in his mind and so convoluted when it came out in words.
“You want what Jamie has,” Julia finally said.
“No.” Blake shook his head. “I want what I had but was too wrapped up in myself and my plans to see.”
Julia looked at him intently. “What is it that you had?”
“I spent a week in Brazil falling in love with you, Julia. It took me five months to fully accept that that isn’t changing, and that nothing I feel for you is going away. That may be five months too long,” he said before she could remind him. “It’s five months I wish I hadn’t had to spend, and that you hadn’t had to go through. But that’s how long it took me to be more sure of this than I’ve ever been of anything in my life. That’s how long I could hold out before I knew that if I didn’t come see you, I’d break.”
She took a sharp breath. When she spoke, her voice was pained. “I tried to forget you. I tried to pretend it didn’t mean what it did. Because I thought that for you, it was over. You didn’t call. You barely wrote. I told myself I had to accept that we were done, because there was no other sign that we weren’t.”
Blake pulled up a chair beside her and leaned close, taking her hands in his. “This isn’t the kind of conversation for the phone. This isn’t the kind of thing I could email you and say.” He ran his thumb over her palm, wondering how such a simple touch could do so much to him. “You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to love me back. But I had to tell you anyway. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t get the chance to look you in the eyes and say I’m sorry.”
He looked at her and watched her scan him, trying to read something there. He let himself face her, open, his thumb gently circling the center of her palm. He didn’t know where this was going, but he had to wait and see.
“I’ve missed you,” she finally said, when he thought he couldn’t take her silence anymore. “I thought, after so much time passed, that you were gone.”
Mentally he kicked himself. How could he have let her wait all that time, think
ing things were over for them? How could he have made her think her love wasn’t the most important part of his world?
“I had a lot of time to think while I was traveling on my own,” he said, hoping she would understand. “The whole time I kept convincing myself that I’d come home and dive back into my real life and, I don’t know, snap out of it or something. Like you were someone I could move on from.” He shook his head, laughing at the memories because otherwise he would cringe.
He told her about the blurry two weeks in Santiago before saying good-bye to a heartsick Jamie. He’d wanted to believe it was worth it to be there for his friend…and yet afterward, it seemed he was always moving, always trying to outrun his thoughts. If he could keep on the road ahead of his memories of the dark-haired girl with her captivating eyes, who did things that scared her and laughed at her fear, then maybe he’d be able to forget.
But he couldn’t. South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe… He went bungee jumping off the world’s highest jump in South Africa to prove to himself that he could, that he didn’t need anyone with him to do it. But while the adrenaline rush was there, the thrill wasn’t. It wasn’t as fun when he didn’t have anyone to laugh with about hollering all the way down.
At Victoria Falls it was like a dam released inside, flooding him with memories. The falls were supposed to be beautiful, but everything in him ached when he stood before the thundering cloud of white spray and wished it would pound him into the rocks, crush him so he didn’t have to feel this way. Julia had said she dreamed of falling, the soaring descent of each drop. But Blake only had eyes for the bottom, where the rocks were steadily pounded down until one day they’d be nothing but dust.
She ran a hand through his hair, pulling a curl behind his ear, and let her fingers linger on his neck. Her touch both melted him and turned him to steel. “I wish you’d told me you felt that way,” she said with a sigh.
“The postcard,” he reminded her.
“I know.”
“It wasn’t much.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.” His stomach tensed with regret, until she said, “At least it let me know you weren’t gone.”
How to Fall Page 26