Here Without You

by Jennifer L. Allen

  My job with the Navy, they’re called ratings, is air traffic control. I work behind the control panels inside the ship. It’s stressful, but I enjoy it. I appreciate the challenge and the fact that I’m protecting our country. The ships I’m assigned to are aircraft carriers, those are the huge ones with the flat tops, like the Yorktown in Charleston. Remember when we visited there with your family one weekend? You sat on one of the cannons and I took your picture. Anyway, they’re like floating cities, with post offices, general stores, medics, and financial and administrative offices. I have deployed before, twice. Once was just a six month cruise, it was more training than anything else. The other was a year over in the Middle East. Most of the activity over there is on land, so we weren’t exactly in a war zone on the ship, not like you’ve probably seen on TV, but we were close enough to be in danger. I’m so busy on the ship, there really isn’t time to get scared, though. It’s usually the time before we deploy and while we’re cruising when the nerves set in, but they train us on how to deal with that so it doesn’t interfere with our work. We really can’t make mistakes, so our mental well-being is always paramount.

  I’m going to run (literally, I’m heading to the gym), but I’ll talk to you soon.

  Ryan

  As I clicked send on the email, Rogers walked in with the mail, tossing a big envelope at me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “I don’t fucking know,” Rogers grumbled.

  “It was a rhetorical question,” I said back. He always got bitchy when we were getting ready to deploy. I didn’t blame him, we all handled things differently. I knew that better than anyone.

  Looking at the return address, I saw it was from Anna. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t an envelope. She said package, so my immediate thought was a box. I tore open the flap, pulled the sheet of paper from the inside and froze.

  The treehouse.

  She drew it, and it looked identical to the real thing. It was almost like I was staring at a black and white photo. She must have done it from memory, too, since the actual treehouse collapsed in a hurricane a few summers back. My reaction had been bittersweet when my parents told me of the loss. On the one hand, I was sorry to see the structure that held so many of mine and Anna’s memories—intimate memories—go, but on the other hand it was like a form of closure. Like life was telling me it was time to move on.

  Now this…

  I navigated back to my inbox, ready to compose a new message to Anna, telling her I received the drawing, but there was already a new message from her. That was quick.

  To: Ryan Jacobs

  From: Anna Romano

  Subject: RE: RE: Virginia?

  Ryan,

  When do you leave? How long will you be gone? Where are you going? Can you tell me?

  Anna

  I ran my hands through my hair, then rubbed them down my face. She was panicking. Part of me—a part deep down inside that had been buried a long time ago—wanted to pick up the phone and call her. That part of me wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay, that she didn’t need to worry. The other part of me knew that calling her would be taking this…thing…that was between us too far.

  Friends. We were just friends.

  Didn’t friends reassure each other, though?

  There was a fine line for me and Anna. It had been years since we’d been in a relationship, but there was still that sizzle between us. I couldn’t allow myself to do anything that would tip us over the edge.

  Things were still too raw. We needed to build this friendship thing, and the best way to do that was to keep a distance. Email was one of the most impersonal forms of communication, so it would have to stay that way.

  To: Anna Romano

  From: Ryan Jacobs

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: Virginia?

  Anna,

  I’ll be gone on my deployment for eight months. We’ll be at sea for most of that time, but we will stop at a few ports. I leave in a few weeks, and there’s a lot I have to do in that time to prepare since I’ll be going to a new base after I return. It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s all routine stuff and we can still email while I’m gone. There may be blackout periods where coms are down, but for the most part things stay up and running. Just focus on you. Keep sketching, reading, and when the weather is right, hike. They carved a new trail over at Forest Park. It’s mostly used by mountain bikers, but it’s good for hiking, too. You should check it out. There’s also the paved bicycle paths down by Harmon’s Creek, you can take Ronnie with you there. I’m sure she’d like to spend some time outside with you. I have to get going, but please don’t worry about me, Anna. Everything will be okay.

  Ryan

  PS I got your sketch. It’s amazing. I knew you still had it in you.

  ~ 14 ~

  Anna

  Two Months Later

  After weeks of non-stop studying, I was finally finished with the GED exam.

  Dropping out of high school was something I’d been ashamed of, something that was holding me back. Not anymore. I was all about new beginnings. And today was exactly that—a new beginning. I could finally apply to art school.

  I stepped out the front doors of Lakeside High School for the very last time and paused, taking a deep breath of the cool, crisp winter air.

  As Ryan and I once dreamed about years ago, today was the first day of the rest of my life.

  Ryan.

  He deployed a few weeks ago. I didn’t get to see him again before he left. It was hard knowing he was even further away now, but he’d been right—we were still emailing, and things still felt the same because of that. Through our messages, we caught each other up on what we’d been doing with our days. Well, he shared what he was able to, which was mostly routine stuff around the ship. He couldn’t really talk about his job, and I understood that. I told him about volunteering with Mom and the people I’d met. He encouraged me to get through my studying, and I told him what I’d been sketching. I did brave the cold and hit the new hiking trail he’d mentioned. When I reached the top, I sat and sketched the view. I mailed that picture to him last week. I knew it would take a while for it to reach him at sea, but I wanted him to see it—the real thing, not a picture of it.

  He’d become such a big part of my life again, in a new way. I liked being friends with Ryan. We’d skipped that part when we first met eight years ago. In a way, it was another new beginning.

  “What the heck are you doing?” Ronnie called, snapping my attention to the parking lot. She sat in her chair inside the handi-capable van—as she called it—with my dad behind the wheel. She and I were going to hit the bike trail.

  “I’m coming,” I hollered back, stepping off the curb and walking across the paved lot. I hopped in the van, sitting in the bucket seat beside her.

  “How’d you do?”

  “I aced it,” I said confidently. “Piece of cake.”

  “Ooh, cake. Dad, can we get some cake on the way home?” Ronnie asked, and I laughed.

  “Sure, honey.” We were so spoiled—true daddy’s girls—even in our twenties. He never could said no to either one of us, especially these days.

  Dad dropped us off at the beginning of the trail, and I opened the back of the van to get my bike. Ronnie was bundled up in her power chair with a blanket—lucky—and I was set to go on my new bike.

  “I’ll be back in an hour. Just call me if you need me to pick you up earlier.”

  “Bye, Dad!” Ronnie called, already scooting down the path.

  “Watch out for her,” Dad said as Ronnie moved out of earshot.

  “Will do,” I assured him.

  “Proud of you, kiddo,” he said, then got in the van and pulled away.

  A small smile graced my face as I fastened my helmet and then pedaled hard to catch up with my sister.

  “Jeez, you’re slow,” Ronnie said when I finally caught up.

  “Hey, you’re running off a motor. I’m running
off pedal power,” I huffed. Man, I was out of shape.

  “Quit whining. At least your legs work.”

  My jaw dropped. “I didn’t mean-”

  Ronnie laughed. “Gotcha. You’re so easy.”

  “Brat,” I muttered under my breath.

  “I heard that,” she sang.

  “You were meant to.”

  “Have you talked to Ryan lately?” she asked a few minutes later.

  A few days before Ryan left, Ronnie caught me in a down moment. I was upset about the deployment, and I didn’t want her to worry that I was regressing, so I told her the truth. I told her that Ryan and I had been talking through email and that I was sad he was deploying. She said all the right sisterly things, and since then I’ve updated her every now and then.

  “I haven’t heard from him in a few days, but he warned me that there was a blackout period coming up, so that’s probably why.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just a period of time when communications are down. They can’t use the phone or internet.”

  “Oh. Well, that kind of sucks.”

  “I agree, but it’s routine.” We paused near a bench by the creek, and I lowered the kickstand on my bike. “I want to sit for a minute.”

  “Wimp.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat on the bench, taking off my helmet and trying to smooth my helmet hair. The chill on the surface bit right through my jeans, and I shivered.

  “Do you miss him?”

  “It’s kind of hard to miss him when we haven’t really spent time together,” I told her. “But I guess I miss the idea of him. From before, you know?”

  “Is it still just ‘friendship’ between the two of you?” she asked using air quotes around the word friendship.

  “Yep,” I answered, rolling my eyes and popping my lips on the P.

  “Do you want more?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But someday?”

  I looked at the crystal clear water flowing in the creek, considering whether or not I wanted to be honest with my sister…with myself.

  “I’m still not ready, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t wonder if things could be different for us in the future. We haven’t talked about it…at all. Everything we’ve talked about has been neutral. We avoid the heavy topics and we don’t talk about feelings or anything like that, unless I tell him about one of my sessions.”

  “Do you guys ever talk about your relationship before?”

  “No. We’re always very careful to skirt around the edges of the past. We may mention a memory, but we never say that we were making out right before it happened or anything like that.” Though I was always thinking about those moments. I wondered if he was, too.

  “You guys are so weird. He loves you. You love him. You’re exactly right, you’re both just skirting around it all.”

  “I’m not ready for a relationship, Ronnie. I need to get myself well, first.”

  “You’ve been seeing Dr. Matson twice a week for over two months--”

  “There’s no set time--” I interrupted her, but she continued.

  “I see an improvement in you, Anna. Mom and Dad do, too. You’ve made a lot of positive changes. I’m not saying you need to jump into a relationship. But maybe you should step a toe over the line a bit. Now is the perfect time to explore your feelings with Ryan since you’re separated and can’t physically act on anything.”

  “What do you mean?” I looked towards her, cautiously intrigued.

  “Maybe bring up some of the hotter moments. See if he shuts them down, or if he acknowledges them.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking back to the creek. The rocks below the clear water were dark green from the algae. I remembered playing in the creek as a kid with Ronnie. The smooth rocks always felt slimy under my feet.

  “Well, you’re never gonna know unless you try.”

  “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  “All you ever do is think. You need to act!”

  “You need to stop reading so many romance novels,” I laughed as she scowled at me, muttering something about how it was a way of life. She was too much.

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  By the time I’d put my helmet back on and mounted my bike, she was already a good distance ahead of me. I pedaled hard and caught up. “Cheater,” I teased.

  “You’re just jealous,” she teased back.

  ~ 15 ~

  Ryan

  The blackout was lifted last night, so I was finally able to get on the computer. We were only without coms for about a week, but I missed the interaction with the outside world. I was back in the communications room after my shift to have a video call with Kelsey, and while I waited, I checked my email. Anna had replied to my last message, and to say I was a little surprised by her response was an understatement.

  To: Ryan Jacobs

  From: Anna Romano

  Subject: Hi

  Dear Ryan,

  It was good to hear from you again. I missed talking to you. I’d gotten pretty used to it. It reminded me of that time you went on that Alaskan cruise with your parents your junior year. I wished your parents would have just let you stay with us like my parents had offered, but our reunion was worth it, don’t you think?

  She went on to say more, but I couldn’t really focus on that. All I could think about was the memory she’d shared and how provocative it was. We’d had sex for the first time after I returned from that trip.

  Surely she wasn’t…

  I re-read the beginning of the message. She definitely was.

  She and I hadn’t crossed that kind of line in our communication. Not once. It was safer that way. For her and for me. She needed to get well and I…I needed to not get my heart involved. Not again. She was still too fragile, too capable of breaking it.

  I stared at her message for a while, not knowing how to reply. Did I mention the metaphorical elephant she so kindly placed in the room or did I ignore it? I didn’t want her to think that our time together had meant nothing to me. Would ignoring her words imply that? I didn’t want to encourage that kind of conversation either.

  Rock, meet hard place. Fuck.

  I tapped my finger on the edge of the desk, thinking about how I’d reply. A ping from the computer’s speaker pulled me out of my head, and I saw that Kelsey had signed on to Skype. I clicked her circle to call her, eager to see my girl.

  “Hey,” Kelsey’s pretty face filled the screen. She was always so cheerful, so positive, despite the challenges life threw at her. “Charlotte’s been asking for her daddy all day.”

  Unable to hold back my cheesy grin, I tried to rein in my emotions before our daughter came on. Nothing could bring a grown man to his knees quite like his little girl. “Is that right? Well, I’ve been waiting to see her all day, so we’re even.”

  Kelsey laughed and leaned down to pick up Charlotte, then my baby girl’s beautiful face was looking back at me.

  “Daddy!” she squealed, drawing the attention of some of the other guys in the room. I turned the speakers down a little bit. She had the tendency to shout into the computer when we chatted.

  “Hey, princess. How are you?”

  “Good. I had ice cweam today.”

  “Did you? What kind?”

  “Chocowate wif spwinkles.”

  I gave her a watery smile. I loved the way she lisped out certain words. She was adorable, perfect in every way, and that wasn’t just the biased opinion of her father. It was fact.

  “That’s my favorite.”

  “It’s my faborite, too, Daddy.”

  “How is school?” Not yet three years old, she didn’t go to an actual school; she went to daycare while Kelsey worked, and we called it school.

  “It fun. I wove it.”

  “Good, princess. That’s really good. You like your new house?”

  She nodded, looking towards something off the screen. As usual, our conversations lasted about two minutes before something else
took her toddler attention.

  “Why don’t you go play sweetie, we’ll talk again soon.”

  “Okay, Daddy. I wove you.”

  “I love you, too, princess.” She scampered off and Kelsey took the screen again. “How did the move go?” They’d just relocated to San Diego, where my next assignment was.

  “It went really well.” She was always smiling, always the optimist, even when she told a scared, barely twenty year-old kid he was going to be a dad. “The apartment is great, too. Are you sure you can afford this?”

  “Yes. They give military discounts, and I’m saving by rooming with Rogers.”

  “If you’re sure. I can pitch in more,” she tried to argue.

  Shaking my head, I shut her down immediately. “You already pitch in enough. You pretty much raise Charlotte on your own ninety percent of the time. It’s the least I can do.” And it was true. Kelsey was an amazing mother. We might not have worked out on an intimate level, but we co-parented Charlotte like we’d been training our whole lives for it.

  I’d never forget the day she showed up at the bar we’d met at three months before. It was a dive, known for being a military hang out due to its proximity to the base in Everett. Kelsey and I met there one night, got drunk, and one thing led to another. She was the first—the only—person I’d slept with since Anna. Admittedly, I’d used her to try to fill the void Anna had left behind, but it didn’t work. She, too, was just looking for a release. We’d said goodbye the next day and parted amicably. I never thought I’d see her again. Color me surprised when she showed up at that same bar three months later, telling me she was pregnant.