Going The Distance

by Artemis Anders

  Cain.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hannah’s heart began to pound in her chest. Feelings of all kinds, more than she could process, overwhelmed her. She immediately took a deep breath and shoved away the feelings as she pulled into her garage.

  Cain. Cain was sitting on her porch.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Hannah pulled out her two grocery bags, closed her garage, and approached her house. Cain sat there, leaning back in her chair, legs stretched out. He was still in full uniform, boots and jacket and all. It was the first time she’d seen him in it. His hair was shorter than last time she’d seen him, although not military cut. He wore dark stubble on his thick jaw. His face, his body, everything looked tired.

  Except his eyes. Dark, serious eyes locked onto hers, watching her the whole time as she drew closer.

  Dueling emotions fought within her. Part of her wanted to tell Cain to get off her porch and leave her alone, while another part wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him tighter than she’d ever hugged anyone. Hannah had no clue which one would win if she gave into them, so she fought like a dog to shove both feelings away. By the time she reached the top of the steps, she was in full control of herself again.

  The staring match continued as Hannah stood on her porch. She refused to speak first. He was on her turf, and it was his job to speak up, not hers.

  She waited.

  “Greetings,” he finally said.

  How comforting his deep voice sounded. How strange and familiar and soothing to her ears.

  “You’re back, I take it?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “For a while.”

  Hannah nodded, then went to the door and unlocked it with her free hand. She turned back to Cain. “Come on in.”

  Cain stood up and followed her inside. He seemed larger than ever in his uniform. He took her grocery bags and set them on her kitchen counter.

  “Can I get you something?” she said.

  “Got any of that bourbon lying around?”

  “I do.”

  Cain sat down at her dining table while Hannah found the bottle of bourbon, untouched since he’d left six months earlier, and poured him some. She handed Cain his bourbon and started unloading her groceries.

  “Are you glad to be home?” she said.

  Cain took a sip. “Very.”

  “I can imagine.” She opened the fridge to put away her fruits and veggies.

  “So who’s the guy?”

  Hannah froze, standing there with the fridge door wide open. “Excuse me?”

  “The guy,” Cain said, his dark eyes probing. “The runner. The one on your Facebook page.”

  Hannah felt her face grow hot as she tossed her fruit and veggies into the bin and shut the fridge. Anger surged through her. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “No,” he said plainly.

  “You’re cyberstalking me? Because I don’t remember getting a Facebook friend request from you. I also don’t remember saying that I would consult you about anyone I choose to hang out with.”

  Cain frowned. “Don’t get upset, alright? I’m just asking. Is he a boyfriend or just a friend?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “You know why.”

  Hannah shook her head. “No. I don’t know why. I haven’t seen you in six months, and we’ve barely talked—”

  “Because you stopped responding to my emails.”

  “Right,” she said. “Because we emailed so often before that.”

  Cain looked away for a moment, perhaps just a hint of guilt in his eyes. “Did you stop responding because you met someone?”

  Hannah hesitated. “No.”

  “Then why?” He swirled the bourbon in his glass.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Because I want to know if I’m wasting my time coming here.”

  “You are,” Hannah said. “This doesn’t work for me.”

  Cain’s eyes remained relentlessly locked on hers. “What doesn’t?”

  “You. I’m not the girl who you can just show up to her house and fuck whenever the urge strikes you.”

  Cain scowled. “Is that what you think?”

  Hannah refused to answer. She started putting away the rest of her groceries.

  The next thing she knew, Cain was in her kitchen, looming over her in his uniform. When she tried to open her cupboard, he held out his hand, preventing her from opening it. Hannah rolled her eyes, the emotions that she’d quashed earlier threatening to rise to the surface again.

  “Is that what you think?” he asked again. “That you’re someone I just want to fuck?”

  “Yes. And spend time with sometimes, but yes.” When Cain stared at her, as if unable to find the words to respond, she sighed. “And that was fine for a while. I know you had a lot going on, emotionally speaking. I know it was hard for you, and I know you did the best you could, and for a long time… it was enough. But it doesn’t work for me anymore.” Hannah felt her eyes moisten, but she held steady, willing away any tears.

  Cain’s jaw tightened, as if tamping down his anger, but his eyes told a different story. They looked sad. It pained her to see it. She knew then that her assumptions about him not caring about her had been nothing more than a story she’d told herself to avoid facing the more painful truth.

  That he did care about her, and always had, but he couldn’t give her what she needed. She didn’t know what she needed exactly; she only knew that she couldn’t get it with him.

  “I missed you, you know,” he finally said, his voice gruff. “I thought about you every fucking day.”

  Pain stabbed through Hannah. “I’m sorry.”

  Cain stared at her another moment, then turned away. He returned to her table and knocked back the rest of his bourbon before setting the empty glass on her countertop.

  Hannah stood in her kitchen, watching Cain as he headed for her door. He hesitated for a moment. “Thanks for the drink,” he said, without looking at her.

  He left.

  The following Saturday, Hannah went out for her longest run yet. Her right IT band nagged her, so she stopped and stretch it from time to time. Her knees felt stiff, and her feet felt tired. Everything seemed to bug her that day.

  She had days like that sometimes. Johnny had told her it was normal, and she’d come to trust that she knew the difference between normal suffering and crossing the line. That day, she ran as easy as she could, stopping to walk when she needed to. She managed to get all fifteen miles in, after running twenty-eight miles yesterday. She was tired for sure, but not drained.

  And since Summer was out of town and unavailable for brunch, Hannah looked forward to going home, sinking into the bathtub, and then stuffing her face with a giant pizza.

  Hannah drove home from the trailhead. But when she pulled up to her house, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

  The black Dodge truck. And Cain sitting on her porch.

  Hannah blinked at the deja vu, wondering for just a moment if she were far more tired than she realized and had started to hallucinate. But when she saw that Cain was wearing hiking pants and a fleece rather than an Army uniform, she realized he was no figment of her imagination. It was Cain. On her porch. Again.

  Hannah shook her head before she got out of her SUV and closed her garage.

  “You do have a phone, right?” she said as she marched up her porch steps.

  “I hate the phone.”

  “Well, I hate people showing up unannounced on my porch. You of all people should understand that.”

  Cain’s jaw tightened at the rebuke. He blinked a couple of times. “I do.”

  “Then what’s going on, Cain? Why are you here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing to say.”

  Anger flashed in Cain’s eyes. “Hannah—”

  “Don’t ‘Hannah’ me. Whatever you
have to say, you could’ve said it last week, or during the six months you spent overseas.”

  “No, I couldn’t have.” When Hannah tried to protest, Cain interrupted. “Just hear me out. This one time. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

  Hannah hesitated. She wanted to send him away, just so she didn’t have to see his handsome face and the big brown eyes that, at the moment, were filled with untold feelings. But she couldn’t do it. She could have kicked anyone else off that porch, but not Cain.

  She sighed, unlocking her door and motioning for him to come inside. She took off her running shoes so she wouldn’t track mud into the house, and Cain took off his hiking boots.

  “The usual?” she said, going over to her liquor cabinet.

  Cain shook his head, and sat down on her couch. Hannah poured herself some water and sat in her chair.

  He sat there for a moment, arms crossed, before he ran a hand through his hair and turned to her. “You said that what we had… that it no longer worked for you.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “What would?”

  Hannah froze, not having expected that question. She’d only known that she wasn’t happy with how things were. It never occurred to her to consider what she wanted.

  Seeing her hesitation, Cain went on. “If the answer is nothing, then say so now. I won’t sit here and make an ass out of myself.”

  “There’s no point in talking about this,” Hannah said. “You gave what you had to give. If you wanted to give more or you could’ve given more, you would have.”

  “So what’s the more?” Cain pressed.

  “Who cares?” she cried. “I’m not asking for it. I only want it if it’s given freely. That’s the way we always did things, giving freely of ourselves because we wanted to, not out of obligation.”

  Cain sighed, his brown eyes flaring a little. “Jesus, Hannah. Is it that hard to tell me what you want?”

  Yes. Yes it is.

  Then she remembered.

  “Last time I dared to even hint at wanting more than you did, when I was concerned about your redeployment, you called me clingy.” Cain shook his head. “And don’t say you apologized. The point isn’t that you said it, it’s why you said it. You didn’t like it that I felt that way. You didn’t want me to give a shit. I still did, but then I didn’t hear from you that much, and you never mentioned the care package I sent, and I thought… this is a guy who still doesn’t want me to give a shit. He doesn’t want me in his life. So I stopped giving a shit. And if you think I’m going to put myself on the chopping block and ask for things that you can’t give me, think again.”

  “What if I could give them to you? What if I want to?”

  “If you wanted to, you would’ve done so already.”

  He shook his head, eyes boring into hers. “I couldn’t then. I had some shit to deal with there. Personal stuff, regarding what happened. Talking to you more often… it was too hard. By the time I felt ready to, it was too late. You’d given up on me, and I don’t blame you. Since then, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I want. And the only two things I wanted were to get home to my cabin, and to see you again.” He eyed her. “Guess which one I chose first?”

  Hannah sat there in silence, her stubborn resolve beginning to melt.

  Cain went on. “So I’m asking you one last time. What would make you happy? To get together more often? To have me call you my girlfriend? For me to meet your family and friends? To take you on a date night once a week?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes at Cain’s cynical tone. “If you think those things are so fucking lame, why ask?”

  “I don’t think they’re lame, Hannah!” he said, his eyes flaring with anger again. “I think it’s lame that the most honest woman I know can’t be honest with me!”

  Hannah scoffed. “Don’t you lecture me about honesty. You’re no better at this than I am. You couldn’t even tell me you were leaving the country.”

  Cain said nothing in response, as if knowing she had a point. He took a deep breath. “Okay. How about I set the example with the honesty? I needed those months to think and work through some things, and I refused to burden you with all that. I never forgot about you and I never stopped caring. I got your care package on New Year’s Eve, and it was the highlight of my deployment, and it made me realize I needed to get my fucking shit together or I was going to lose you. I want you in my life. And those things I mentioned—the date night and all that—I can do them all, if it’s not too late. What I can’t do is move in with you or get married. I’m not ready for anything like that. That’s it.” He sat back against the couch and waited for her to respond.

  A swirl of emotions coursed through Hannah. “You didn’t get the package until New Year’s? They told me it got delivered way before that.”

  “Yeah. Distribution of mail can get complicated in the field. Sometimes shit never even shows up.”

  He had liked the package. He did appreciate it. Suddenly, what remained of Hannah’s stubborn resolve melted away. She could no longer deny the truth—how much she cared, and how much effort she’d put into protecting herself from that fact. And how much he affected her even still, even after all that time apart. No matter how much she told herself she didn’t want him or that she could shove her feelings for him into some hidden compartment, she was fooling herself. And now it was time for her to be honest.

  “You hurt me.”

  “I know,” he said quietly.

  “What’s different now? You said you worked through some stuff, but why does that change things?”

  “I don’t feel as… conflicted… as I did.”

  “Conflicted about what?”

  Cain hesitated. “Being happy, when others didn’t get to be.”

  Compassion for Cain flooded her. And that’s when she realized that Cain hadn’t just struggled with watching his comrades die and feeling powerless to save them; he’d struggled with survivor’s guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

  Cain shook his head. “That’s not for you to worry about. Get to the good stuff, if there is any.”

  She smiled a little. “I don’t care about the things you mentioned. Especially date night. Date night is lame. What I want is a man who tells me in advance that he’s being deployed. Who feels sad about it because he’ll miss me. Who asks me to wait for his return. And who keeps in touch with me when he’s gone, as often as he’s able.”

  Cain sat there, as if waiting for more. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Done.” He gazed at her. “Do you want to do this?”

  Hannah gave a tiny smile. “You know I do.”

  Cain’s eyes turned glassy, for just a moment. He stood up and walked over to her, holding out his hand. Hannah put her hand in his and stood up, the warmth of his hand melting her just a little as he pulled her to him. Cain reached over and gently pulled the elastic band from her ponytail, letting her blonde hair cascade over her shoulders. He stroked it for a bit before he kissed her.

  Heat ran through Hannah, starting from her lips and radiating through her body. Suddenly, her legs felt like they were made of rubber. Maybe it was post-run fatigue, or maybe it was the taste of Cain’s mouth on hers, but when he picked her up and took her to her bedroom, she offered no protest at all.

  After Cain stripped her down, pushed her onto her bed, and had his way with her, Hannah realized how much she’d missed his heavy body on hers, the sound of his breathing in her ear, the way he pulsed inside of her and how her body responded to his gruff way of showing her, without words, how he felt. The way he made her cry out for more, and forget herself, forget everything but him.

  And afterward, when they lay there, spent, touching but giving one another the space both liked, Hannah realized how right it felt to have Cain back in her bed. No one else had been there, had touched her there or slept in her flannel sheets. She’d never wanted anyone else there but him.

  “If I tell you how much I missed that pussy, would
you call me a pig?” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Try it and find out.”

  “I missed that pussy.”

  “Pig.”

  Cain chuckled.

  Hannah started to feel chilled again as her body cooled. “Well, I’m covered in sweat, salt, and now… you. It’s time for a bath.” She smiled. “Care to join me?”

  Cain raised his eyebrows. “I can’t remember the last time I sat in a bathtub. And yeah.”

  Hannah filled her big tub with warm water and a couple drops of lavender oil, and they sank into it, sitting opposite one another, Cain’s legs on either side of her.

  “So,” Cain said, leaning back in her tub, his hands caressing her legs. “Does this mean you’ll get rid of the guy?”

  Hannah stared back at him. “What guy?”

  Cain watched her for a moment, then gave a half smile. He knew. He knew like he knew back when they were first getting to know one another. He knew that when it came to him, other guys ceased to exist.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Just as the sun dipped behind a cloud, Hannah soared down the narrow trail, the breeze whipping through her ponytail. When the trail headed back uphill again, she braced herself for a fight. Running uphill was hard enough, but doing so after she’d run twenty miles at over 10,000 feet elevation was a whole different thing. Every step felt like she carried a weight that pulled her back downhill, although over the weeks and months that weight had begun to feel lighter.

  She heard heavy breathing behind her. Cain, pulling his muscular body up the same hill, keeping up with her. One of the ways Cain had coped with his long deployment was by running, sometimes for hours. According to him, there were no mountains where he’d been, no forests or much of anything but a base to run around more times than he cared to count. But he claimed the running cleared his head, and it had kept him in good shape, good enough to keep up with Hannah.

  It was the first time she’d ever enjoyed running with a man she was seeing. Other than her occasional long runs with the ultra group, she’d always preferred running alone. It allowed her to get into the zone and find that Zen place, and she didn’t like someone else interrupting her flow with their constant chatter or their taking issue with the pace she kept. But Cain… he rarely said two words on their runs and he let her set the pace, finding his own zone as he enjoyed a quiet escape from the modern world and all its annoyances.