Going The Distance

by Artemis Anders

  You deserve to be happy, with whomever you choose. And I’m so glad for every minute I knew you.

  Hannah

  Hannah brushed away her tears and folded up the letter, stuffing it into an envelope. She realized that she didn’t even know Cain’s address. So, late that night, when Cain would be sleeping if he were even home, Hannah parked a half-mile away, tiptoed her way up Cain’s long driveway, and slid the letter into his mailbox. Then she ran off and headed back home.

  Seeing his cabin wasn’t easy. She missed him so much. But she understood now. Cain wasn’t hers. He was never hers. And she could take what he gave her and move on with her life.

  A few nights later, a noise woke Hannah up. She lay in bed, the sound of crickets coming in through her cracked window. It was probably a raccoon, or some other nocturnal creature looking for food. The mountains were full of wild animals looking for trouble.

  But then she heard footsteps.

  Her heart pounding, Hannah got up and peeked through her blinds, considering the various weapons she had stored in her home. She froze when she spotted someone in front of her house.

  A man.

  He was walking away. Then he broke into a run and disappeared around the corner.

  She never saw his face, or any identifying features. But she knew.

  It was Cain.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hannah stood there, staring through the slit in her shades at the empty street, as if hoping Cain would suddenly reappear.

  What the hell was he doing here in the middle of the night? Was he out running? Cain worked odd hours, but he never ran at night.

  Then it occurred to her. He would have gotten her letter by now, and read it. Maybe he wrote her back. Maybe he’d done what she did, and secretly dropped it into her mailbox.

  Hannah put on her robe and went out to her porch. The summer night air smelled sweet, and there was nothing but starlight and the sound of crickets chirping away. Just as she reached her mailbox, something stopped her. What if he’d just returned the letter, unopened? She had no idea why that thought came to her, but his sneaking around so late at night made her wonder.

  She was prepared to let Cain go, but that? That would be a major suckfest.

  Hannah opened her mailbox. No letter.

  Nothing at all.

  She stared inside the empty metal container, feeling betrayed. She looked out at the street again, where Cain had run off with his heavy but strong gait. Had she hallucinated? Had she been half asleep and imagined the entire thing? Hannah shook her head and headed back inside. And that’s when she saw it.

  Sitting there, on one of her porch chairs, was a tube. A cardboard tube, like the kind used for storing posters. Hannah picked it up and brought it inside, pulling the plastic cap off one end. Sure enough, inside the tube was a poster, coiled up. She pulled it out and unrolled it.

  It was a full-size movie poster. The image was of Grizzly Adams, wild beard and all, with his arms around a beautiful blonde. Grace Kelly. The Colorado Rocky Mountains created the perfect backdrop. The movie title read “Going The Distance.” At the bottom, the credits read “Starring Cain Jankowski as Grizzly Adams and Hannah Christiansen as Grace Kelly. Directed by Quentin Tarantino.”

  Hannah stared at it. Feelings of hope began trickling through her. But could she really give in to them? After everything that had happened? After Cain losing the woman he loved? After him telling Hannah he didn’t love her?

  She studied the poster for what seemed like an hour, inspecting every inch of the mock-up, which Cain must have had made by a graphic designer. Then she spotted a paper clip on the bottom left corner, with a note attached to the back of the poster. She unclipped it and peered at the small card. It contained only six words.

  Don’t give up on me yet.

  Hope soared through Hannah. Tears brimmed her eyes, and she began to giggle. At the silliness of it, at the humor behind it, at the joy of it. It was so unlike Cain to make such a romantic gesture… or was it? Plus, Quentin Tarantino? She giggled again. That was Cain, all the way.

  Hannah willed away her tears, not wanting to mar the beautiful poster with even a tiny drop. She studied the note, and then the poster again, flooded with more emotions than she knew how to handle. She wanted to be cautious. She wanted to protect her heart. But the truth was, what she wanted most of all was for Cain to contact her when he was ready, and tell her what she wanted to hear.

  That he loved her too.

  Hannah woke up to her alarm, the summertime sun bright in her bedroom. She looked over at her bedside table, at the little card that sat there.

  Don’t give up on me yet.

  She read it before bed every night, and woke to it every morning. She hadn’t heard from Cain in the two weeks since he’d dropped the poster off, the one she’d framed and hung in her living room, where she could see it from her favorite chair. She wondered what he was doing, but she refused to worry. Something told her he was doing something important, something worth waiting for.

  She had no clue what it was. Did he love her after all? Did he need to say goodbye to the woman from his past, or get permission from her to move on? She didn’t know. She only knew she trusted him enough to wait.

  And that very night, when she arrived home from work, there was Cain’s black truck parked in front of her house, and Cain sitting on her porch.

  Hannah willed herself not to cry, but the sight of that truck and Cain’s big dark eyes watching her did her in. She parked and approached her porch, wiping away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Cain stood up and headed toward her, and she saw it right away.

  Something was different. He looked like Cain—tall, burly, dark hair, eyes that saw everything—but he seemed lighter somehow. Like a burden had lifted.

  Hannah hurried over to him, dispensing with any notion of playing it cool. She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her tight, his hand buried in her hair. More tears fell, and Hannah clung to Cain, breathing in his scent before she pulled away and led him inside.

  Cain looked around her house, as if searching for signs of someone else or something amiss, before his eyes landed on the framed poster hanging on the wall. He eyed it for a moment, blinking a couple of times before he went to sit down on her couch. Hannah got two glasses, a tall glass and a short one, and showed them to Cain. Water or bourbon? He tipped his head toward the short one, smiling a little. Hannah poured them both a bourbon and sat down in her chair.

  Cain sat there for a moment, swirling his bourbon, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

  “I’ve been seeing someone,” he finally said. “A shrink.”

  Hannah only nodded.

  “I should’ve told you the truth. About Mandy. But you were right. I couldn’t lay that on you, although not for the reason you think.” He took another breath, his eyes focused on his bourbon, still swirling in its glass. “I did love her. And yeah, she was a big part of the reason I was so fucked up after what happened, on top of everything else.”

  Cain paused, sitting there with his eyes on his glass. Hannah said nothing, knowing that he had a lot more to say.

  “You were wrong,” he said, looking at her again. “When you told me you loved me, I couldn’t deal with it. But it wasn’t because I still loved her and couldn’t let her go. It was because I felt guilty.” He paused again, still swirling. “She was a good woman, and she didn’t fucking deserve to die like that. And if she were still alive, it’s possible we’d still be together. But…” He looked down again. “She didn’t get me like you do. She and I didn’t have what you and I have. And…” he knitted his eyebrows together, still not looking at her, “it’s one thing to lose someone and finally move on with someone else. But to lose someone like that, and then meet someone else who’s perfect for you, to get the chance to be happy while she’s rotting in the fucking ground…” He shook his head. “That’s what messed me up. That’s why I couldn’t…”

  Hannah gave a sli
ght nod of understanding, feeling Cain’s pain, knowing she would feel the same way in that situation. She still said nothing, sensing Cain had even more to say, that he was pouring out his heart to her, much the way she had to him in her letter.

  “After you walked out, I knew I needed help. I went to the guy I saw before, James, the one who helped me back when everything happened. I told him about you.” He took a big sip of his bourbon. “And afterward, he said the craziest thing to me. He said that we can’t always understand God’s plan, that we can’t know why some people die and others get to live, but that God put you in my life.” He smiled a little. “He said it was all too improbable to be coincidence—your GPS malfunctioning when it always worked before, your getting lost when you have a better sense of direction than most people, stumbling onto my porch that night instead of dying in the forest or finding a hundred other houses, then your having to drop out of High Peaks at the very aid station I worked at. He said it was meant to be for you to be in my life, and that it’s not my place to question God’s plan.”

  He shook his head, smiling again. Hannah smiled too.

  “You know I’m not a religious guy,” he went on. “But that made sense to me. It was the only way any of it made sense.” His smile faded. “Until he said that, I couldn’t find a way to justify being happy with you after what happened. And that’s why that night, when you kept pushing me and calling me a coward—”

  Hannah’s face reddened. “I’m so sorry—”

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t be sorry. If you hadn’t done that, who knows how long I would’ve stayed stuck. I wouldn’t have moved on from what happened, and neither of us would’ve gotten what we wanted.” Cain looked at her. “And I know what I want.”

  A warm feeling coursed through Hannah. “You do?”

  He nodded. “You’re not the only one whose life changed that night you showed up on my porch, all scraped up and dehydrated and full of attitude.” Hannah smiled at that. “You said you knew you loved me during the thick of your suffering at High Peaks. But I knew I loved you way before that. I knew it, but I wouldn’t acknowledge it because I didn’t believe I deserved it.”

  Her bourbon untouched in her hands, Hannah stared at Cain, unable to take her eyes off him as she felt the tears well up.

  “I love you, Hannah,” he said. “And I’m sorry that it took me this fucking long to say it.”

  “I love you, too,” she replied, her voice shaky with emotion.

  No longer able to contain herself, Hannah went to Cain. He hugged her to him, and Hannah hugged him back as he stroked her hair, tears rolling down her face as she counted her blessings. Cain loved her. He really loved her, and he was back in her life again. Finally, Cain looked at her.

  “What are you doing at the end of August?” he said.

  “I think I’m free. Why? Are you taking me backpacking?” she added, getting excited at the prospect of a weekend in her mountains, with her favorite person.

  “Actually… what do you think about getting married?”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. She coughed out a laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hannah stared at Cain, looking for any sign of jest in those brown eyes of his, and finding none. “You want to get married. To me. In three weeks.”

  He nodded, like it was nothing.

  “You’re proposing to me, right now.” She could still hardly believe it.

  Cain’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Yeah. I’d have done it in a more romantic way, but I figured you’d hate that.”

  “Why that weekend?”

  “It was the only one where I could get everyone together.”

  Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Everyone? Who’s everyone?”

  “Summer, Teagan and her husband, Diana and her family, and a couple of my friends. One of whom can perform the service.”

  “You called my friends?”

  “Yeah,” he said, still matter-of-fact. “I had to do some explaining, though. Diana was the toughest of the lot.” He laughed, shaking his head. “That petite little thing packs a punch. You should’ve warned me that she was a shrink.”

  Hannah laughed, then covered her face with her hands. Cain wanted to marry her. In August. “Oh my God.”

  “Is that a yes?” Cain pressed.

  “Oh, now you want an answer, after you’ve planned it all with my friends!” she teased.

  Cain grinned.

  Hannah grinned too. “Of course it’s a yes.”

  Cain’s eyes softened, like he was a little relieved.

  “What if I’d said no?” she asked.

  “Diana told me you wouldn’t.”

  Hannah shook her head, suppressing a giggle. “That traitorous bitch.”

  “What do you say?” Cain said, glancing over at the movie poster. “A Grace-Grizzly wedding with just a few friends? At my cabin?”

  Hannah smiled. “Done.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Oh my God!” Teagan cried, so loud that Hannah pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment.

  “What do you mean, ‘Oh my God’? You knew all about this before I did!” Hannah said, laughing.

  “But it wasn’t official! I didn’t know if you’d given up on him completely, and I especially didn’t know if you’d say yes to a proposal and a wedding! This is you we’re talking about here!”

  “Fair enough,” Hannah conceded.

  “Oh my God, Hannah! I am so happy for you! Cain is so perfect for you!”

  He was perfect for her. Hannah knew it and had known for a long time. That’s why she was willing to take the plunge and get married, something she never thought she’d want in a million years.

  “You know what?” Teagan went on. “I’m going to take this opportunity to say I told you so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We sat at our favorite taco place in my old neighborhood years ago—right before I met Aaron—and I said that someday you would find the right guy, the one who could scale those lofty walls of yours. I said he would sneak up on you when you least expected it and make all the other guys look like amateurs. You didn’t believe me, but here you are, getting married to the perfect guy for you in a few weeks.”

  “Fine,” Hannah relented. “You were right.”

  “I’m not done yet. I also said that when you found this special guy, then—”

  “Don’t you dare say it!” Hannah cried.

  “—then all you would want to talk about with D and me is whether or not to go strapless with your wedding dress! And that’s why you’re calling, isn’t it? To talk about your wedding dress?” Teagan added triumphantly.

  Hannah felt her face turn bright red. “Damn you and that memory of yours! That was forever ago!”

  “But I’m right, yes?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said with a sigh. “Help me, Teagan. Cain said I could wear whatever I want, but I don’t want to wear just anything. I want a white dress, and I have no idea where to look or what kind to buy. I don’t even wear dresses. And the dress has to be me, or it won’t work.”

  “Don’t you worry, my friend,” Teagan said. “If you don’t mind a house guest for a while, I’ll fly up there and we’ll scour the Denver shops and the internet until we find the right thing for you.”

  “You would do that?” Hannah said, feeling relieved.

  “Of course! It’ll be fun. Maybe we can take a camping trip, too. That can be your bachelorette party.”

  “I would love that!”

  “I’ll call D and see if she can join us. My guess is she’ll come along and bring Jesse with her, so Ash can get some work done.”

  “That sounds perfect.” Tears of happiness welled up in Hannah’s eyes. “Thank you, Teagan. This means so much to me.”

  “You’re welcome. I can’t wait.”

  Epilogue

  Hannah studied herself in her bedroom mirror. Her new dress was full-length and white, with a fitted waist and spaghetti straps. It
was simple, comfortable, and even wearable for the real, non-wedding world. Best of all, she somehow felt like herself in it. She wore her hair down, the way Cain liked it.

  She smiled. She was getting married today.

  Her. Hannah. Getting married. And to an amazing man.

  She emerged from her bedroom, where Teagan, Diana, and Summer sat talking away and playing with Jesse. Her friends all wore sundresses, even though Hannah told them they could wear whatever they wanted, including their hiking clothes. They quieted when they saw her.

  “Oh my goodness, Hannah,” Diana said, her brown eyes wide as she brought her hands to her face. “You look so beautiful.”

  The others nodded and gushed over her, and Hannah’s face reddened with embarrassment at the attention.

  “Nana,” Jesse said, pointing at Hannah, a little gleam in his eye.

  Hannah giggled as she grabbed Jesse’s little hand. “Auntie Hannah’s all dressed up, isn’t she? She’s even wearing a white dress,” she cooed to him. Jesse smiled at her.

  “No strapless?” Summer teased, the look on her face making it clear she was in on the joke about Teagan predicting she would wear a white dress someday.

  Hannah smiled. “Nope. Strapless dresses are for women with big racks, like D.” They all laughed at that. “Thank you so much, you guys, for being here. We only wanted the people who mean the most to us here today, who understand us. No formal wedding, no family drama. We can celebrate with family later.”

  “We’re happy to be part of it, sweetie,” Diana said.

  “Totally,” Teagan said.

  “If I ever manage to get married,” Summer chimed in, “I’m doing the same thing.”

  Diana glanced at the time. “We should probably get over there. The guys are waiting.”

  Hannah grabbed her cardigan in case it got cold later, and slipped on her sandals. They climbed into her SUV and Teagan drove them to Cain’s.