by Edie Claire
You know where I live.
Haley suffered an even worse pang as she remembered his final — and only — rebuff. No, Haley, he had said, pulling her hand away from his face. Not if we’re never going to see each other again.
What guy does that? He could easily have taken advantage of her feelings for some pleasure in the moment. She would have been out of his hair within the hour, most likely never to be seen again. She was a little bit pregnant, true. But, hey — at least he’d have no fear of a paternity trap.
Haley frowned into her couch cushions. Ben wasn’t like that. And she knew exactly why he had pushed her away. Because men had feelings, too. And he didn’t want to get his trampled any more than they already had been. By her.
She sat up. For all her wallowing in self-pity, it had never once occurred to her what Ben must be feeling. She had driven off and left him with the assurance that she wanted to see him again. She had then buried herself so deeply in her work that over two weeks had passed, numbing and timeless to her, perhaps, but hardly to him. He had no way of knowing how much he had been on her mind; all he could see was that she hadn’t bothered to contact him. For all he knew, she had forgotten him entirely.
Haley grabbed her phone and clenched it tightly. She had to let him know otherwise. She couldn’t bear for her silence to hurt him. He had probably wanted to call her, too, but was afraid of the result, particularly if he thought she was trying to forget. Forgetting would be a perfectly reasonable plan, after all, for both of them. But she couldn’t bear it. She wanted Ben Parker in her life.
She stared at the phone in her hands. It was time she asked herself the real question. The question which, more than likely, underlay all the rest of her misery and indecision. Just friends might very well be all that she and Ben could ever be to each other. If that was the case, did she still want to keep him in her life?
Her face suffused with warmth, and the rest of her body followed.
Yes, she proclaimed to herself. Hell, yes!
She raised her phone once more. But then, with sudden clarity, she lowered it. Of course she had felt removed from him all this time. Three thousand miles of land and sea was a formidable barrier. But her damned phone, useful device that it was, was its own form of impediment. Ben didn’t like talking on the phone. He didn’t like answering emails or checking voicemail and he flatly refused to text. He wasn’t a contact. He was a real, flesh-and-blood man who liked nature and the outdoors, who thrived on hugs and laughter and the sharing of meals and car rides and adventure. Reducing him to anything less, converting him to her high-tech world of digital and voice like he was any other attorney or business acquaintance, was an abomination. Of course she had been avoiding it; she had been avoiding it because it didn’t feel right. As accessible as he seemed to be, she had been mourning all this time because deep down, she knew she couldn’t reach him by any of those means. Not the real him.
But she had to reach him somehow. Or lose her mind trying.
She set down the phone and considered a moment. Then she rose with a jerk, walked to the small desk in the corner of her living room, and pulled two sheets of paper out of her printer. She collected her lap desk, two pens, and the mango pomegranate protein shake, fluffed up the pillows on her bed, and snuggled in.
Yes, she thought to herself smugly, her mood brightening with an excitement she hadn’t felt for weeks.
She clicked her pen and smoothed the blank paper before her. Tonight, she would touch it. In a few days, his hands would touch it also. He would look at her god-awful, squiggled handwriting, squint to figure out what the hell she was trying to say, and trace his fingers lightly over the messy ink. He would hold the paper in his hands and know that it had been held by her own. Maybe he would even smell her avocado moisturizer.
Haley grinned to herself. Then she began to write.
Chapter 21
Ben turned his Jetta off the Seward Highway and started down the gravel road toward his cabin. Now that August was half over, the days were getting shorter rapidly, with the sun setting another five minutes earlier every night. The change suited him, although he didn’t care to ponder why. Ordinarily, he mourned every hour of the brief Alaskan autumn that crept in so noiselessly, seeming to eschew attention as it made a perfunctory stop, then fled again before the assault of winter.
The temperature had settled in the fifties now, and the sky was overcast more often than not. By the end of next week, kids across the country would head back to school, and the tourist traffic in Seward would slow to a trickle. He had told his boss he wanted to stay on as far into September as the business could support him. But that was then.
He frowned into the still-light sky. He preferred to come home after dark, but he was getting tired of killing time in town. His few forays back into the bar scene had been distinctly unsatisfying, and it was growing too cold to roam the marina with no particular purpose in mind. He should be out gathering wood instead, so he could spend the evenings catching up on his reading by a blazing fire.
But the evenings were still too bright. Only darkness could obscure the depressing specter of the vacant cabin next door.
Get over it, Ben. Forget about her.
His frown deepened. God knew he had been trying. Every day that passed with no word from Haley was another bar of platinum tipping the scales toward “vacation love.” He had dared to hope otherwise, but evidently he’d been wrong, and it was time to face up to that. She might indeed come back some day, but if she did, he knew now that it would not be him she came back for. Only the good times he represented.
Forget about her.
Alexa had been in the bar last night. She had practically fallen all over herself when she’d caught sight of him. He’d been so miserable he’d even agreed to have a drink with her, but had regretted it as soon as her lips started moving. She was a nice enough girl and objectively attractive, but her brainless prattle about reality TV, her hair, and some other girl’s shoes buzzed in his ears like the hum of a mosquito. He had been able to filter that sort of thing out once, but he seemed to have lost the ability. How he had managed so long with girlfriends just like her he had no idea.
You don’t need one more ‘meh’ girlfriend you’re struggling to keep things going with, Lara had told him. Not when deep down, you know it’s no good anyway. Life’s too short and you’re too old.
Ben exhaled with a sigh. His sister had been right, dammit. Even though things with Haley hadn’t worked out, he’d had a glimpse of what a solid, mature relationship could be like. He’d been seeing it for years in other people’s marriages, but he’d never actually felt it himself. Understanding that sweet reality now was a doubled-edged sword. He was more certain of what he wanted, yes. But anything less would never satisfy him again.
He could find another woman as intelligent and beautiful and self-sacrificing as Haley. Somewhere on the Hawaiian Islands there had to be at least one, didn’t there? Maybe even one whose day job didn’t directly oppose his own life’s passion. He would just have to look a bit harder this season. Be more discerning.
A dull ache stabbed at his middle. He thought he was discerning. He thought he had discerned that Haley’s feelings for him were as strong as his were for her. He had, in fact, been sure of it.
Well, you were wrong, dude! Now get over it.
Ben’s jaws clenched. He’d been trying to get over it. He kept his head down every morning when he walked from his porch to his car, forestalling the memories that flooded back with the sight of her cabin. Her porch, her chair. The window of her erstwhile bedroom, where she had slept between his raggedy castoff sheets. He couldn’t even go hiking at Exit Glacier any more. Everywhere they had been together he would picture her, smiling and laughing, warming his heart. The images were pure irony, of course — most of the time he was with her, she had been close to tears. But it was the smiles that stayed with him, because he had been the one to put them there. He had made her happy, as she had him.
&n
bsp; But some part of that had been illusion. Her feelings might have seemed real at the time, even to her. But they must have been superficial, dependent on time and place and circumstances. Whereas his own feelings, unfortunately for him, were rooted deep.
Now he hurt like hell.
He pulled the Jetta off onto the shoulder by the crossroad and parked the car to check his mail. Many days he didn’t get a thing, but he was due for his favorite oceanography magazine, a more exciting find than the usual advertising circular or credit card application. He located his box among the dozen or so belonging to the other residents of the crossroad and opened the metal door. His magazine had arrived. Curled around the outside of it was a large cardboard mailer. He pulled both out, then studied the mailer curiously.
It was an Express Mail folder. The overnight, cost-you-a-fortune kind. His eyes rested on the return address, and his heart froze. It was from Haley.
Your landlord, you mean, he reminded himself quickly. This was no love note covered with hearts and flowers. She had sent him some sort of business document. Probably trying to tie up his lease for next year.
His heart began to beat again, only this time way too fast. He started to open the folder, stopped himself, then started again. What was his problem? Avoiding whatever papers she had sent him would accomplish nothing. At the very least, he would have a firmer idea of exactly where they stood. That she had comped the entirety of his August rent, he already knew. Ed Miller had explained as much in the note accompanying his returned check. But Haley had arranged that little gift before she left Anchorage. He wanted to believe that she meant it as a kindness and a bit of an inside joke. But perhaps she had seen it as a business transaction. A payment for services rendered.
Ben closed the mailbox door and returned to his car. He tossed the magazine on the empty seat beside him and ran his fingers over the ink on the mailer’s address label. Haley Olson. At least that’s what he assumed she had scribbled. Her handwriting was horrific. Like a cross between a mad scientist’s diary and one of the puffin paintings from the Sea Life Center.
He tried not to smile. He tried not to hope. But he failed on both counts. When at last he ripped open the cardboard mailer and a single, letter-sized envelope fell out onto his lap, relief overtook him like a warm, Hawaiian wind.
It wasn’t official papers. It was a letter.
A letter!
His eyes roved over the addresses, which duplicated those on the mailer. Haley had gotten it ready to mail once, then decided to send it overnight. Whatever it was, she had wanted him to have it in a hurry.
He ripped the thin envelope open. Inside were two sheets of paper, covered nearly completely with the same dreadful scrawl in at least two shades of ink. His pulse pounded in his veins.
She hadn’t forgotten him.
With maddening slowness, he began to decipher.
Dear Ben,
I know you think I’ve forgotten you, and I can’t apologize enough for that. Nothing could be further from the truth. I came back to work and was buried in an avalanche, and I’m still buried, but that’s not why I haven’t called, or texted, or emailed. I’ve thought about you constantly. I’ve missed you every moment. But none of the above seemed anywhere near adequate to bring you back. I’ve been so sad about everything I want that I can’t have, getting only a tiny dose of it seemed more painful than satisfying. So I just did nothing. And sulked. And worked till I was exhausted. And was so selfish I didn’t realize until today that my silence must surely be leading you to draw the wrong conclusion.
If you’ve already given up on me, it’s no more than I deserve. But if you haven’t…
I don’t know what to tell you, Ben. You know I have nothing to offer you besides friendship, at least not now, and maybe not ever. I can’t promise you anything and I have no right to ask you to wait until I can. I don’t want to disrupt your life and I don’t want to keep you from living. The women of Hawaii have other plans for you, I’m sure. (Just don’t make me think about that, please. It makes me crazy.) I’ve told myself a thousand times that there’s no point in continuing any kind of relationship with you, not when there’s nothing in it for you except the thrill of my stellar personality. I’ve told myself I shouldn’t even ask — that I should do the considerate thing and just leave you the hell alone. But as we established above, I’m not a very considerate person.
The bottom line is, I want you in my life. In whatever capacity you’re comfortable with. We can be friends; we can be penpals. We can throw messages in bottles into the ocean and make prank calls and trade Halloween candy. I don’t care how it happens. I just want to keep you alive in my heart, to feel some connection with you, to know that you’re still real. That’s all I’m asking. It’s all I have any right to ask.
Ben’s breath caught in his throat. The paper was discolored here, the ink smudged.
And now, Captain Parker, you have brought on the waterworks again. I blame you entirely. Before we met, I maintained perfect emotional control at all times and only cried when the barista ran out of hazelnut macchiato.
Ben felt his own eyes moistening. Haley’s words were warming every part of him; his cheeks were aflame and his smile had become so broad it was painful. Still, she wrote more.
Now, I will make this easy for you. To indicate YES, I am willing to condescend to communicate with an attorney for the dark side, if only to further educate her on the awesomeness of the natural world, please write back. To indicate NO, thanks anyway, but I need to get on with my life — simply do not reply. There will be no hard feelings, and if your rent increases, it will be entirely unrelated.
I miss you terribly, Ben.
Appropriate closing,
Haley
Ben sat in the Jetta by the mailbox a very long time, staring at the letter, rereading it, willing his overflowing heart to stop racing like he was an adolescent. He had not been wrong! Haley’s feelings for him were as real as his own. She missed him. Not just Alaska, which she hardly even mentioned, but him. It wasn’t “vacation love,” it hadn’t disappeared already, and it wasn’t just friendship, either. She hadn’t asked him not to date other women, but she was obviously bothered by the thought of it. He liked that. He liked that a lot.
He raised the letter to his face and sniffed, wondering if her apartment — or her office? — had left any lingering aroma. He expected coffee, but remembered that she was laying off the caffeine. Perhaps there was a vague fruity smell? Most likely he was making it up.
No matter. Nothing mattered except that what he and Haley had shared was not over. It might only have just begun.
He laid the letter on the seat next to him and started the car. But after a quick mental inventory, he did not turn toward home, but instead made a U turn. There was no suitable paper in the cabin. He would drive back to town and get some. And some envelopes and stamps. Then he would gather that wood, light that fire in his fireplace, and settle down with a notebook and a brand new pen.
His smile widened further at the thought.
Ben Parker had a date tonight.
Chapter 22
Haley held her breath as she turned the small key in her apartment mailbox. She didn’t expect anything. Today was the first day she could possibly receive a response from Ben, and only then if he’d shelled out for next-day mail, which hardly seemed his style. She looked inside to see a curled up cardboard mailer, and her pulse began to pound in her ears. It could be anything, she reminded, pulling it out with an unsteady hand.
She glanced anxiously at the return address.
Ben Parker.
“Yes!” she shouted, giving a very unprofessional hop in the middle of the drive. No one was watching, but she wouldn’t have cared if anyone had been.
He had answered her! And that meant yes.
She headed across the drive and up the steps to her apartment at a near jog. A little exercise would do Fred good. Haley had been getting entirely too lazy, lately.
She reached h
er door, hustled inside, threw everything else she was holding in a heap on the couch, and plopped down. Her hands ripped open the mailer and a regular-sized white envelope, just like her own, fell out. She picked it up and smiled at the single word written across it. Haley. His handwriting was better than hers — a practiced cursive that was competent, yet breezy. Just like him.
Her fingers started ripping. She pulled out two pages of paper, folded together, and something else that looked like a clipping from a magazine. It was folded small and sealed shut with a yellow sticky note. Environmentalist propaganda, the label read. Open at your own risk.
Haley chuckled merrily and set the article aside. She fell back against her cushions and held the letter in front of her.
Dear Haley,
I plan to Express Mail this, but just so we’re clear, don’t expect such extravagance every time I write. My life’s calling may be fun and virtuous, but the pay is crap.
Yes, I figured you had forgotten me. And yes, I’ve been miserable about that. Your letter meant more than I can say, Haley. I miss you terribly, too.
She drew in a ragged breath, and her eyes misted over. It was okay. It really was. He did feel the same.
I don’t know what the answer is either, but I accept your terms, counselor. (With the obvious exception of throwing trash in the ocean, which I choose to believe was some kind of metaphor.) I will be in Seattle over Halloween, trick or treating with the nieces and nephews, so it should be easy to steal some of their candy to trade. As for the penpal thing — bring it on. Just promise me you’ll work on the handwriting before I go blind. Seriously. It’s terrible.
Haley released a foolish giggle, her heart soaring.
It’s colder and cloudier here now, but still just as amazing. As for the grizzly you were hoping to see, he apparently got tired of waiting for you at the fishing spot and came to visit you at home. I was out getting wood earlier and found tracks all over the ground on the far side of your cabin, even right under your window. I hope he wasn’t too upset to miss you.