“Is that what you wanted? For me to just notice you, then let you slip away?”
She avoided the question and allowed her attention to wander about the interesting graffiti that made this restaurant so unique in its decor.
“It’s going to take another forty minutes or so for our pizza,” I informed her. “We may as well talk this through, Hope.”
She abruptly moved her attention back, her eyes stern and unflinching. “Then let’s start with that kiss, Cameron.”
“Which was inspired by your stalking,” I elaborated with a slight smile.
She shook her head again. “You tell me about the kiss, and I’ll tell you what I was doing outside your townhouse.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up one of her long fingers, and I noticed just how sexy her nails were—the dark polish, the smooth edging. I missed those fingers between mine, missed those nails digging into my back.
“I asked the question first, Cameron. So you answer me first, and I swear I’ll answer you.”
I took a deep breath and sat back against the graffiti-ridden booth. “The truth?” I paused, and she just kept watching me with those eyes. “I had to kiss you. It was the right thing to do.”
She crossed her arms, the fresh smirk on her face suggesting that we had travelled back in time. “The ‘right’ thing to do, huh?” This was the us of seven years ago, the happy times and the tense times all rolled into one. “What does that mean, Cameron? The right thing to do?” She shook her head at me.
“You were there.” I motion to her, gesturing and allowing myself to retreat to those memories. “You were in my arms. Your face was close, and we were one. Just like before. I kissed you because you were there again. It was you and me, and the only thing that felt right, at that specific moment, was kissing you.”
Her blank stare said maybe I had gone a little too far. But it was the truth; it was how I had felt.
“So, Hope?” Now it was her turn. “Why were you creeping on me? It’s been seven years, I never thought I’d see you again.”
The egotistical pleasure I found in her face just moments ago seemed to deflate. She let out a long breath, and it felt like she was letting out the helium from a birthday balloon, releasing the essence and jovial mood of the party. And I knew, just watching her, that maybe some things were best left unspoken.
I reached across the table for her hands. “It’s okay,” I told her. “We can talk about something else. It’s really not that important.”
“Thank you,” she said, but it lacked finality. She wanted to talk about this.
“Seven years, huh?” I was trying to change the subject. I even forced an incredulous whistle. “Wow, time fucking flies.”
“It was a promise,” she said, hissing a little. “You broke my heart when you left, and you broke it again when you stopped responding to my emails. And you want to know why I stood outside your townhouse in the pouring rain, Cameron?”
I held my hands up. “No, actually I don’t.” I forced a chuckle that sounded about as genuine as a plastic Rolex. “I’m pretty sure I said we could talk about something else.” I cleared my throat. “So how do you enjoy being an accountant?”
She leaned closer on the table, and I knew where this was headed before the hurt and rage dripped from her lips. “Fuck you, Cameron. For years I wondered what was wrong with me. I wondered what I could’ve done to chase you off, why I wasn’t good enough for you, why you chose something or someone else instead of coming back to me.”
“It was nothing you did—”
She propelled forward, fueled by all those years of my neglect. Her response surprised me. “I wondered what kind of asshole you really were. What changed? How could we have gone from soul mates and being so madly in love to…to nothing? I beat myself up for years over this. Seven long fucking years.” She smacked the table to hammer her point home.
“You shouldn’t have, Hope, it was—” I started, but she interrupted me, and I bit down on my tongue.
“I beat myself up for ever agreeing to anything. For letting you in, for letting you go, for letting you take my heart with you wherever it was that you disappeared to. Which was here, in Chicago, this whole time.”
I sighed, speechless and a little defeated. I counted to ten to see if she had more to say. She did.
“I searched for years, Cameron.” Her voice was small, almost inaudible.
I grasped for the first excuse I could find. “My parents could’ve told you where to find me. You know that. If you really wanted to find me—”
Her eyes spit fire at me. Again. “I would never have done that.”
Finally, I asked her the question I really wanted to know. “Then how did you find me, Hope?”
“LinkedIn,” she said. “It brought me to Chicago. It brought me to Harris, to your office building. And from there, it wasn’t hard to track you, wasn’t hard to blend into the crowds that walk to the train station every night after work.”
“How long did you…?” My words quieted as I pictured it. She’d been trailing me?
“Two weeks. Last Friday was the first night I followed you all the way home. And while I stood outside your townhouse in the rain, watching you kiss that girl—who is the polar opposite of me, by the way—and make dinner, and do all of those domesticated things that I always imagined we would do together,” she tapped her heart with her fist, “I thought I had my answer. Why you disappeared on me.”
She sipped her iced tea, and as I watched her, I memorized the features I had lived so long without—the lines of her face, the creases at the corners of her eyes, the way her upper lip seemed a little smaller than her pouty lower lip, the scar underneath her jawline on the left side of her face, the mole on her neck.
She was right, though. We had promised those things to each other, those domestic things that made life regular and painful; but with Hope, those chores would’ve made the world come alive.
She started again, slowly, “What started out as five minutes turned into ten, then half an hour, then two hours. I didn’t notice how drenched the rain had made me until you tackled me. But I had my answer, Cameron. Until you ran after me and kissed me, I had every answer I had come for, the answers to what it was that stole you from me and destroyed everything that made the past seven years without you so painful. Oddly, I was at peace.”
“But I ran after you,” I murmured, “instead of letting you go.”
“And you kissed me.” She shook her head, peeking up at me from staring down at her hands. “Everything came rushing back with that kiss. It felt so right, so perfect. Just being there…with you…in your arms…and now here we are. At a pizza joint that takes all night to make a deep-dish pie.”
She wiped at the edge of her eyes, but I didn’t see tears. I saw the dryness and emptiness left by shattered dreams, a broken heart, and something I could never replace—even if I picked her up in my arms right that instant and rode off into the sunset with her.
} i {
Present Day
Chapter 23
9:28 AM
Reaching into my pocket after we finish eating breakfast, I pull out a single piece of paper. I look up, but only briefly enough to see whether Hope’s eyes have noticed the paper in my hands. They haven’t; she seems distracted by the view out the window facing the train tracks, the city view. So I start reading what is written on that paper.
“I believe,” I say, just loudly enough to catch her attention. “I believe you live once and that better opportunities are lost on second chances. I believe true love is about as real as Santa Claus, but ‘tis the season, so let’s play this game...I believe that you fall in ‘love’ with the person who lets you love him or her the way you want, on your terms. I believe if someone says he ‘loves you more than air,’ he’s lying to you. I believe that love is not about forgiveness. It’s about acceptance, and acceptance keeps relationships alive. I believe in the stories that are never told. I believe that if you have to
fight for love, you’re trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I believe that your flaws are what make you beautiful. Deal with it.”
“Cameron,” she sighs, but I see the glint of recognition in her eyes. “What are you doing?”
I ignore her and continue reading from the page. “I believe that two people are just that—two people. I believe that two married people are two individuals with one shared goal and one shared delusion. I believe delusions are a good thing until you start involving drugs, threesomes, and whips. Stay pure. I believe that in your heart, you have blood not love. And that blood is to the heart what ideas, not love, are to the mind. I believe that happy endings happen in real life when I fall asleep, thinking of the smiles on the faces of the children I want to have. I believe that all stories are written for me—that same story means something different for you, and that’s okay. I believe in freedom for everyone; everyone has the right to hunt or to hide or both. I believe that mothers are sacred, and anyone who tells a mother what to do has self-esteem issues. I believe that true character gets revealed in actions, not in what someone says about himself. I believe that ‘promise’ is one word, and any one word means nothing. I believe that if you never hurt, you never find happiness; the bigger you hurt, the bigger your happiness. I believe in friendships that last a lifetime and in friends that support you even when you are dead wrong. I believe that most of the decisions you make are the wrong ones. So celebrate your victories, celebrate hard because they’re rare. I believe that if you can make decisions objectively, you will never be wrong. Or hurt. Or happy. I believe that we cry for ourselves, not for others. I believe that tears are a lot like rage—you need to get that poison out of your system periodically, or it will kill you.”
“Cameron, of course I remember this.” She pulls at her collar and shakes her head at me, her face a little red at having heard the words she had written to me so long ago. “Are you happy now? Happy I remember? Now can we forget about it and get out of here?”
“Just let me finish,” I insist, dropping my attention back to the page. “I believe that when you die, you die alone, and…” I pause because this part always killed me. “And I believe that goodbyes are forever.” I fold the paper and tuck it back into my pocket. “You wanted to know if I remembered a promise from seven years ago?”
Hope stares outside again, and when she speaks after a moment that seems to stretch into an eternity, her words come out in a whisper. “Let it go.”
I poke myself in the chest, my throat tight. “I remember, Hope. I fucking live with your fucked up beliefs every day of my life.”
“Those are my words,” she says, her voice quiet but firm as she brings her attention back to me. “I wrote them, Cameron. I wrote them when you stopped.”
Her face twists with confusion. “Stopped? Stopped what? Stopped answering your crazy calls? Stopped responding to your angry emails?”
“You just stopped. All I knew and believed in was us, and then you stopped. To me, you stopped loving and knowing me. So no, I didn’t believe in promises, I didn’t believe in love. And yes, I wrote those words for you. So you would remember.”
“How could I ever forget, Hope? Do you still believe that stuff you wrote? That love doesn’t exist? That all we have in our hearts is blood? That you die alone and goodbyes are forever?” I force a slight chuckle. Those words crushed me and robbed me of precious sleep during midterms, and I hated Hope for that, for nailing that final nail into the coffin. We had a promise.
“Why did you stop?” she asked. “It wasn’t the poem.”
Her question has haunted me all of these years. I still don’t know why I “stopped,” but I do know that I enjoyed the freedom. Not right away, but after that first semester I sure did. And having that five-year promise in my back pocket helped me feel secure, too. It was my insurance policy. I figured, if nothing better came along, Hope would be waiting for me at the end of that term, and until then, I was supposed to live the life all men fantasized about.
But then I met Riley, and I sort of forgot about Hope, filed her in the back of my mind and allowed that insurance policy to expire. It became easier to think we could just go our separate ways, no hard feelings, no harm done. Because Riley would never have agreed to a two-day promise, let alone a five-year one that would leave my spirit crushed and my heart split in two.
Except I kept finding this poem Hope had written for me.
“Cameron, tell me why you stopped.”
The restaurant staff starts moving the other tables back into place, getting ready for their regular dining hours. I smirk at her. “I think it’s time for us to leave.”
“Just tell me!” Her tone has a joking edge to it, but I know she wants the answer to why I disappeared. “Tell me why you stopped!”
I push my chair out and stand up, shrugging. “Maybe another time, Hope. Let’s get out of here.”
“Fucking goob,” she curses, standing up and walking with me to the doors to the Art Institute of Chicago. “Don’t think for one minute I don’t know what you’re doing,” she adds, falling into stride next to me. “But you will tell me why you stopped.”
} i {
Chapter 24
9:58 AM
I’m staring at my face in the mirror, running a finger along the smile lines and wondering how I got so old, so fast. I’m not even thirty yet, but these lines shouldn’t exist. I shouldn’t look at my face and feel like life has sucked the good years out of me. Not yet.
But life has sucked those good years out of me. This mess with Hope is largely to blame because sometimes, when you love someone this much, that kind of love strips you of something.
I know this. Even Riley knows this. I’m just not so sure that Hope knows this.
When another man enters the bathroom and slides into one of the stalls so quietly that it’s obvious he doesn’t want anyone to notice him, it’s time to leave. I wash and dry my hands then climb the grand stairwell all the way to the top floor. I pause when I find Hope standing in front of a Monet painting. It’s the Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, and it’s perfect. Each stroke of Monet’s brush makes me feel something in my chest. I don’t get to think too much about what that sensation means, though.
Hope turns away from the Monet and studies me. “Everything okay?” she asks, stepping up to me. Her heels clack and smother me with memories of all those times we had spent together when we should have been doing something else.
I nod past her at the painting, reveling in the coconut that wafts off her hair and across my nostrils like a summer breeze. “The first person you see in the painting, what do you think about?”
She considers my face for a beat before spinning around and moving back to the Monet. I edge a little closer, too, wanting to smell her perfume, taste it, memorize it because I know what today could mean for a thirty-year-old man who feels like life is almost over.
I watch her left hand rise, and she points to the largest figure in the impressionist painting. “That’s the first person I see.”
“He’s the closest,” I admit. “But what do you think when you see him?”
She takes a second or two before answering. “He’s alone.”
“And the next person you see?”
She motions to the second closest figure, a little to the left of the first one, the one I originally had in mind. “Alone.”
I reach down for her right hand and point to the right side of the painting. “Yet these people closer to the train, we see tons of them.” I bring my lips within inches of her ear. “Nobody wants to arrive at their destination only to be greeted by loneliness, do they?”
She says nothing. I trace my hand from her fingers, all the way up her arm, to her slender shoulder, then flip my hand around so the back of my fingers slide up her neck and circle around her ear.
“Cameron,” she breathes, tilting her neck so subtly that anyone else probably would not have even noticed. I see the vein that betrays all of h
er emotions and want to lick it, but I keep my mouth (and tongue) to myself. Not part of the plan.
“Look at me,” I tell her instead, swallowing a deep gulp to regain my composure. “My fucking eyes, Hope. Tell me what you see in my eyes.”
She refuses to turn around, even with the little nudge of encouragement from my hand that has fallen back down to her shoulder. Instead, Hope shakes her head.
“I believe…” I say, referring to her poem.
“Stop it, Cameron,” she whispers.
So I stop. I move my attention back to the painting, my eyes catching on the smoke rising from the train’s funnel. Each stroke points me to the next puff of smoke from another steam engine, the one pulling into the station. And this makes me think about something I have never considered before.
I take a step backward, reaching down to Hope’s hand to lure her away from the Monet. This was the only reason I wanted to bring her here—to see this painting. There is a reason for that, and she knows it.
“Who’s waiting for those people, the ones on that other train, Hope?” I ask. There is nobody waiting on that platform.
Abruptly, she spins around and walks past me, deeper into the museum. “I’m done here, Cameron.”
} i {
Three Years Ago…
Chapter 25
I woke Saturday morning to the softness of lips kissing my eyelids. And she whispered, “Wake up, sunflower.” More kisses, and then, “It’s Saturday.” And then reality slowly set in.
The voice didn’t belong to Hope, though; it belonged to Riley. Only Hope called me sunflower. But she wasn’t the first to kiss my eyelids as a way to wake me up, and she knew that.
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