by Nick Carter
But the days had to come to an end. It was near dawn and I lay awake, thinking of how, within a matter of hours, I'd be back in New York and then in Washington, sitting across the desk from Hawk. Hilary lay beside me, awake, too, holding my hand cupped around her breast.
"You'll come back to see me sometime?" she asked suddenly, her voice small and somehow lost I nodded and turned to see her smile, a sad smile.
"I'll make believe, anyway," she said. "And I stand on what I said that night in the cave. God, it seems so long ago now."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you're tremendous to make love with but no one to fall in love with."
"I never said you were wrong," I answered.
"But you do leave a big hole when you go," she said, turning to look at me. "I thought it wouldn't bother me. I guess I'm not that different."
I left Hilary that morning. She drove me to the airport and I saw her frank, pretty face and waved to her from the airliner. Then we wheeled out onto the runway and it was over. As the giant plane flew high over white cloud formations that looked like mounds of snow, I kept seeing a small, wispy, delicate form drifting through the clouds, and I thought about the difference between being wanted and being loved. Someplace, they came together, of course, but the trick was to keep them apart. Or was it?