When August Ends

by Penelope Ward

  The rest of that day was one big blur.

  Suddenly, I was standing in front of my packed truck with nothing left to do but say goodbye to Heather. I wished for something to delay me—a mishap or flat tire, maybe. But everything was in place, even Bonnie and Clyde, loaded up with tons of hay and situated in their carriers in the backseat.

  I felt sick.

  When I took her in my arms, Heather’s cry was so intense it was silent. She buried her face in my chest. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  I felt my own tears close to the surface. I fought them with all my might. I couldn’t let her see my sadness right now. I needed to be strong for both of us.

  “Heather, look at me.” I swiped my finger beneath her eye. “Look at me, baby.”

  There was so much I wanted to tell her, but I needed to be careful. If I admitted I was in love with her, she might take that as a sign she shouldn’t go away. I still felt she needed the experience that lay ahead of her more than anything.

  Holding on to her face and looking into her eyes, I said, “This isn’t goodbye.”

  Her voice trembled. “Why does it feel so much like it, then?”

  “We’ll take it day by day, okay?”

  She sniffled and played with the buttons of my shirt. “I know you say you came here to help me, to set me on a good path. You did so much more than that. You’re the first man in my life to make me feel safe, who truly believed in me enough to make a difference. I’ll always be grateful for you and for this summer, even though I’m nowhere ready to let you go.”

  Tell her you love her.

  I just didn’t know if that was the right thing to do. So I kept it in, even though I felt those words so strongly in my heart they were practically bursting from my chest.

  She wiped her nose with her sleeve and sort of laughed. “Is it weird that I’m jealous of Bonnie and Clyde because they get to be with you?”

  I forced myself to crack a smile. “Spoiled rodents…”

  Reaching into my pocket, I took out the letter. “I wrote you something while you were sleeping last night. I was wired because of all of the thoughts in my head. Read it after I leave, sometime tonight when you’re feeling lonely and sad.”

  The paper crinkled as she clutched it to her chest. “Thank you. I will.”

  I looked around one last time. “I’d better go. If I don’t force myself, I’ll never leave.”

  Her eyes filled with tears again, but she nodded.

  It killed me to see her this broken up, but she looked the way I felt inside. There was no easy way to do this.

  She gripped my shirt as if to keep me from leaving. When she finally let go, I forced myself into the truck. If I waited for the moment when leaving felt right, it would never happen.

  Heather hugged herself and backed up a couple of feet to watch me drive away.

  I managed to start the truck but couldn’t put it into drive yet.

  After I mustered the courage to shift into gear, I pressed down on the gas and started to drive away. From the rearview mirror, I could see her bury her head in her hands. That broke my heart. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t drive off and leave her crying in the driveway.

  Rather than put the truck in reverse, I parked it on the side of the street and ran back toward her. She looked up in surprise as I lifted her into my arms and held her tightly.

  This was what I’d been holding back in an attempt to avoid losing it. But escaping into my truck the way I had wasn’t right. I’d been trying to avoid this pain, but she needed this. I needed this. We needed to hold each other—for as long as necessary—one last time before I disappeared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  HEATHER

  SEVEN MONTHS LATER

  Heather,

  As I write this, I’m watching you sleep. You look so peaceful, and that’s very ironic because I know there’s a lot of confusion swirling around in that beautiful head of yours—mainly confusion about us, where things stand, what the future holds.

  You’re probably wondering how I could possibly let you go after last night, how I could walk away from something that feels so incredibly right.

  Please don’t mistake my leaving for uncertainty about you.

  When I first came out here, it was to help you in any way I could. Because of my guilt, I felt I needed to atone for my past mistakes. But you have helped me more than I could ever help you. You helped me to see the good in myself, to see myself the way YOU see me. You brought me joy I wasn’t expecting. My life is happier with you in it.

  At the same time, I recognize that I’m flawed. I made a lot of mistakes when it came to my marriage, and while I feel like I learned from them, I still can’t be one-hundred percent sure I would make the best long-term partner for you, that I wouldn’t fuck up again. Despite those fears, I want to try to be the type of man you deserve.

  I want to give it a year.

  You know how I feel about you getting to be on your own, with nothing holding you back. It’s a rite of passage and one I think you need to experience.

  One year, Heather.

  Go to Vermont. Conquer the fuck out of it. Enjoy your freedom. Focus on school. If after a year’s time, you still want to be with me and still feel the way you do today, I’ll be here. We’ll figure out a way to make it work—whatever it takes—whether long-distance or otherwise.

  I don’t want you to feel you have to choose between me and the freedom you’ve damn well earned. This letter is me telling you if you want me to wait for you, I will.

  “What are you reading?”

  I jumped.

  My roommate, Ming, startled me. I hadn’t even noticed her standing in the doorway.

  I carefully folded the piece of paper and placed it back in the drawer.

  “Nothing.”

  I’d pulled out the letter Noah had written me the night before he left New Hampshire because I was really missing him tonight. Occasionally, I liked to reread it and think back to the summer, to that time in his truck when we’d made love all night long. I would have given anything for just one night back at the lake, sitting on the porch and chatting with him under the moonlight like we used to.

  I’d tried to call him tonight but got no answer. It was earlier than the time we normally spoke on the phone, so it didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t picked up. I’d had a long day and just wanted to hear his voice. His voice was everything now, since I hadn’t seen him in so long.

  “What’s on that paper?” Ming asked. “You can tell me.”

  “It’s personal…just something Noah wrote me a long time ago. Well, what feels like a long time ago.”

  Seven months had felt like an eternity.

  Ming’s friendship had made the passage of that time a little easier. I was grateful for her.

  On my very first day of apartment hunting in Vermont, tired and really homesick, I’d stopped at a Chinese restaurant in the late afternoon. It was a cold, raw day. The place had been totally empty, but so warm inside, and the most enchanting Chinese meditation music had played on the overhead. It felt like I’d walked into a dream.

  Ming had appeared and walked me to a table where she later waited on me. Absolutely starving, I’d ordered a huge pu pu platter. She’d gotten a kick out of the fact that I’d ordered all that food just for myself. I’d explained that I’d had a very long, stressful day and planned to eat the entire thing.

  Since the place was empty, Ming had sat across from me and watched with great interest while I devoured everything in front of me. She and I got to talking, and I learned her father owned the restaurant as well as some apartments upstairs in the building. It happened to be just around the corner from campus. Ming lived in one of the apartments and was also a student at the university. When I’d told her I’d been searching for apartments all day, she mentioned she had an extra bedroom. The rest was history. I’d snagged a place to live on day one, along with an instant friend—one with quite the sense of humo
r.

  It was no surprise that my fortune cookie that afternoon had read: You just ate cat. Ming was in charge of ordering the fortune cookies and made it her mission to put the funniest stuff inside.

  She sat on the edge of my bed. “How is Mountain Man doing?”

  I’d shown her a photo of Noah—unshaven and wearing one of his flannel shirts while working outside the lakehouse—and she’d instantly given him a nickname.

  “I haven’t spoken to him today. I think he might have a late shoot.” I sighed. “It always gives me anxiety when I can’t reach him. I really needed to hear his voice. Today sucked.”

  “Nothing tea and dumplings won’t solve.” She winked. “My dad just made some fresh ones.”

  “That sounds awesome.”

  Ming and I retreated to the kitchen and devoured the dumplings she’d brought upstairs. I’d probably gained five pounds since moving in with her.

  Ming blew on her hot green tea. “So, what happened today that was so bad?”

  “I think I screwed up my microbiology exam—like really badly. Then at work, I spilled an entire tray of food on a customer.”

  “Ouch.”

  I’d taken a job at a restaurant right off campus that was always crowded with college students. It was far more hectic than my old gig at Jack Foley’s.

  I sighed. “How was your day?”

  “I think I stooped to my lowest point today. I sniffed a baby diaper while babysitting.”

  I bent my head back in laughter. “Oh man. I think you did.”

  Shortly after I moved in, I’d caught Ming in the bathroom sniffing a white powdery substance. I’d nearly had a heart attack thinking I’d moved in with a drug addict. Sweet little Ming is a cokehead? Well, it turned out to be baby powder. She’d sat me down and told me all about this strange addiction she’d had since she was a kid. She liked to sniff baby powder and sometimes eat it. She’d even been featured in a documentary about strange addictions. She’d played it for me on YouTube as I sat there flabbergasted.

  Between my sleep talking and her obsession with baby powder, we made quite the team. We didn’t judge each other, though, and we appreciated our strange habits as things that made us unique. Aside from Chrissy and Marlene, whom I spoke to only occasionally now, I didn’t have too many close girlfriends, so I valued Ming’s friendship.

  “You know I love you, right?” she said. “Like, more than Johnson & Johnson?”

  That cracked me up. “Yes, oddly, I do know that, even though we haven’t known each other very long.”

  “Well, as your friend who loves you, I’m going to ask you a serious question.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you happy here in Burlington?”

  I took some time to think before I answered. “It feels really liberating to be away from home, without any responsibilities except taking care of myself, but it’s also lonely. I even miss my dog, and I don’t mean that as an insult to you, because you’re the best thing about this place. But I can’t shake how much I miss Noah.”

  “You try not to show him you miss him. I notice that when I’m eavesdropping on your calls.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I try to sound upbeat, yeah. He believes this time away from home is important, something I need to experience. I think that’s because his college life was a lot different than mine. I’m pretty sure Noah was a party animal back then, likely had girls throwing themselves at him. He thinks there’s all this stuff I need to get out of my system, when in reality, I don’t do much more than go to school, work, and come home.”

  Ming pointed to her fuzzy slipper. “I don’t know…it’s pretty wild up in here.”

  “It’s so not.” I chuckled. “I’m older than most of these freshmen, you know? The party ship has sailed. I feel like I’m focusing on my studies to avoid how much I miss him.” Shaking my head, I looked down into my teacup. “The funny thing is…guys here have been hitting on me, especially at the restaurant. So I can see what my options would be if I wasn’t so infatuated with Noah. And you know what? I’m not missing much.”

  “Can you pass those guys over to me, then?” She winked.

  “Gladly. You should hang out there more often.”

  “Seriously, though, not that I want to lose you—because I really don’t—but why not transfer after this semester?”

  “I want to stick it out so Noah doesn’t think I’m doing anything hastily. He told me to give it a year from the time we separated, and that works out to two semesters, since I can’t just leave in the middle. So, it’s really longer than a year.”

  “Are you supposed to see him at all this summer?”

  “I feel like I’m going to burst if I don’t.” I sighed. “You know how some people call their parents when they’re lonely at school? I don’t think to call my mom or dad. I mean, I call my mother to check on her. And my relationship with my dad is not very good anymore. So, when I need to hear a familiar voice, when I need support for me, I call Noah. He’s my only real comfort and my home. That’s pretty scary to realize sometimes.”

  ***

  Noah finally got back to me an hour after our usual time.

  “I’m sorry you had a bad day,” he said.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you tonight.”

  “My shoot ran super late.”

  “I figured it was something like that.” Lying back on the bed, finally able to relax somewhat, I asked, “What was the shoot for?”

  “It was a modeling portfolio.”

  “Anyone hot?” I asked.

  “You’d like him.”

  Irrationally, I was relieved to hear he hadn’t been working late with some beautiful woman.

  “Talk to me, Heather. Everything okay? You still sound down.”

  “I’m okay…just an overall crappy day. I talked it out with Ming, though, over dinner. I’m feeling a lot better now.”

  “I’m glad you have her. She seems really nice. Remind me to send her some baby powder to thank her for looking out for you.”

  Laughing, I lowered my voice. “She doesn’t know I told you about that.”

  He changed the subject. “So, tell me what happened today.”

  “I don’t want to burden you if you had a long day, too.”

  “You’re never a burden to me. You know that. Tell me what happened.”

  “I flubbed up on one of my tests and had a crappy day at work. That’s all. It’s no big deal.”

  Thinking back to my conversation with Ming, I wondered if I was doing the wrong thing in always trying to make things seem better than they were.

  “Can I confess something?” I asked.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Sometimes I don’t want you to know I’m struggling, so I downplay things. I want to make you proud and do this semester justice, give it my all. But it’s hard. If it weren’t for Ming, I’m not sure I would want to be here at all.”

  “What did I tell you about holding things in? You should never feel like you can’t tell me you’re unhappy.” He let out a breath. “I am so proud of you—even if you’re struggling. Struggle means you’re persevering even if it’s tough. That’s a sign of strength.”

  “Thanks for always lifting me up.”

  After a bit of silence, he said, “So, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  My heart started to pound. “What?”

  “I’m gonna be a grandfather.”

  “What are you talking about?” I nearly shrieked.

  “Remember you said your friend at the pet store told you Clyde was neutered?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, she lied. Bonnie’s pregnant.”

  “Oh my God. What? How did you figure it out?”

  “She was getting really fat, eating all of Clyde’s food. I took her to the vet, and he confirmed it.”

  “Have you ever seen them have sex?”

  “No. Sneaky fuckers must do it when I’m not home.”

  I laughed so hard I almost
dropped the phone.

  “You think it’s funny, huh? What the hell am I gonna do with more guinea pigs?”

  “You’re considering keeping the babies?”

  “I can’t separate Bonnie and Clyde from their damn kids! I don’t want that on my fucking conscience. It’s gonna be a zoo up in here.”

  My amusement over this knew no bounds. I had to wipe my eyes.

  “You’re a good man, Noah. And to think I thought you were a hardass when I met you.”

  “Now I’m a pussy. Look what’s happened to me.”

  “You old softie.”

  “Seriously, it’s a good thing I’m taken, because imagine meeting a thirty-five-year-old dude and finding out he’s breeding guinea pigs. I mean…would you trust that guy? I sure as hell wouldn’t.”

  He was taken. While his actions had given me every impression that he was committed, he’d never said anything like that before. It was exactly the reassurance I needed tonight.

  “You’re taken, huh?”

  Noah paused. “Yeah. I really am.”

  I shut my eyes. “Well, she’s a very lucky girl, whoever she is.”

  “Nah, I’m the lucky one.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “She’s really pretty—blond, blue eyes, killer body. But what drew me to her was her personality, how self-deprecating she is, honest, funny. And she’s not afraid to ask for what she wants. That’s a big turn-on.”

  “Like…she threw herself at you kind of thing?”

  “At times. But I sort of needed it.” He sighed. “Yeah, she’s pretty amazing. Horrible taste in music, though. I can overlook that because she likes old men.”

  My cheeks hurt from smiling. “I have to say, whatever I was bummed out about today just went out the window. In fact, I don’t remember much before this conversation.”

  “Well, I’m glad I could help you forget your worries. I wish I could do that in other ways right now.”

  “Me, too.” I blew out a breath and closed my eyes again, imagining the weight of his body over me. “You know, when I was talking to Ming tonight, it occurred to me that while other people call their parents when they’re homesick, I call you. I feel like home is wherever you are.”