by Skye, Harper
“Tell me something,” she said after awhile. “I’ve got to get out of my head.”
So he began to tell her about Illinois. Then about Alaska and the look of his land from the place he had built his house. He told her about the animals he had met in the woods, what it was like to cut down a tree…
After awhile she brought out her fiddle, and he listened to her play things that weren’t songs but were sounds that came from the land, songs of the fox and the bear they had seen, songs that sounded like a heart breaking. Sometimes tears fell from her eyes as she played, and she did not try to stop them or wipe them away, and Zach did not try to comfort her. He would watch her for a time but often he would simply gaze out at the land and let himself be carried off with the songs.
At last she lowered the shining wooden instrument back into its case. A long breath left her body, and she brought her hands across her face as if to rub away the cobwebs and dust the dream had left.
Then she smiled.
“Hey…” Zach said softly, smiling back.
“Hey…” she replied shifting over to where he sat on the rock. The rock was warm from the sun and the sound of the insects rose up to fill the empty space around them. He leaned towards her and kissed her softly on the mouth. Just once.
“Thanks for being with me.” The words stumbled out of her mouth awkwardly, and she looked down at her hands, but then he had taken her hands in his, hiding them away from her in his wide palms.
“You’re welcome.” He had said it simply. As if it were obvious.
Perhaps that was how she had fooled herself. Remembering these moments, and not the day they had said goodbye.
Chapter 8
Ailsa looked up at the tops of the spruce trees as they waved in the breeze against the wide blue sky. It was her last day in Alaska. Tomorrow she would drive back to Anchorage and get on a plane that would take her back to Scotland. She could work in her older brother’s shop in Oban selling outdoor gear. Maybe this time she’d go stay with friends in Glasgow and get a bar job. It didn’t matter. She was just biding time there.
Biding time. That’s what her life felt like. Like she was just getting through the days. Surviving in this flat dull life where nothing seemed to matter. It hadn’t always been like that. Once she’d been alive, full of dreams, hardly sleeping because there was so much to do and so many places she wanted to be. University life in Glasgow had filled her mind full of new ideas. Moving from a small town to the city, it had felt like the world had opened up. There were so many new people she had met in halls, and by her second year the logistics of life had become planning which parties to go to, which bars would let her band play in the evenings, where they could go hiking on the weekends.
From where she stood now, Ailsa could barely remember that life or that other girl she had once been. The spruce trees towered overhead, and Ailsa felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. The past two weeks here in Alaska were the first time she had felt differently. The weight of time, of getting through the day, had lifted here. And she couldn’t say whether it was the vast wilderness that she missed so much because she couldn’t go too far north in Scotland anymore. Or whether it was him.
Maybe it was both.
“Hey.” She felt him step into her back and wrap his arms around her. His rough face bent against her ear. “Barbecue’s ready. You hungry?”
“Yeah.” But Ailsa didn’t move and Zach didn’t release her from his arms.
“I’m going to drive you to Anchorage,” Zach said after a moment.
“What?” Ailsa turned, and Zach let her snake through his arms until she was looking into his face. “Isn’t that really far out of your way? Steph was going to take me…”
“I want to take you. Is that okay?” He looked at her, his eyebrows furrowing, his brown eyes holding her face.
Ailsa hesitated. “You’re sure? I’m still going to leave, you know. A few more hours, it’s not going to change…”
Zach placed a thumb across her mouth. Slowly he ran his thumb along her upper lip, and Ailsa could feel the rough callouses scratching against her soft mouth. “I’m sure,” he said in a way that left no room for argument. “Let’s go eat.”
The party was well underway. Everyone was under strict orders from Steph to finish off the rest of the alcohol, and they were taking this duty very seriously. Ailsa grabbed a burger from the barbecue and walked over to table she had helped lay out with salad and chips.
“I’m glad you came up here,” Steph stepped next to her and reached for the bag of potato chips. “It’s been really fun having you.”
“Same,”Ailsa nodded. “It was so nice of you to invite me up. I’ve had such a great time.” Ailsa watched Steph fill her plate. She was such a nice person. If they had met in another life Ailsa was sure they would have been friends. Steph would have been part of the group that went hiking on the weekends or planned sea kayaking trips off the coast. She loved the outdoors, and Ailsa could tell she loved this place by the lake. Her parents had bought the land and cabins when Steph and her brother were kids, and they had come here most summers since she was little. It was wonderful to have a connection with a piece of land, where memories of who you were then and who you are now folded into the contours of the landscape.
Ailsa blinked and realized Steph was looking at her. “What?”
“What are you going to do about that…” Steph asked, nodded her head back to where Zach stood talking to Seb at the barbecue.
“What do you mean?” Ailsa asked, trying to sound more confident than she actually felt.
“You know what I mean…” Steph said, not backing down. “I know Seb pretty well. He’s been friends with my older brother for years. And he told me he’s never seen Zach like this…like he is with you. And I’m guessing it’s probably the same for you too.”
Ailsa shrugged. “I live a million miles away. That’s the reality, I guess…”
“True…” Steph nodded, reaching to pick up her drink. “But also…life is short.” She smiled at Ailsa, and Ailsa smiled back. She was sad to leave this group. She liked them. And they knew nothing about her past which meant she could easily ignore it. It was a perfect combination, and in many ways she felt desperate to cling onto it. And she knew she couldn’t.
Ailsa looked down at her plate and suddenly realized she wasn’t hungry. She looked over to where Zach stood with Seb who had been manning the barbecue for the last hour. Zach had his back to her, and the slanting sun glanced off his broad shoulders as he shifted on his feet. Seb was frowning at him, gesturing with the spatula he had been using to flip the burgers. What were they saying? Ailsa wondered. It looked like Seb was frustrated at Zach about something. Even from this distance she could hear the edges of his voice like a growl, but though she strained she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She watched as Zach shrugged in reply to whatever Seb had been saying, and then Seb looked over Zach’s shoulder and met Ailsa’s eye. Seeing her looking at them, Seb broke the serious expression on his face.
Maybe I should get drunk, Ailsa thought to herself. Maybe that will help somehow. She walked over to the folding table that was laid out with the last of the drinks. Most of the beers were gone but there was still a lot of vodka and whiskey left. Well, what young Americans called whiskey, which was actually Jim Beam they mixed with coke. Ailsa wrinkled her nose at the thought of it and reached for the vodka. She poured out two measures, more than the small paper cup should probably hold, and filled the rest of the cup with soda water.
“Hey Ailsa don’t get too drunk. We want a grand finale on the fiddle later!” James called out from where he sat on a log by the fire pit.
“I’ll try my best,” Ailsa said smiling and taking a long drink of her vodka soda.
It’s always the way. When you wish the days to pass they drag on and on. And just when you wish time would slow so that you could savour some almost-perfect moment, it seems to rush past in a hurry as if it has somewhere else to go. They ate a
nd drank and Ailsa played her fiddle and James did a few rounds on the guitar.
Slowly as the night wore on people began to drift away from the fire, finding shadowy places to kiss or crawling off to their beds. As the sky finally fell into a kind of semi-darkness, Ailsa felt Zach reach for her hand. “Come on,” he said under his breath, and she let him pull her to her feet.
They walked out to the dock and sat surrounded by the grey shadows of the Alaskan summer night and a new kind of quiet. Zach pulled Ailsa against his chest, and she leaned her back into him and let the warmth of him surround her. Slowly she let her head fall back against his chest too and he nestled his chin into her neck, kissing her ear and breathing against her cheek. Gently Zach ran his fingers through her long hair that fell in waves across her shoulders and down her back. And she let him do it. She let him touch her and bring her alive with his touch.
It didn’t take long away from the fire for the cold to seep into them both, and so Zach brought out blankets from his truck. They spread a few blankets out on the dock and lay down to look up at the sky that was still too illuminated for the stars to shine through.
“I hardly ever take time anymore to just look up at the sky,” Zach commented.
“I used to do it a lot,” Ailsa replied, nestling into the crook of his arm and staring up at the vast open sky.
“Used to…?” Zach asked. Ailsa could hear the conflict in his voice, and she knew he was fighting the same battle as her. The yearning to know this person whose touch brought her alive. And yet knowing that the more she learned, the harder it would be to say goodbye in the morning.
“Used to.” She said, closing the subject.
“Ailsa…”
“Let’s not…” Ailsa interrupted him. “It’s just going to make it harder tomorrow.”
“It already feels too hard.” Zach’s voice was quiet and deep, like it came from a pit inside of him that was much darker than the Alaskan sky.
Instead of answering, Ailsa pressed her mouth against his, her tongue telling him the way she felt with a courage she could never have shown with words. And he kissed her back, answering her with his own story that was about a man who had fallen for a woman he knew he couldn’t keep.
Slowly their kiss deepened. Ailsa reached for his shirt and pulled Zach forward until she could feel the weight of him leaning into her. He shifted on top of her, holding himself up with an elbow. Ailsa’s hands reached under his shirt, running her fingers up through the hair on his chest, and she could hear his breath catch. Just the sound of it make her own stomach lurch and she could feel the pressure building between her legs.
Slowly his hand moved over the skin at her belly, wrapping his wide palm around the side of her waist, then up the length of her ribcage until his fingers grazed the curve of her breast. Ailsa gently arched her back giving him more of herself, and Zach slipped his hand under her bra and took her breast in his hand. A soft moan escaped Ailsa’s lips and she could feel him growing hard against the side of her leg.
It was as if the whole world was gone, and all Ailsa could feel was the softness of her breast against the hardness of his hand. His breath was growing ragged against the side of her face as he touched her. Running his thumb over her nipple, feeling it harden at his touch. Another moan caught at the back of her throat, and Zach lifted himself slightly away to look at her.
“Fuck Ailsa, you’re killing me.” She could hear him swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Don’t talk,” Ailsa breathed, pulling his face back towards her, taking his tongue into her mouth. “Don’t even think.”
She could feel the hardness of him straining against his cargo pants, and she reached her hand down, spreading her fingers out against him. She heard him suck in his breath again, more sharply this time, and she pushed him gently onto his back and rolled until she was lying on top of him. Her hair spread out around their faces like a waterfall, and they were the only two people in the world. Ailsa felt drunk. And free. And alive.
She took hold of his hand, threading her fingers through his and for a moment she felt him relax as his body held the weight of her. And then she guided his hand down to the edge of her waist and flipped the button on her jeans. If she was going tomorrow, then she would at least know the way his rough wide fingers had felt against the hidden places and the way it was when he moved inside of her.
Ailsa could feel his body tense again beneath her as he understood what she was inviting him to do, and though they were both too old for this to be anything like a first time, it was a first time for them and it felt like some new boundary that they were crossing as his finger slipped into the warm wetness of her. It was Ailsa’s turn to tense as the pleasure of his touch raced through her body like electricity. Slowly he explored her, watching for the tiny moments, the soft moans that told him he had found his place. Her hands reached out, fumbling for the clasp of his cargo pants.
“Ailsa…” he breathed. She knew that sound in a man’s voice. He was losing control.
“I want you,” she whispered.
She had expected those words to be an invitation, but instead she found he was pulling away from her, rolling her gently back onto the blanket. Suddenly a pocket of the cold night air flowed between them.
“What is it…” Ailsa opened her eyes to find Zach had pulled himself up onto his elbow.
For a moment he didn’t answer her. Then she saw him sit up and bring both hands up into his hair. “Fuuuuuuuckkkk…” Anger. Sexual frustration. Love. Pain. It was all there in his voice.
“Zach…”
“I can’t…”
“You can. Just stop thinking…” She tried to reach out for him, rubbing her hand down the length of his back.
She listened to his breathing, the sound of it laboring in his chest. The tension that poured off him was so different than the wide calm night around them, it made Ailsa even more aware of him. Like a bolt of lightning against a dark sky.
“Zach…” she tried again.
“I fucking can’t, Ailsa.” His voice was half-whisper, half-groan. He looked over at her through the shadows. “I haven’t felt like this about someone for a long time. And you live halfway across the world,” he paused, rubbing his hands over his face.
“I know…” she moved carefully towards him until she was close enough to wrap her arms around his shoulders, to stroke the sides of his face, his shoulders and arms.
At last he pulled her back into him. “It’s not that I don’t want to…I know in a few days I’m going to want to punch myself for being so fucking stupid.” His smile was raw as he looked at her. “But it’s my last shred of self-preservation, woman. If I make love to you and you get on that plane tomorrow it might break me…”
“Don’t say that…”
“Don’t get on that plane…”
“Don’t say that either. I have to.”
“Okay. Then come lay in my arms and just look up at the sky with me.”
Eventually they fell asleep, and when Ailsa stirred awake she saw the light had grown across the sky and knew soon it would be time to leave.
Chapter 9
He was quiet all morning, and Ailsa tried to take her mind off the inevitable by looking out at the scenery. Alaska. She tried to soak it up, the immense look of the forest of spruce trees that towered like a living wall and flowed over the land for miles and miles. The way the eagle soared in lazy circles overhead. The glimpse of several brown deer standing still amongst the trees.
Ailsa reached over for Zach’s hand, and he took her cool hand into his, rubbing slow circles at her wrist while his other hand clasped the wheel with a grip that looked too tight. His body looked rigid too, as if he were holding himself differently. He always looked solid to Ailsa, confident, strong. Like the oak tree in her back garden that she had climbed since she was little. He had looked that way when she had first seen him in the cabin and when they had been on their daily hikes in the woods. It was the way the spruc
e trees looked as well. Strong and tall but still able to flow with the breeze.
Ailsa looked over at the way Zach sat in the seat of his blue truck, hand clenched around the wheel, shoulders rigid and unmoving. He looked different today. He looked the way glass looked. Strong. Solid. As long as nothing crashed too hard against it.
“What’s this about then?” Zach asked, tapping his thumb against the skin between her thumb and forefinger on the back of her hand.
“The tattoo?”
“Yeah, am I allowed to ask about it?” His voice held a bitter edge that Ailsa didn’t understand.
“You can ask about it,” she tried to reply gently. “It’s a Viking rune that means Destiny. I got it while I was at university.”
“Viking huh?”
“Yeah. I had this whole thing about signs back then. Signs and destiny. And my name is Viking…”
“Really?” He took his eyes off the road for an instant to look at her.
“Yes. It’s the name of an island off the west coast of Scotland. Ailsa Craig. That’s where my parents got the name. But the name Ailsa actually comes from a time when the Vikings controlled the coasts of Scotland.”
“Does it mean something?”
“Ailsa means ‘Elf victory’ in old Norse. Or some people say ‘magic victory’.”
“Well that’s cool!” Zach nodded. And Ailsa thought for a moment that he had pulled himself out of his dark mood.
“So you don’t believe in signs and destiny anymore?” He asked after a moment.
Ailsa bit her lip. She should have known where this conversation would take them. But she had let down her guard. She had wanted to let him in. She was the one who had said he could ask.