Signs of Love

by Skye, Harper

  “Ailsa…?” His voice was full of apprehension. Because he saw she was not crying. Not anymore. She was numb. She had spent the whole night putting on all her masks. All her armor. This stuff she had was strong. Stronger than steel. And she would need it all.

  “Zach, I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay.” He pulled up a footstool and sat down in front of her.

  “That phone call last night was from a friend of mine in Scotland. He offered me a job in Inverness running a music store.”

  She waited for Zach to respond, but he was silent. He just sat there with his hands on his knees staring at her. As if he refused to hear what she had said. As if he refused to move into the next moment because of what was waiting for him there.

  They both sat there, Ailsa sitting on the same couch where she had first sat down months before when they had just found each other. When Zach had said I want to know you. And I want you to know me. And now they did. In the deepest way. And she was going to fuck it up. She was going to break both of them.

  “It’s called Bear Wood Fiddles.”

  “What the fuck does it matter what it’s called?” Zach’s voice was cold. “Are you going to take it?”

  “It’s called Bear Wood, Zach. Bear.”

  She had expected him to understand. But he just looked at her with eyes full of pain and anger and confusion.

  “It’s a sign!” She could hear her voice rising with her nerves.

  “A sign? Ailsa, seriously? Someone calls you up out of the blue, says the word ‘bear’ and suddenly it’s a sign and you’re going to…” He didn’t say it. Leave me. He didn’t say it, because he couldn’t.

  “I have to, Zach.” Ailsa was quiet. “I have to follow the bear or I’ll never heal. I’ll never get better. I don’t understand it, but these dreams, this job, it’s got to mean something…”

  “What does it have to mean, Ailsa? What?! What is it that you have to understand?” Zach stood up from his seat. He clasped his hands at the back of his neck, pulling against himself in frustration.

  “Why I’m fucking alive!” She screamed. “Why I didn’t die in that accident. You don’t get it. You don’t get it because you weren’t trapped in a car for two hours hanging in the dark with your three friends dead beside you. You don’t get it because you weren’t there. I just walked away from that accident. They are all dead now. Caitriona. Jon. Fraser. You don’t get it because you didn’t know them. They weren’t your friends. But they were my best fucking friends. My best friends. And now out of all of us, I’m the only one who gets to live. They don’t get to follow their dreams. They don’t get to do any of that. So I’ve got to live for all of us. I’ve got to carry their dreams too. It’s my responsibility now! For some fucked up reason the universe let me live, so I’ve got a responsibility…not to myself, not to you, but to Caitriona and Jon and Fraser…to figure out why. I’ve got to make my life count for all four of us. I don’t get the privilege of just doing what I want anymore. I’ve got to consider all of them. I’m got to live for all of them. Do something worthy. I don’t deserve to just…”

  Ailsa suddenly stopped. More words had stuck in her throat and she was panting to catch her breath.

  “What, Ailsa? You don’t deserve to what? Stay here with me and be happy? Is that it?”

  She stared at him. Silent. But a voice in her mind was speaking to her. Yes, that’s it. I don’t deserve to be happy with you. Not when they are all dead. She needed to get ahold of herself. This was not how she wanted her last conversation with Zach to end.

  “I’m sorry, Zach. I’ve got to follow this sign. I’ve got to figure out how to live for all of them. I have no fucking idea how to do that. I’ve been looking for four years since the accident for an answer. A sign. Anything…And now I’ve got one. And I have to see it through…”

  Her breath was still racing in her upper chest, in and out, in and out. Calm down, Ailsa. You can’t fall apart! Ailsa took a deep solid breath and felt some strength return to her, though her face still burned with anger and pain.

  “So what…you’re saying you’ve got to leave me for your dead friends? That doesn’t make any fucking sense!”

  Ailsa could see him burning. He was in his own storm of pain and fear now.

  “Who was it that called you?” He asked suddenly turning towards her.

  “What?”

  “You walked out of the room to speak to whoever was calling you last night. Why? Who is offering you this job?”

  “My friend Rob.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Yes!” Ailsa was suddenly scared of the direction he was going. Zach was spinning off, his brown eyes were almost blind with pain.

  “If he’s just a friend why did you have to leave the room to speak to him? If he’s just a friend…”

  Fuck!

  “He is my friend, Zach. I’ve known him since university. He plays drums in the band.”

  “And you’ve never…?” She knew what he was asking. And she knew she couldn’t lie to him. And he saw it in her eyes. A sound came out of him like a last breath leaving his body, like the sound a tree makes when it cracks right before it falls. Zach turned away from her, and Ailsa watched as his whole body lost its structure. It was as if he shrank, diminished, fell. Even while he remained standing.

  Reaching up his hands he grabbed the two sides of the wooden window frame and leaned into it. “Are you leaving me for him?” She heard him whisper, and she could see the sides of his back trembling with the emotion he was trying with all his strength to keep inside.

  “Zach, no! It isn’t like that. It just happened a few times last winter. I was lonely. It was a mistake. We were never together. He really is just a friend. And he’s with someone else now.”

  She saw Zach hold up one of his wide calloused hands, although he still wasn’t looking at her. “I don’t want to fucking know any of this.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.” She heard herself whisper. And when she said it, she felt a crack run through the armor she was trying so hard to keep in place.

  “But you’re going to, aren’t you?” He turned to her, and she had never seen his face so full of anguish.

  “I have to. There is something inside of me that I’ve got to heal. I have to follow the bear. I’m afraid if I don’t I’ll always be trapped in this pain.”

  She paused. Her bags were already packed and in the truck. She knew if she didn’t leave soon she was just going to prolong what was already an excruciating pain. “Zach, please believe me, this wasn’t what I was planning. I don’t even know how we would have made it work though. I don’t have a visa. I only had two more months anyway. But I wanted to stay with you, make a life here.”

  For a split second his eyes flickered with hope, and he looked over at her.

  “But I’ve got to see this through Zach, please try to understand…I’ve got to take this job. It’s too much of a coincidence that it’s called Bear. It’s got to mean something.” She said it as firmly as she could manage.

  “You didn’t even give me the chance…” she heard him mumble. His voice choked, and he brought his hand to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose fighting back tears. “Just fucking arrived yesterday…what are the fucking chances…?!” What was he talking about?

  “This doesn’t have to be the end, Zach,” she found herself saying. Crack. “But I’ve got to go back now. I’ve got to see this through in my own way…”

  “I love you…” She added in a whisper. Crack. Ailsa felt an enormous chunk of her armor fall away from her chest, and a sob rose up inside her.

  “I can’t love you from the other side of the world, Ailsa.” He whispered back.

  She nodded. There was nothing else to say. She had to just go now, before she caused him any more pain. It would get easier once she was gone, she tried to tell herself. He would get over her. He would find someone else. He would heal.

  Timidly, she stood and walked towards him. Her cool
hands rested on his forearms, and she felt him flinch at her touch. “I’m going to go.”

  His face was buried in his wide hands.

  “Zach…” her voice was barely a whisper now. Barely a sound. Faint like the wind through the trees. He ran his hands through his hair, and when he looked at her his eyes were full of tears.

  “I know I have no right to say this, but I love you.” Ailsa said to him. And then she felt the roar of pain rear up in her heart and before it erupted she turned away from him and raced towards the door.

  Chapter 39

  When Ailsa’s brother picked her up from the airport in Glasgow, Ailsa could tell from the look on his face that he was incredibly worried. She must look like shit. David grabbed her bag in one arm and brought the other arm around her shoulders giving her a squeeze. “You okay?” He asked as he guided her through the terminal and out into the grey September morning.

  “No.” She shook her head.

  David didn’t reply. He just squeezed her shoulder again, and Ailsa leaned into him. It was good to see him. Her older brother was used to seeing her a mess. But he knew she would talk to him if she wanted to, and he never pressed her for information like her other brother Scott or her mum.

  The drive to Oban felt like a dream. It was so crazy, Ailsa reflected, how her dreams could seem so real, and reality could feel so illusory. She couldn’t be here, could she? Back in Scotland? She should be in Alaska. Right now she should be lying against Zach’s warm body in the deepening shadows of the night. Right now she should be nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck, smelling the warm scent of his body, wrapped in the embrace of his arms.

  But the rain beating on the window and the scenery rushing past told her she was not in Alaska. She was back in Scotland, driving up the side of Loch Lomond towards home. After everything that had happened in the accident, it was what she deserved. And she should be grateful that she was alive. How could she complain? How could she ever complain?

  “Are you going to tell me why you look worse than I’ve ever seen you?” David asked glancing over at her from the driver’s seat.

  “I’ve looked worse.” Ailsa commented, staring out the window. He knew that was true.

  “Not much.” Ailsa felt his hand reach out and find hers. “Ails, what happened out there? From what mum said, I thought you had a great job lined up in Inverness. I thought you were going to bounce off the plane. But you look like a ghost. Like you did...that first year.”

  Did she really look that bad? Ailsa couldn’t believe that. The year after the accident had been the worst time in her life. She couldn’t look that bad. He wasn’t remembering right. She shook her head. “I had to leave someone. But it’s the right decision. I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “What does that mean?” David asked, but Ailsa just shrugged. It was too hard to explain everything. She knew David would find it hard to understand anyway. They just wanted her to be happy. All of them. Her parents, her two older brothers. They just wanted her to smile. And she knew it was because they loved her. They didn’t want to see her in pain. But they had never understood how she felt about the accident. They had never understood her guilt. Her sense of responsibility. They had never understood that she was trying to live for four people now.

  Ailsa spent the next three days in her bedroom sleeping. She had assumed she wouldn’t be able to sleep. That the bad dreams would follow her and tear her out of her peaceful darkness. But they didn’t. And although it didn’t make her feel any better, Ailsa thought maybe it was a sign that she had done the right thing.

  The day after she arrived in Scotland she had received a text from him. I love you too. That was it.

  For hours she stared at her phone, reading the words again and again. Holding onto this last thread she had of him. She ate the dinners her mum cooked. She tried to make her mouth smile when her dad cracked terrible jokes at the table. She dragged herself out a few times for a walk through town, and she made polite conversation whenever she ran into anyone she knew. But she felt hollow inside. Just like David had said. It felt like after the accident when a part of her soul had died.

  On the fifth day, she put on an ironed shirt and threw her bag into her parents’ old red VW Golf. It would take her three hours to drive to Inverness. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Her mother asked, standing next to her father in the grey morning light. “I don’t mind. I could cancel…”

  “No mum.” Ailsa gave her mother a hug. “I’ll be okay. I need to spend the day up there, and I’m going to have to get used to the drive if I move up there anyway.”

  It wasn’t just driving on her own that they were worried about, Ailsa knew. She was going to have to drive near Glen Coe. It wasn’t the same road, but it was close enough. And she had spent four years blatantly refusing to go anywhere near the site of the accident.

  “I could go…” David’s voice came up from behind them. He had come by the house before work at his store, and Ailsa knew it was not by chance. He was also worried about her.

  “No honestly, I’ll be alright. I’ll call you when I get there.” Ailsa held her travel mug of coffee in one hand and reached out to hug her parents. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  They all stood there, waving from the drive. Ailsa lifted her hand as she watched them in the rear view mirror. “I’ll be alright.” She said aloud to herself and felt relieved that her voice sounded so convincing. She knew her parents and her brothers all loved her, but their constant concern made her feel nervous. The anxious energy echoed around them all, bouncing off each other. It was so different than the way she had felt around Zach. He had been a solid presence, supporting her while also holding a sense of confidence that immediately calmed her. Ailsa shook the thought from her mind and focused on the road in front of her.

  It was tough driving further north into the highlands on roads that she hadn’t taken since Before. Before everything had changed. But after she made the turn at Ballachulish and drove past the mountains at Glen Coe, she started to relax and think about the future. It wasn’t going to change everything, this job. She knew more about life than to expect that a job, any job, even a job at Bear Wood Fiddles would be able to change things overnight. But maybe Rob was right. Maybe this could be a way to start over.

  Ailsa rubbed her tongue against the inside of her cheek that was still swollen where she had bit it the day she had left Zach. She wouldn’t think of him. She couldn’t. Just like before. Except of course it was even harder than before. A thousand times harder.

  Once she reached Inverness, Ailsa had to hunt for a parking spot. She finally found one and put money through the pay-and-display machine. Then she followed the directions she had been given towards Bear Woods Fiddles where Mr. McInnis was expecting her. It should be a left here and then right up…

  Ailsa looked up and stopped dead in her tracks. The wooden sign above the store swung in the wind. It read Barewood Fiddles.

  “Barewood,” she whispered to herself. Not Bear. Bare.

  It was a little thing.

  And it was everything.

  “Oh…” she felt a sudden sob like a cloud of the deepest pain rise up into her throat, and turning on her heels she hurried back down the street until she found a small alley. Ducking into the gap between the old buildings, Ailsa felt hot tears explode across her face.

  What had she done? She had ruined everything. She had left Zach, the love of her life, all because she had been so stupid as to think this was a sign. A bloody fucking sign! And it wasn’t. It wasn’t a sign at all. Rob had said Barewood perfectly clearly, and she was so caught up in her image of the bear that she had misheard him. And she had just gone and ruined her life over it.

  The absolute despair she had suppressed when she left Zach’s cabin a few days ago came pouring out of her, and she could not make it stop. “What have I done?” She sobbed again and again into her hands. “How could I have been so stupid?” She cried in that alley knowing that there
was no one in Inverness to come help her. No one to save her from this ridiculous mess she had gotten herself into.

  Finally she pulled herself together enough to stop crying and find a pub around the corner where she splashed cold water onto her face in the toilet. Ailsa dried her face with the paper towels and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was still blotchy. Her eyes were hollow.

  “You’re alright,” she lied to herself in the mirror. “You’re alright. You’re going to get some coffee. You’re going to go meet Mr. McInnis like you promised. One step at a time.” There was only one direction to travel from here. Forward. Into the future.

  Chapter 40

  Ailsa lay on the cold sheets of the hotel room. She was way too tired to drive the three hours home and had decided to stay overnight in Inverness. That was mostly true. She also wanted to be alone. The day had left her completely emotionally drained, and she didn’t want to see her parents. She didn’t want to step into her family home and have to put a smile on her face and tell her parents how the interview —if that’s what it had been — with Mr. McInnis had gone.

  Barewood Fiddles was a beautiful store. It was much more upscale than Pete’s place in Fairbanks. The displays of fiddles and mandolins, base and violas along with all manner of other instruments and musical equipment had been impressive. And Mr. McInnis had been polite and kind, if a little overly formal. They would get along just fine, Ailsa knew. And she knew she had made a good impression, not just with her knowledge of music, but with her manner of interacting with the customers that had come into the store that afternoon.

  God knows how I pulled that off! Ailsa thought to herself as she tried to relax into the hard hotel mattress. A dull light fell through the window, but Ailsa hadn’t bothered to turn on any of the electric lights, and she lay in the shadows of the room staring up at the ceiling.

  How had things gotten this messed up? How had she let things spin so completely out of control. She had been a good student. She had excelled during her degree. For most of her life she had had things completely under control. When she had struggled to find a voice, she had looked and searched in her heart and eventually found the answer — her music. And so she had played and gained her confidence and found a place for herself in the world.