by Dawn Lanuza
Caty tilted her head. “Too?”
Juliana gave her a look.
“Fine. You won’t let that go.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I keep wondering what’s gonna make him raise the white flag.” Caty frowned. “Because if we do try again, it’s gonna be hard. It’s already hard for two people to be together, but to be apart while trying to make the relationship work? What’s the point of it all? It’s too cruel.”
Juliana took in her answer with a nod, and Caty realized she had finally spoken out loud some of the thoughts she had been dealing with on her own. It felt cruel, like a joke the universe had played on her. It had found someone for her whom she actually wanted to be with, but that person was thousands of miles away.
“I don’t think that’s really the problem here,” Juliana suggested. “The real question is: why do you still think he’ll eventually give up on you?”
“Well,” Caty said, almost choking on her words, “everyone’s got a breaking point. Some can just tolerate more than others.”
“I don’t think Elan just tolerates you,” Juliana retorted. “But I mean, if he still makes you feel that way, then maybe he didn’t do his job.”
Caty’s breath hitched, and she exhaled loudly. “Which is?”
“Making you feel secure enough in your relationship.”
Was that it? She had doubts, of course. She was riddled with them every night. She kept going around in circles, one doubt after the other. In previous relationships, she’d had doubts too, but having the person around made it easier to work things out. Being with them usually eliminated the doubts. And the body language she could see, instead of just words, was deeply important to her.
She shook her head to get rid of the thoughts. “Maybe if we both lived in the same city—”
“But that’s just it, Caty,” Juliana interrupted. “You don’t. So what are you guys gonna do about it?”
Nothing, she thought. That’s just how it is, and it doesn’t work.
“So, you’re telling me the only thing that’s stopping you from being with the person you love is that he lives in another country?”
“Okay, calm down with the word love,” Caty warned. “And you’re making it sound so simple.”
“But it is,” Juliana insisted. “You’ve got the problem figured out; you just need to think of the solutions. Distance aside, how do you feel about him anyway?”
Caty frowned. “You know.”
“I don’t,” Juliana persisted. “I just kind of assumed, but you never really said it.”
Caty almost shouted, “I want to be around him all the time, okay? I miss him so much that I started leaving my phone at home so I wouldn’t have to talk to him.”
“Why did you stop talking to him anyway?”
“Because,” Caty felt her eyes water, “it isn’t fair. For him. For me. We’ve created this little bubble, and it’s nice, but that’s all it is. It’s a bubble. An escape. And I want more, Jules.”
Juliana just wouldn’t stop smiling, and that threw Cathy off, so she tuned it down a bit. “I mean, I want things. Real, tangible things. I can’t do vague anymore.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Juliana replied. “You don’t think he could give you those things?”
“I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I feel a certain calm when I’m with him. It’s a strange feeling. My heart is . . . I don’t know, settled. Full. When I’m with him, it’s quiet. I feel . . .”
“Safe?”
Caty stopped. She remembered how she used to walk home at night thinking of him and feeling as if she wasn’t alone. He was with her during that walk, her head filled with his stories throughout that day.
She recalled how she felt that night when she slept in his arms and woke up still wrapped up with him, like she was meant to be there. That was why she never forgot it. That was the feeling she’d been trying to replicate with other people but couldn’t.
She even remembered how it was that first time she saw him in the driveway and how she ran out to him, yelling, “Wait!”
She felt safe.
Eventually, she had recognized that with him she felt at home, in spite of the distance she was so worried about. She believed in him.
She actually trusted him.
Caty gasped and met Juliana’s eyes. She seemed to understand what was going on, what had just happened, what Caty was thinking.
She smiled, reached her hand out to tap on Caty’s. “So maybe he did do his job.”
“I need to—”
“Talk to him? God, finally. It’s getting ridiculous, what you two are doing.”
“Can you drive me to him?”
“Mmm.” Juliana tilted her head. “I have a feeling he’ll be here. Any day now.”
“Any day?” Her eyes widened. “I can’t wait that long!”
Juliana leaned back, a smug smile on her face. “See? Urgency.”
seventeen
Just home from his ride, Elan wondered, What else do people do these days? He thought about going out again, just to fill in the time, but he was also comfortable inside, so he just took a shower and decided to stay in.
Then the phone rang, and he suspected it was Gia. He read the name on the screen and stopped short.
It didn’t register right away, as if his brain lagged, forgot how to interpret the letters. At the same time, he knew, he got it, he understood what it was, what this meant.
Elan stared at his screen for another moment, eyes wide, his thumb hovering.
Then it stopped ringing. Her name disappeared from the screen.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
He could call her, right? She wanted to talk, now.
Muttering another curse, he worked his thumb furiously to call her back. Elan brought the phone to his ear and waited for it to ring. After a few painful seconds, he finally heard the call go through, and all he could think of was whether he would hear more than rings. Did she change her mind? Was it just a mistake? Was she ever going to pick up?
On the fifth or sixth ring, he leaned his arms on his knees, covered his face with a hand and bit his lip, thinking, Come on, come on, come on.
Then a click and silence.
He could hear her breathe, but she didn’t speak.
Maybe that was good. He had so much to say. Words would pour out of his mouth, but he waited breathlessly. Wasn’t he glad he’d had years of practice in holding things back?
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Right here,” Elan said, welcoming her back to the tiny bubble they barely had. He’d held the fort, kept watch in case she came back.
And she had.
He heard Caty sigh but didn’t say anything.
“You know what? This is better. Let me talk for a bit,” Elan started again, even if he didn’t really know where to begin. The phrases and words were circulating around his head.
Since his talk with Gia the other day, he’d thought again about everything Caty had said. Gia’s questions hung in the air: Did she know? Did you tell her?
He thought he had, but maybe he hadn’t been as direct as he should have been. He had wanted the visit to be about more than just that night; he wanted it to go beyond that. He had to tell her that now.
If he did, and the situation was still the same—that she still chose to be with someone else—then he could still walk away without asking the questions that riddled him at night.
“I’m sorry,” Elan decided to start with that. “I think I was angry.”
He never said that word. He was scared of even thinking it. It was an ugly word for him, one he associated with the kind of person he didn’t want to be. He’d forgotten that being angry is being human, that it was an emotion he was allowed to feel if he cared enough, if it matt
ered.
And this, this mattered. He cared about what happened to him and Caty.
Elan let out a heavy sigh and looked down at his feet. “When you said you started seeing somebody else that night, I got mad, or jealous, one of those things. I shouldn’t have been upset because neither of us had said anything about not seeing other people. But I felt it.”
“Oh,” Caty sounded surprised.
“I realize that I’ll probably ask a lot from you. I mean, this is hard.” He thought about what it was like for her, on the other side. She was probably exhausted. He exhausted her. The whole setup was tiring. It involved a great deal of effort to keep connecting to a person who wasn’t there physically.
“And frankly, you shouldn’t have to wait for some guy to wake up.” Elan remembered that particularly—Caty told him she was waiting but didn’t want to keep doing it.
“Caty, that’s not how you should feel about us. You shouldn’t feel miserable. You should be taken out, treated well, kissed every day.”
Maybe he shouldn’t give her ideas about what the other guy should do, but he had to say it anyway. He meant it, although part of him was screaming, It should be me. He wanted it more than anything.
Elan used to think he would just have to try harder once he had it all figured out, but when was that gonna be? He now understood that he didn’t have to sort it all out before acting. Time was running out, and wasn’t that what he just said? She shouldn’t be waiting for a guy to wake up.
In the past few days, he had shaken himself up, as if he had slapped himself in the face. It might have involved Gia’s help too, but here he was, admitting that he needed to wake up.
“Wow, okay,” she said, shock in her voice. “That’s a lot to take in. We haven’t even said hello.”
“Right, sorry. Hello.”
“Hello.” He thought he heard a smile in her voice. “You said sorry way too many times.”
“That’s how sorry I am.”
“For what again?”
“I don’t know,” his voice trailed. “Feeling . . .”
“Mad? Jealous?” Caty offered, “Anything else?”
“Miserable. Mostly.”
“I’m sorry.” Her turn to say it. “You should never feel sorry for that.”
Then it was quiet.
“Well, isn’t this in the running for the most depressing conversation we’ve ever had,” Elan commented.
“The last one was actually more depressing,” she reminded him. He cringed at the thought of how he had sniped at her.
“I know, I’m—”
She interrupted before he could say sorry again. “We started it all wrong. Should we try again?”
“You want me to call you back?”
“No.”
“Right.” He faced the door. She was here in San Juan. They were in the same latitude, the same time zone. “I’ll drive to you.”
“I have a better idea,” Caty said. His eyes opened wide when he heard knocks on the door. “Open the door.”
eighteen
Caty stood at the door, still on the phone, waiting for it to open.
It was a lot for one phone call. Her ears were burning, her heart was racing, and she was pretty sure she was close to crying. One blow and she’d tip over.
The door opened, and her eyes met his.
“Hi,” was the first thing she said, over the phone. “You cut your hair.”
“I did,” he replied, running a hand through his hair.
“It’s . . .” Her eyes roamed over him, hungry to notice the details. What did she miss? One whole month of not seeing his face. She marveled at the sensation of familiarity, nostalgia hitting her in the chest, despite the fact that she was right in front of the person she missed. He didn’t change, she recognized, and when he smiled at her, her heart warmed. “I like it.”
Elan was the first to address the fact that they were still talking over the phone. “Should we stay on our phones?”
“Just for a sec,” Caty answered. She wasn’t done yet. She smiled at him, dwelling on the fantastic feeling of seeing him again, reacquainting herself with what she already knew, reveling in the pleasure of wanting to get to know this person again, and again.
Elan leaned on the door frame, one brow raised. “It’s just that—someone’s at the door.”
“Serial killer?”
He laughed, and she watched his eyes crinkle and his lips spread. Laugh lines showed on his face. “No, some girl.”
“She hot?”
“Smokin’.”
Caty blushed, although she had orchestrated it. “You should make out with her then.”
He hesitated. “Can I do that?”
“You might need to assess the situation first.”
“Right. Well,” he crossed his hand over his chest. “Everything is the same with me. Exactly where I was the last night we met. Except I’m the idiot who didn’t tell her exactly how he felt.”
Her eyes met his, and she could hear her heart beating as if it was right next to her ears, thumping, drumming.
“I adore her,” he said, flat out. “I’d hijack projects for a chance to get on a trip that would allow me to see her even for a day.”
Caty held her breath and felt bad that she had lied to him. But she would tell him now, correct it now.
“I live for her.”
“What?”
Elan raised his hand. “Not that I would die if she wasn’t around. It’s about the way I live when she’s with me. Everything around me feels more alive. And it’s not a coincidence, it’s not something else, it’s just her. She brings that into my life.”
Caty couldn’t find her voice, even when she already had so much to say.
“I’m in love with her.”
She looked away to press the end button on the phone, swallowing hard. She took a deep breath before looking back at him.
All her life, Caty had wanted someone to look at her the way Elan was looking at her this moment. Yet she didn’t know what to do next.
“Too real?” he asked, putting his phone down.
She took the first step toward him. “Fucking kiss me already.”
“What about that guy you’re seeing?” he said cautiously.
“Who?” Right. That. The lie. Biting her in the ass just as she thought.
“You told me you were—”
“I made him up,” she spat out. She just had to do it that way, no need to embellish a lie with more lies. “There’s no one else.”
His brows furrowed, and his eyes asked her to tell him more.
“I only had you on this tiny screen. It had gotten so pathetic that I would wake up with my eyes glued to the phone and fall asleep while I was still holding it. I was too attached to my phone. I needed to unplug. There was just too much happening in my real life, and then there was you—someone who’s real but somewhat unreal—”
“You made him up?”
That was all he took away from everything she’d said? Yes, she was awful for what she did, she got it. “Yes.”
Elan opened his mouth but could only come up with, “Why?”
“Because,” she hung her head, “I wanted to stop this.”
He leaned on the door frame and tilted his head.
Caty took a step toward him and saw his hand reaching out to hers, so she took it and let him pull her in. She landed in his arms, both hands resting on his chest.
“This?”
“God, don’t be dense,” Caty complained. She hadn’t asked Jules to drive her all the way here to be cute about this. Hell, she hadn’t flown back and drained her savings to miss what she needed to hear. To not say what she needed to say. “You know what this is. Everything you did was leading up to this. You were making me fall in love with you. And surprise, it worked. D
amn it. No, damn you.”
Elan grabbed her face and kissed her, finally, both his hands angling her face to kiss her deeper. A tear rolled off her cheek as the warmth of his touch and his kiss spread through her body.
He pulled back, leaned his forehead on hers, and breathed in.
“I miss you,” she whispered, holding on to his wrists. “You’re right in front of me, and I still miss you.”
She anticipated their next kiss. She was due for one more, right? He couldn’t kiss her like that and not keep going. She would just fall apart, right at this very doorstep.
But the kiss didn’t come. In fact, he was letting go of her. Caty looked up to see why he had stopped, why he was pulling away, hands frantically holding on to his arms. Their eyes met, and a little shiver ran down her spine.
Her lips parted.
He kicked the door, and it swung back. “Come in,” he finally said, his voice strained.
Caty would have just walked past him, but she didn’t. Again, she wasn’t here to be cute. She was here to get what she wanted, so she threw her arms around his neck and pushed him in while she kissed him.
Elan rested his head in the crook of Caty’s neck. He pressed another kiss on her collarbone as her arms enveloped him.
Caty laughed, tickled by his breath when his lips traveled up her throat to her ear, his weight right above her. They’d been holding each other for a while, since they kicked that door shut and discarded each other’s clothing.
It was a blur, but it also had clarity, a sense of right that settled in her stomach.
Caty ran her hand through his hair. “Your room is very you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s so . . .” Her eyes took in the blank walls, devoid of photos, posters, or any reference of the person living there. “Blank.”
“Thanks?”
“No, I mean, you don’t show off your stories.” She gave him a smile. “Not to just anyone.”
Elan barely moved from his position.
“I wish you had told me about your mom,” she breathed out.
She felt Elan shift on top of her. “I know. I screwed that up.”
“You didn’t have to, if you’re still not comfortable, but I think it would have helped me understand you better.”