I was wondering if that might not have happened yet. When? she asked.
Five months ago. It wasnt planned. At least, not for me, I replied. It kind of just happened, I finished lamely. I realized how cliché I sounded, but it was true.
It had just happened.
And then?
And then, we acted as though nothing happened. Or, at least, as much as we could. Its there, now, though, and we both know its there. Its like this big elephant in the room; theres a palpable difference in our relationship. We do things together, just like always, Mom, but, I paused, shaking my head. Its not the same. Were not the same, I sighed.
How could you be? she asked, reasonably. He knew how seriously you take your relationship, and he knows the way you feel about him. Its a mighty risky thing to do, Eira, for someone who thought it wasnt going to go anywhere.
I traced the seams on my steering wheel with my index finger, wondering what I was doing, where all of this would lead. I felt like I was on a runaway rollercoaster.
I guess I was just deluding myself in believing that maybe we would be able to have a life together. A real life together, I explained.
You were hoping that Matt would open his eyes and finally see you.
Ludicrous, wasnt it? I barked out a little laugh of self-ridicule. I knew how stupid it sounded, how childish and naïve.
Maybe that was my problem.
Maybe that was the way Matt saw me, as a hopelessly naïve child.
No, Eira, it wasnt ludicrous. It was optimistic and romantic, and both of those things are traits I hope you never lose. Life has quite a way of jading people until they believe that real, selfless love isnt possible, and that its not even worth the risk to try and find it. They wont even admit it, but theyre afraid of the complications that love will have on their lives. People want everything to be perfectly definable and all wrapped up in a nice little box, and love isnt like that. Its messy. Its complicated. Its painful. Anything involving other people is like that, and when you open your heart, you make yourself vulnerable. Vulnerability is also a liability in many peoples eyes. A weakness. And so they run from it. My mother sounded almost sad as she spoke, her insight obviously drawn from experience.
Do you think thats whats happening now, with Matt? Do you think hes running away from how he really feels about me, or do you think that hes telling the truth? That he doesnt have any feelings for me more than friendship? I knew the answer I wanted, and she knew the answer I wanted. But I also knew she would be honest.
I dont know Matts heart, Eira. Maybe not even he knows what hes really feeling. But maybe these next months away from you will give him time to figure all of that out.
For almost as long as I could remember, my father drove a 1986 Saab 900S a seemingly immortal piece of machinery and Swedish craftsmanship that wore its battle scars with pride. It was unmistakable in more ways than one. Its approach was loud enough to hear halfway down the street, a sound that resembled the roar of jet engines, and its curving silhouette was what my father fondly described as slipper-like. As it aged, it also ailed, and my father had to find more and more ingenious ways of nursing the car along. Engine turnover required just the right combination of jiggles, wiggles, and cajoling and even then, it wasnt always a sure thing.
The car drew an interesting parallel to life, the way relationships must be handled with a degree of care and commitment peculiar to each person and each situation. Some need just the right sequence of jiggles and clicks, some require holding your head at a certain angle while you stand on one foot whatever the mitigating circumstances, it all comes down to a decision that all the effort is worth it.
And then seeing it through.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, Id made the decision that everything here was worth it. That my relationship with Matt was worth all the effort, all the nurturing, all the patience that sometimes felt exhausting and painful. There were days that I wanted to throw in the towel, to pick up the phone and tell Matt that this relationship we had was poisonous, dangerous, and that we would both be better off if things ended now. No more contact.
Just over.
And then I would remember how much I loved him, how much I wanted him to be part of my life even if the degree to which he was part of my life wasnt exactly what I wanted. I couldnt imagine things without him, not after all the time Id had to get used to him being there.
There would be such a chasm, a void, if he was gone. And I was afraid to face that.
So instead, I held on to what I considered the lesser of the two evils, a known entity, and reasoned that things would change eventually. Either he would come to his senses, or I would become blissfully desensitized.
That was where things seemed to stand the day Matt walked through the doors of the airport to start his deployment. The situation between us seemed about as firm as Jell-O when its in that state of not-quite-solid-not-quite-liquid before its set.
Which left the possibility of us figuring things out together any time soon seeming slim, too.
Matts ninety days of deployment seemed to pass both too slowly and too quickly. There were days that crept by endlessly, and days that were over before theyd even started. One thing that each of those ninety days held in common was the silence. No word no phone calls, no e-mails, no letters. Nothing from Matt in the way of communication, and I felt sometimes as though I was going to go insane with worry.
All of the previous deployments during our friendship had been consistently peppered with e-mails and fairly regular phone conversations. Now, there was nothing. Nothing except the maddening absence, the deafening silence.
And the ambiguous way wed left things before hed gotten on that plane.
So here I was, stuck in limbo and caught in a state of indecision.
Maybe a more logical person would have taken those ninety days of silence and decided that none of it was worth any more thought, any more heartache.
Maybe those ninety days would have been used to rebuild a separate life, one that completely closed Matt out and cut him off, but I seemed unable to think past the immediacy of my need to fix this awkwardness between us.
And my inability to do it.
It was, strangely, like having my feet encased in cement.
And maybe just as dangerous.
I didnt know what to do or really how to feel, and so I did what I always did when I didnt know my next move I worked, I worked some more, and when I wasnt working, I took out my fine-tip pens and sketchpad and drew. For me, there was escape and release in the creativity I found on the white expanse of the page. I could express my emotions my turmoils and joys in the strokes of my pen, and people seemed to like the results.
I filled three sketchbooks while Matt was gone, creating a visual diary of sorts. Maybe one day I would know what to do with them, but for now, they were mine, tracing the arc of my heartbreak even as I hoped to find the beauty in all of this.
When Matt came home, when his deployment was over, and he walked past the security desk to meet me in the waiting area at the airport, the air seemed thick with all the words we werent saying. All the words that hadnt been spoken in the ninety days hed been gone, all of the words that needed to have been said in the now eight months that had passed since wed kissed.
Now, they all seemed inescapable.
I knew standing there, in the midst of all the people welcoming their loved ones home, teary as they wrapped each other in warm embraces that things were going to have to change. We would have to decide, once and for all, where we stood. I wanted so badly to reach out to him, to close the gap between us that seemed like a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon, but all of the uncertainty kept me rooted and silent.
And then it happened.
He took a step.
He placed his hand on my cheek, his touch feather light and tender, and whispered so softly that the words were nearly swallowed by the chaotic activity of the terminal.
I love you, Eira Larson. Please tell me its not too late for me, he breathed.
Matts eyes were moist with tears, all the pain and pleading and hope nakedly exposed on his face. I saw my own power to break him reflected in the depthless pools of his warm brown eyes, my own vulnerability mirrored by every emotion so plainly written there.
A choked sob escaped my lips, every moment of insecurity and pain and wanting bubbling to the surface and pushing past all the defenses I thought Id so painstakingly constructed. I wasnt sure I could trust my voice enough to tell him everything I wanted to say, but I also knew the gravity of this moment. Whatever I said or didnt say now would resonate forever, the same way a bomb blast seemed to ring forever in the ears of anyone close enough to hear it.
This moment was deafening.
This moment was sweet.
This moment would determine our fate.
I closed my eyes and tipped my chin, feeling warmth spread slowly through my body, a liquid heat that was purely joyful.
I realized as I opened my eyes that I was smiling a closed bud rather than a fully opened blossom the first blush of a smile. Tears whispered at the rims of my eyes, softening my vision.
Matt pursed his lips and then opened his mouth to speak again, but I shook my head to stop his flow of words. I was still silent, still smiling, as I reached up and placed my hand on his chest, just over his heart. I felt it pounding under the palm of my hand, steady and strong through the thick fabric of his uniform.
Its never too late to say I love you, I said, so soft it was nearly inaudible in the din.
It was all I could manage, but it was all Matt needed to hear.
He told me, later, that being away had given him time to realize just what he stood to lose.
He had realized that I had become much more than a friend, and that he truly wanted more.
He wanted me, forever.
Forever, he said, holding my hand in his as we sat, side by side on the steps of his apartment. Fireflies were floating through the air all around us, lighting the darkness with their magical glow and lending romance to what might have been an ordinary evening. He lifted my hand and kissed my fingertips, my nose, my forehead.
Forever, Eira, he whispered again. Thats what I want with you. Will you marry me?
He spoke the words almost too softly to hear, as though he was afraid the sound of his voice might break the spell. But they were there, floating like gossamer in the evening breeze, dancing in the dark with the fireflies all around us. Slowly, carefully, Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring, a small and simple gold band set with a single diamond that might have seemed unimpressive to some but for me, the glistening facets of that round-cut stone were more beautiful than any others I had seen. For me, that stone meant that the dream I had dreamed for so long was now finally coming true.
Yes, Matt, I whispered back. For now and forever, yes.
Chapter Seven
November 2008
Three years.
Thirty-six months.
Roughly eleven hundred days.
It had been over three years since Id seen or heard from him, but here he was, in the flesh.
Impossibly, it would have seemed, as in those three years, Id moved a thousand miles away, leaving the home I had so loved in North Carolina to transplant my broken life into Florida sand, where I shared no history with Matt. Where I thought the tides of the Pensacola Bay would wash away the pain and leave me with a fresh future, like the unmarred sand on a shoreline after a wave has receded.
Id begun rebuilding here, in this small community set along the shores of Floridas Panhandle, trying to find my own treasures in this jewel-box so famously known as the Emerald Coast. Id spent the last three years trying to get over him, to forget how much I loved him, to forget how much hed hurt me. Thinking of what Id say to him if I ever had the opportunity to say it to his face and now here he was.
Right in front of me, smiling at me as though he had no idea who I was. Talking as casually as he would with someone hed never met, someone with whom he had absolutely no history.
And I had absolutely no idea what to say.
Can I get that rare, or is that against the rules? he asked, flashing me another smile.
A smile.
A smile that I wanted to slap off of his face.
A smile that I wanted to scream at him for, to demand explanation for.
How could he sit there, smiling at me like that, when hed done what hed done?
I forced my attention back to the present and reached for the menu hed extended towards me, realizing I was going to have to pull it together. Otherwise, I risked looking pitiful and desperate, the wounded woman whod never gotten over being dumped. No matter that I wasnt the one at fault, that Id been left with no real explanation.
This was my proving ground, and I was determined not to fail.
I summoned every muscle in my face to rearrange my mouth into something resembling an easy smile as I answered.
Rare it is, I replied, my voice sounding strained and unfamiliar to my own ears as I stood there, trying to convince myself not to reach out and dump ice water in his lap.
Trying to talk myself out of hauling off and punching him hard enough to break his nose.
Instead, I was trying to remember to breathe, to remember that I was strong.
Why didnt I feel that way?
Did you get that?
It wasnt until then that I really took notice of the man sharing Matts table, looking up at me with a bored expression that seemed less than respectful of my place on the food chain.
I smiled tightly at him. Why dont you repeat it so that we can both make sure I got it right? I asked, my pen poised above my pad while I stared at him as though in rapt attention.
The man was positively vile. There was nothing outright about it, as he was handsome at first glance, but the attitude he seemed to exude like bad cologne ruined everything about his looks.
Prime rib. Rare. Bordeaux mushrooms, asparagus. And get another round while youre at it, he added, holding up his highball and rattling the ice cubes around in the empty glass. Got it now? He arched an eyebrow in naked condescension and waited with exaggerated patience as I scrawled his order.
I realized as I wrote that I was almost grateful for his presence. It was absurd, but the outrage he was arousing in me was like a balm for the confused feelings of frustrated anger that Matt was bringing to light. It certainly was a distraction, at any rate.