Текст книги "How to Fall"
Автор книги: Rebecca Brooks
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-Two
Winter, still.
“Come on, Rob and I got tickets to this comedy show. Danny and Amy are coming and we’re taking you with us.”
Liz had swung by Julia’s apartment and was rooting in her cabinets for something to eat.
“Who’s Rob?” Julia asked, closing her laptop. She’d been diligent about her resolution to come home from work on time, especially on Fridays. But that didn’t mean she didn’t bring work home with her instead.
“New guy, you met him last week at Trina’s party, remember?”
Julia didn’t, but she nodded anyway. What had happened to Greg? She decided it was best not to ask.
“Come on, I thought you were going to stop working all the time. Those kids can teach themselves algebra for all I care—that’s what the internet’s for.”
“It’s new student evaluations to conform to state standards for the federal funding we got last year.”
“I’m telling you, just look up whatever other schools have done.”
“I know, but I like these kids. I want them to do well.”
“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” Liz plunked a glass of wine next to Julia and turned the laptop toward her, opening up a new browser and typing in a search. Julia tried to stop her, angling the computer back, but it was too late.
“Whoa-ho, what do we have here?” Liz asked, lifting up the laptop to get it out of Julia’s reach and depositing herself on the sofa beside Julia’s desk.
“It’s nothing; close the screen.”
“Oh my god, J. You’re not still watching his show, are you?” Liz clicked through something on the screen and Julia heard the pip-pip-pip of the volume rising on the computer, followed by the swell of violins from the opening credits she could now hum from heart.
“He sent me a few back episodes,” she groaned, sinking down into her chair, wanting to disappear.
Liz looked up sharply from the screen. “So you’re in contact?”
“I don’t know.” Julia threw up her hands. “A little?”
“You didn’t tell me there was potential here.” Liz narrowed her eyes like she’d been lied to.
“There isn’t. He’s God knows where right now—Patagonia and about to go to South Africa? And then who knows where, and in the end, he’ll wind up back in Australia. Last time I checked, none of those places were anywhere near Chicago.”
“So? What have I been telling you?”
Liz lifted up the laptop to make her point.
“Yeah, I know. The internet. But I don’t want some kind of weird long-distance online sexcapade.”
Liz laughed. “I don’t know who this guy is, but he was definitely good for you. Leaving school before it gets dark out, remembering to stay stocked in good wine, using un-Juliaesque words like sexcapade. What have I told you? Don’t give up so fast.”
“I didn’t give up,” Julia protested. “He knew I had a return ticket back and on the day I was leaving, he was all, Hey I’m going to Santiago!”
“Yeah, but to see his friend who got jilted, right?”
“Jamie. But he made that plan totally last minute, like he was looking for anywhere in the world he could go that wasn’t Chicago or the U.S.”
“But did you talk to him about it at all beforehand? Did you say anything about what would happen at the end of your stay?”
Julia shook her head, feeling worse by the second. “I asked him to come here,” she said weakly, but Liz wasn’t buying it.
“At, like, the very last second, when he was on his you can’t tie me down kick.”
“So? He wanted me to ask him so that he could say no.”
“How do you know he wasn’t waiting to see if you’d bring anything up sooner, and then when you didn’t,” she wagged a finger accusingly, “and this other thing came up, he went with that because it was something for him to do?”
“Because he could have said something if he wanted to see more of me!” Julia cried, exasperated.
“So could you!”
“He told me it was just a fling,” she said defensively.
Liz rolled her eyes. “One night is a fling. Two nights. A week of nothing but fucking and no talking whatsoever. But you guys? Please tell me he wasn’t dumb enough to really say that, and that you’re not dumb enough to believe it. You guys needed to talk about this, not have some stupid fight that neither of you meant just to make it easier to leave.”
“It wasn’t just some stupid fight,” Julia said defensively, even though she’d thought the same thing a million times before. “He acted like I have, I don’t know, intimacy issues.” She wrinkled her noise. “That’s hitting below the belt.”
“You do have intimacy issues, sweetheart,” Liz said matter-of-factly. “Obviously he does, too. That’s why you talk about it.” She over-annunciated the last part, as though explaining to a child not quite able to grasp the concept.
“I can’t believe I’m getting lectured on communication by you,” Julia grumbled.
“I know,” Liz agreed. “It may be the strangest thing that’s ever happened in the whole history of our friendship.”
Julia couldn’t help it. She cracked a smile.
“Almost as strange as the fact that I saw Rob last night and still want to see him again tonight,” she added, and Julia raised an eyebrow.
“That is surprising,” she said, grateful as usual for Liz’s ability to turn any conversation back to herself.
“Which is why you have to come to the show tonight to check him out again. I need to know what you think.”
“Yeah, fine, of course I’m going,” Julia sighed.
“I think Blake went to see Jamie because he was scared,” Liz said as they got their coats and headed to the door. “He didn’t know what to do, and he didn’t want to look like he was hanging around waiting for you to invite him.”
“I think he went to see Jamie because he wanted to,” Julia said crossly. “After all, he made it quite clear that we had come to the end. And anyway, Jamie’s his friend.”
“So? You can have friends and still have a life. You’re acting like this was inevitable.”
“Wasn’t it? He’s some hotshot TV writer and producer in Sydney. I’m a math teacher in Chicago. We only met because we were both completely out of our elements, but we can’t live outside our real lives forever. Sooner or later, things would have to get practical anyway.”
“Why?” Liz asked. And it was in the way she cocked her head at Julia, with that puzzled expression as she unlocked the car door, that Julia knew the question was a serious one.
Why did they have to get practical? Because that was what life was. Someone had to be there to take care of the everyday issues, the day in day out, the problems as they inevitably arose. Someone had to live in Chicago and trudge through the snow and smile at the other couples and laugh even when the jokes weren’t funny.
Didn’t they?
More to the point, didn’t she?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Months passed. The snow melted and the spring came too slow, like it always did. A painful unfolding full of fits and false starts. Flowers pushed up the first sunny weekend only to crumple in the next frost. The restaurants put out their sidewalk seating and found the chairs dusted in snow.
But eventually the sun came, the afternoons warmed, and then it was June, another school year over. On the last day of teaching Julia went out for drinks with her co-workers after class like she always did. Dutifully she clinked glasses around the table, congratulating everyone on a job well done. But every time a cry of “Cheers!” went up, she cringed. She’d held Blake’s eyes every time they said it and what did it matter? She was alone.
She made her excuses and headed home, but it was only to change out of her work clothes before going out again. Julia had been roped into dinner with Danny and Amy, and with Liz and Rob, who were still going strong. It was Liz’s longest relationship in forever, and while Julia was happy for her friend, she couldn’t help feeling like the third—or really fifth—wheel sometimes. Rob was supposed to be bringing a friend of his to dinner in some kind of awkward set-up for Julia. She wasn’t exactly interested, but she still didn’t know what to wear.
“The floral number with the low neck,” Liz said over the phone as Julia stood in front of her closet, frowning.
“Too much cleavage for a stranger. I don’t even know the guy.” Julia tucked the phone against her shoulder and rifled through the hangers.
“All the more reason to show off, silly. What about one of those cute sundresses you have? With a little shawl for later, it’ll be perfect for the garden bar.”
But Julia knew which sundresses Liz was talking about. The blue dress Blake had hitched up over her hips as he took her under the waterfall. The red one she’d worn in Rio, feeling his hand idly slide up the straps when they started to slip.
She’d tried to forget about “her Brazilian thing,” as Liz called it. But months later everything still reminded her of Blake. Something she read, a thing someone said, something she wanted to do…
On the nights when she let her resolution slide and stayed late working, assuring everyone else that they could go home to be with their families while she finished up the work that needed to be done, she wished she had Blake there to remind her that she didn’t have to be the one taking care of everyone else.
She wished she had Blake there to take care of her sometimes.
“I take it that’s a no.” Liz’s voice cut in. “So I guess we’re stuck with the usual, dark jeans and something cute on top. At least go for flimsy cute, not teacher cute—okay?”
“Sure,” Julia said. But she’d stopped paying attention. Automatically her hand had strayed to the soft fabric folded in the back of her closet. She hadn’t been able to get rid of the white skirt and shirt. She’d never wear them again, obviously, so they sat hidden. But even though she’d washed them, she swore they still smelled like salt water and champagne.
“You’re moping,” Liz said into the silence.
Julia drew her hand back quickly, as though caught. “I’m not. I’m just…tired. Everything was nuts wrapping up at school.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating? It’s summer, the only time I’m jealous of your job.”
Julia laughed, making herself pull away from the outfit she couldn’t believe she’d actually worn.
“I’m serious,” Liz said. “Tonight is to make sure you start your break right. You have these months off and you should take advantage of it. Sleep until noon. Go swimming every day. Have an affair or three.”
Julia snorted over the phone.
“Or if that doesn’t work, you could finally buy that goddamn plane ticket to Australia I know you keep thinking about.”
Julia groaned. “I am not going to Australia.”
“Why not?” Liz said, and Julia wished they could go back to her wardrobe crisis instead of rehashing this whole conversation again. Ever since the postcard arrived, Liz hadn’t been able to let go of the ridiculous idea that Julia had an actual future with Blake. One in which they weren’t running around for a week, but were together. All the time.
A couple, even though Julia couldn’t wrap her mind around what that would look like for them.
Whenever she brought up that minor detail, Liz would conveniently fall silent. I don’t know, you’ll figure it out, she’d scold, like that was the easy part. Like Chicago to Sydney was a distance that could be easily bridged.
But it couldn’t. And so when the postcard came, into the closet it went, alongside the clothes from New Year’s Eve.
It wasn’t even much of a card. On the front was a picture of an enormous waterfall. On the back he’d written simply: Thinking of you. Not much from someone who was—she knew from re-watching The Everlastings more times than she’d care to admit—extremely capable with words.
And yet as much as Julia complained to Liz that Blake hadn’t said a thing, she’d known what he’d been trying to tell her.
Because it wasn’t just any postcard. The picture showed Victoria Falls seen from the Zimbabwean side. Massive, churning, the spray misting across a chasm flanked by green. Julia wasn’t sure whether to feel good that something had made him think of her, or whether it hurt all the more knowing that he could gallivant anywhere, seeing whatever he wanted, and there was nothing special about the fact that for a few days, he’d done so with her.
She hadn’t written him back. What was she supposed to say? I love you, don’t fuck anyone else under the waterfalls?
Liz was wrong. A postcard didn’t mean anything. The only option was to move on.
“I’m not going to Australia,” Julia repeated emphatically. “There’s nothing there for me. All we did was have a good time for a week and everybody knows that’s not what a relationship is.”
Liz groaned. “I hate to break it to you, Julia, but relationships don’t have to be suffering. It’s supposed to make your life better, not hold you back.”
But Julia already knew there was no use wondering about something more with Blake. Besides, there were plenty of men who didn’t live 9,238 miles away—she’d Googled it—and who would actually say they wanted to be with her instead of bail without warning, send a cryptic postcard, and leave it at that.
She just hadn’t met any of them yet.
She was about to remind Liz that she was supposed to be rooting for what’s-his-name, the guy Rob was setting her up with that night, when the buzzer to her apartment rang.
“Hang on,” she said, dropping the shirt she’d pulled from her closet and going to the intercom. “The door buzzed.”
“Package?” Liz asked.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“Ooh, end of school year present?”
“I hope you got me something good,” Julia said with a laugh. She pressed the button on the intercom.
“Hey,” came the voice from the sidewalk, and for the split-second before Julia registered what was happening she had the strangest sensation that everything was tingling from her fingertips down to her toes, so that she was more worried about what was wrong with her than about what was to come.
Her “Hello?” came out barely a whisper, so that he had to buzz again and ask who it was.
But Julia didn’t have the same question. Even with the static from the intercom there was no mistaking that voice, the accent light and buoyant, so distinct she could practically hear him running his hand through his curls.
“Julia?” he said. “This is—”
“Oh my God.” Julia squeezed her eyes shut, the phone still pressed to her ear.
“What is it?” Liz asked, at the same instant the intercom buzzed again.
“Oh my God,” Julia repeated.
“Jules,” Liz said urgently. “Are you there? Is everything okay?”
“It’s him,” she whispered, staring at the intercom.
“It’s who?”
Julia could barely form the word. “Blake.”
Liz gasped over the phone. “What?”
The intercom trilled again.
“It’s him. Liz, what do I do? It’s him!”
Julia turned away from the intercom, taking in her apartment strewn with papers, the morning’s dishes left in the sink, the clothes she’d just now dumped all over the floor. How many nights had she lain awake fantasizing that she hadn’t heard from him because he was on his way over right that second, so desperate to see her that he couldn’t settle for the phone or email or any way in which his true intentions might be misconstrued?
But now that it was happening—or something was happening, she couldn’t say what—she had no idea what she wanted. How could she run to him after all the silence and distance between them?
On the other hand, how could she not?
Liz’s voice cut through her panic, so loud Julia had to pull the phone away from her ear. “What do you mean, it’s him? Downstairs? Now?” Liz inhaled sharply. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“The door buzzed, I said hello, he said hello…” Julia couldn’t remember what came next.
“And?” Liz prodded.
“And now I’m freaking out talking to you!”
“He just said, This is Blake?”
“No. He just said, Hello.”
“But you know that it’s him?”
Julia didn’t want to say that she’d know his voice anywhere. That she heard it at night in her dreams, whispering to her. That she imagined him mouthing the words as he wrote The Everlastings. That no matter what she said about moving on, she would have given anything—everything—for the chance to hear him say her name again.
“And now he’s downstairs?” Liz asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Okay.” Liz paused. “So explain why you’re still talking to me?”
“Because I don’t know what to do!” Julia cried.
“Inviting him in would be a good start.”
Julia gripped the phone. “I can’t.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“No! Don’t go.”
“You have things to do.”
“I know—what time are we meeting for dinner?”
Liz barked out a laugh. “You, my dear, are not coming to dinner tonight. I’ll tell Rob’s friend you had to cancel. And suggest he not get too hopeful about rescheduling.”
“There’s no way this is happening. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Julia. You’re not marrying him. You’re just telling him he doesn’t have to wait on the sidewalk. Did you know he was in the States?”
“No.”
“That’s a long way to come to say hello to you through an intercom and turn around again.”
Julia didn’t move.
“Do it,” Liz said.
Julia still didn’t move.
“Do it before he thinks you don’t want to see him and leaves.”
Julia’s breath caught. The thought of him buzzing up to her, knowing she was there, knowing she knew who it was, and then waiting for an invitation that never came…
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blake kicked his toe against the front stoop, waiting. She’d heard him, right? It was possible she hadn’t known who it was, but he doubted it. He’d heard her inhale as soon as he’d said her name.
And then nothing. No hello, no buzz of the door letting him in. Did he have the wrong apartment number, scratched on a piece of paper she’d given him with her email and mobile before things went sour for them? Or was this her way of saying, Go away?
But he could wait for her to be ready to see him. He could wait however long it took.
He’d already waited for the months he’d been traveling, for the time he’d been back home, for the end of the school year so he wouldn’t be interrupting when he knew she’d be at her busiest. He’d waited for the more than twenty-four hours it took to get from Sydney to Chicago, the image of her dark hair spurring him on. He’d even waited once he arrived, spending the night in a hotel so he wouldn’t show up completely bedraggled on her doorstep, despite the fact that it was torture to be in the same city and not rush over in the middle of the night.
And then he’d waited all day while she was at work, giving her what he hoped was enough time to come home.
Hoping she’d come home and wasn’t out with friends or colleagues or—an unimaginable thought, he pushed it aside right away—a boyfriend, someone she’d met since her return.
It didn’t matter. He was here. And this time he wasn’t going anywhere.
He was done making mistakes, done running away, done stopping himself from going after what he wanted no matter the difficulties that stood in the way. She might not want him, but that didn’t mean he was going to slink off without giving it a try.
He buzzed again, squinting up at the building to see if he could tell which window was hers. Let me in, he willed from afar. He stamped his feet against the pavement and looked down the street. Chicago was massive, sprawling, and colder than he was used to—he should have brought a jacket now that evening was settling in. He tried the door again, thinking maybe he hadn’t heard it buzz. But it banged uselessly, locked.
It occurred to him then that she really wasn’t going to see him. It had been too long, he’d done nothing but send one lousy postcard and a few brief emails that could never stand to capture all that he’d wanted to say. She had every right to turn him away. He raised his hand to the intercom one more time and then dropped it. He’d known it was a possibility as soon as he’d booked his ticket. It could be a trip for nothing. She could be done with him.
But it wasn’t nothing, he reminded himself. Trying wasn’t nothing. Nothing only happened if he walked away, waiting for life to happen to him, waiting for love to knock him out cold like he didn’t have to put in any effort when the right person came.
Nothing was how he’d felt when he was alone in Australia, going through the motions, missing the fullness he’d once held inside. Realizing how much he’d lost when pride and fear kept him from taking that trip to São Paulo and telling her he wanted to give them a try—not for a week while they were traveling, but for however long they could make their lives intertwine. No matter how many plane rides it took.
Blake knew the opportunities he’d had as a writer had come because he’d made them happen, pursuing what he wanted even when it seemed the whole world was telling him no. He’d had to make hard decisions and be persistent to make his dreams come true. Why did he think the rest of life, and love, would be any different? Why did he think he shouldn’t have to work for any of it?
Standing outside Julia’s apartment, though, he worried that he’d come to his senses too late. He had no right to assume she’d open her door after so much time had passed. He had no right to her heart anymore.
He took a sip of the fresh coconut water he’d gotten from one of those overpriced health food stores he’d gone to way on the other side of town. The sweetness reminded him of her lips and the way her eyes had lit up the first time she tasted coconut on the beach.
But the taste wasn’t the same. It was an imitation of the thing they’d once had, the kind of thing he knew now could never be recaptured. He was going to have to go back to his hotel, email Jamie to let him know he’d failed, and book the next flight home.
He was turning away when the noise he’d been waiting for suddenly came.
He leaped for the door, pushing it open before she could change her mind and stop buzzing him in. There wasn’t an elevator and he raced up the stairs, heart pounding in his throat. He tried to slow down but he couldn’t hold himself back.
This had to work. There was no other way.
He’d imagined this moment countless times since he’d left Rio in a rush. Long before he fully understood that he had to go to Chicago and see her he’d imagined her apartment, where she lived, what her life was like. Now he was here, standing in front of her door, and he couldn’t believe it was real. He raised his hand to knock but before it came down the door swung open, and he was face to face with Julia, her eyes wide and an almost frantic look on her face, and she was so beautiful, she was so goddamn beautiful, he didn’t so much step into her apartment as fall into her arms.
But he didn’t fall into her, not really, because she pulled away immediately, as though she’d been reaching out for him and then stopped herself short.
It hurt, but he understood.
For so long he’d been thinking about this moment and now that it was here, he almost didn’t know what to do.
“Hey,” he said gently, eyeing her up and down. She looked tired, softened, and he wanted to run his fingers through her hair, press his cheek to hers, tell her it was going to be okay.
But he couldn’t. He hadn’t earned that yet.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was quiet, flat, nothing he could read except that he knew her well enough to know what it meant when she was hiding, putting on that calm exterior, keeping everything else in check.
But no, he thought suddenly, that wasn’t quite right. The smallness in her voice was different than anything he’d heard from her before. She wasn’t pretending, acting tough and in control. She was showing her uncertainty, her fear. She was showing herself to him.
He extended the large plastic cup. “I brought you something.”
Julia eyed him uncertainly. “What is it?”
He grinned. “Taste.”
Gingerly she took the cup, looking at him like he was a wild animal who’d stepped out of his cage. Safe for the moment but ready to bite.
Still, she didn’t toss the liquid in his face and kick him down the stairs. Slowly, watching him, she brought the straw to her lips.
Realization dawned over her face as she drank. “Where did you find this?” she asked breathlessly, staring at him not with the same caution but with something else now, as though he were a creature she’d never seen before.
He couldn’t stop the smile. “It’s not the same as the real thing, but it’s as close as I could get. Better than the packaged stuff, that’s for sure.”
She took another sip. So far, so good.
But then she turned and put the cup on the kitchen counter, and when she faced him again her arms were folded, eyes narrowed with the same suspicion they’d held when he walked in.
“Blake,” she started, and he took a step forward, holding up his hand.
“Don’t say anything,” he pleaded before she could give him the piece of her mind he so deserved. “I’m here because I have to explain.”
He’d thought about it the whole flight over. But in the end there was no planning. He didn’t have the perfect thing to say, because there was no perfect thing. There was only the truth, and the force of his feelings for her. He stood in the doorway to her adorable apartment, filled with so much Julia and messier than he’d expected—books, clothes, an empty bottle of red wine—and spoke.
“I fucked up,” he said. “I fucked up as soon as I got on that plane to Santiago. No, even earlier—as soon as I walked out that door. Don’t think I didn’t realize I’d made a mistake.”
Julia sank into a kitchen chair. She didn’t invite him to sit with her so he leaned against the counter, taking her in.
He went on.
“I was afraid of what I had with you, what I felt for you. I thought that if I ran away from it I could keep going with my life as though nothing had ever happened. That way I wouldn’t lose anything. I wouldn’t have to risk being hurt.”
Julia looked away, the pain of what he’d done clearly etched on her face.
“You could have come back,” she said quietly. “You could have met me at the airport. You could have called me from Chile. You could have emailed at any point during your trip.” But even though her voice was small, she wasn’t backing down. Her eyes locked into his and held him there. “You could have done any number of things to give me some kind of sign that you cared. That the week we spent together was more than some random fling.”
A million protests came into his mind. That it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t known what to do, she hadn’t come after him either, and anyway what did it matter—he was here now. But he pushed them aside. That was the old Blake, making excuses and running away. Instead he said simply, “I know.”
She seemed surprised by his admission. “Then why are you here?” she asked, confused.
Blake sighed. “I went out to dinner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I went out to dinner with Jamie and his new girlfriend, Laura.”
Julia’s eyebrows shot up. “So Chris is still with Lukas?”
“Shocking, isn’t it? I haven’t been in touch with her, out of loyalty to Jamie, but she included me in an email announcing that they’re opening up that inn on the coast like they said. But that’s not the point.” He paused, considering. “Actually, I guess it sort of is. They’re happy doing what they want to do, building the life they want to have together—even if it doesn’t quite make sense to me.”
“It sounds like they decided to never come back to the real world.” Julia rolled her eyes.
“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” He was getting excited now, wanting her to see. “It is the real world—for them at least. It’s the world they want to be in, the life they want to live. They’re not holding themselves back because it’s complicated or impractical or not what they were expecting or whatever else people might say. They’re doing it. And Jamie and Laura—they’re doing it, too.”
“You like her? The new girlfriend, I mean,” Julia asked.
“They work together. She’s brilliant, caring, great for Jamie. Plus she wants to settle down, have a family, travel sometimes but have a home in Australia with him. It’s still early, but I’ve never seen him so…happy. Content. They click in this way that’s so obvious. As soon as you see them, you know.”
“So you had dinner with them?” Julia prodded, getting him back to that strange revelation that had changed everything for him. Or not changed it, but brought it into focus so clearly that for the first time, he couldn’t turn away.
“It’s not like I hadn’t seen them together before,” he continued. “But there was this night when I’d been working late. I’m writing a new show. I kind of thought it up when I was with you, and I’ve been trying to get it into production.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to get into that yet. “Anyway, when I met up with them, I was late. Tired. Focused on other things. I got to the bar after them and I was looking around, trying to find where they’d sat, and it was this moment—it’s hard to explain, but there was this moment when I saw them before they saw me, and it was so unscripted, so incredibly intimate. So real. I saw the way they were looking at each other, laughing over their drinks, and she touched his arm and I—”
Blake broke off, looking away. He felt his voice catching. It had been ridiculous even then. What he’d seen hadn’t been significant. It was what couples did when they were together, in their own little bubble even when they were out in the world.
But it was exactly that normalcy that got to him. How comfortable and happy they were. How they’d found each other at last. He’d walked up to them and sat down and ordered a beer and they were glad to see him; it wasn’t like he’d interrupted. But even when they were talking and laughing, he kept thinking about the way Jamie and Laura looked at each other when they thought no one was looking. When there was no one else in their world.
It wasn’t just that he wanted that—to love someone, and be loved in return. It was that in that instant somehow it all slammed into him. That he’d had that—once, briefly—and it wasn’t with Kelley. It wasn’t with any other ex.
It was with Julia, in Brazil. At dinner with her, walking with her, holding hands with her on the beach. It was trembling in her arms after they’d jumped off a cliff and let themselves soar. It was early in the morning when she rolled over, half asleep, and curled her body against his. That wasn’t a time-out from the rest of his life. That was his life. That was what he’d shared with her.
He tried to explain all of this, but he wasn’t sure she understood. It was so clear in his mind and so convoluted when it came out in words.
