F*ck Love (31 page)

His words scare me. I don’t want to have to ask. This is all wrong. Coming here was wrong. I shake my head. “No, Kit. I won’t ask you that. If you want to leave, it needs to come from you. It’s not fair of you to ask me to drag you out of your relationship.”

“Helena, I came to you once; I followed you to Port Townsend. No one dragged me there.”

That part is sort of true. I lift my hand to my mouth and lick one of the wires. I want to chew on it, but I’m scared I’ll get in trouble. Greer was probably eating dinner right at this moment. Maybe salmon and some risotto…

“Helena! I see what you’re doing. Focus.”

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!” I rub my temples. “Where are the nurses? Shouldn’t they check on me?”

He touches my face. Five fingertips. It pulls me back.

I can’t stop the tears when I look at him.

“You’re convincing yourself that I haven’t done enough, because then you get to walk away from this and be the good guy.”

“No,” I say. But it’s limp.

“Helena, don’t lick those—” He pulls my hand away from my mouth and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“Tell me about your heart right now.”

I yank away from him. “No!” And this time it is forceful.

He leans in and rests his forehead against mine, closing his eyes.

“Helena … please.”

I’m weak. I am.

“I was supposed to be a coloring book artist,” I say softly. “And your wife. And we were supposed to go on that goddamn Blue Train! I never woke up from that goddamn dream, Kit. Do you hear me?” I’m sobbing like a pathetic little shit. He rubs his forehead back and forth on mine.

“So, why are you trying to wake up now?”

What can I say to that?

“I met someone,” I say. I feel him stiffen. He doesn’t look at me when he pulls away.

“Who?”

“Someone who’s not getting married to my ex-best friend tomorrow.”

He sits with his hands between his knees and looks at the wall.

“Who?”

“What does it matter, Kit?”

“It matters to me. You know it does.”

“He just made me see things more clearly. I don’t have to convince him, like I came here to do with you. I don’t want to have to convince someone to be with me.”

“You never had to convince me of anything. It was a matter of timing. Our timing was off.”

He nods slowly. “So, you don’t want to be with me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying. I want him.”

I can’t even believe I get those words out. I was wrong to come. There’s Annie, and Della, and Della’s family. I wouldn’t just be hurting one person.

“Who’s the coward now, Helena?”

He stands up, and I cringe. I want my mom. Is that weird? I don’t even like her.

Kit walks out the door, and two seconds later June walks in, wide-eyed, mouth open.

“He—” she says, looking back over her shoulder. “Helena…?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing. It was all nothing. He needs to go live his life. With his family. I told him to go. I was so wrong to do this. I feel like a fool.”

June puts her hand on my arm. “You feel like a fool?”

“Yes … June. God. I came all the way here…”

June is shaking her head. “Shit, Helena … shit.”

“What?”

She puts her head into her hands and sits on the edge of the bed.

“You slept for so long. The wedding was … should have been yesterday. He called it off. They never got married. He called it off because of you.”

I rip the needles from my hand and swing my legs over the side of the bed. This is when the nurse chooses to walk in. I don’t even make it a foot before she’s
Eh, eh, eh-ing,
and pushing me back onto the bed. What type of from-hell timing is this?

“I needed you ten minutes ago, you know?” I say to her. “Find him, June. Please!”

June looks like a deer caught in the headlights. She is nodding, even as she backs out of the room.

“What do I say?” she asks me.

I flinch as the needle pierces my skin.

“Remind him about the dream. Tell him our daughter's name was Brandi. Tell him I'm so sorry and that I love him.”

This is something I’ve learned. You can’t run away to find yourself. Yourself is there no matter where you go. The difference is, if you’re running, you’ll be too busy to pick up the sword and face your enemies. Sometimes your enemy will be you; sometimes it will be those with the power to hurt you. Take off your shoes and stop running. Live barefoot and fucking fight. I ran from my feelings—the ones I felt for Kit, the guilt of feeling them. I thought that if I put enough distance between us, my feelings would go away. I should have faced myself back then.

June doesn’t find Kit. No one can. He’s turned off his phone and vanished. Della calls me in hysterics as I’m leaving the hospital a day later, demanding to know what I did to him.
To him.
Like he couldn’t possibly have chosen me of his own accord. I had to use magic or something.

“I didn’t do anything, Della. I’m not even as pretty as you.” And then I hang up.

“I think it’s time to get over that,” June tells me. “He obviously made a clear choice between the two of you.”

“Shit,” I say. “Should I call back and apologize?”

“Absolutely not,” she says. “She should suffer a little bit.” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “She said it again. When he called off the wedding.”

“Of course she did.”

“You know,” June says, “she’s so insecure, it almost makes her ugly. Like, she’s so unsure of herself, you become unsure of her too.”

I make a face. It doesn’t matter. All I care about right now is Kit, not Della’s perfect cheekbones. I don’t know where he is. It’s killing me that he doesn’t know how sorry I am. He can’t hide for long. He won’t stay away from Annie.

“He’s cooling off,” I tell June. “He disappears when he writes, and when he thinks.”

“So how are you going to lure him out?”

“I have to go home,” I say. “I think he’s there.”

When I land in Seattle, I rent a car from the first place I see. All they have is a white Ford Focus with Oregon plates and a fist-sized dent in the bumper. No Range Rover this time. I crawl into the driver’s seat, exhausted, and take a selfie. I call it, Gut Feeling. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, I read Kit’s manuscript. When I was finished I ordered a vodka straight up. He was speaking to me. And I didn’t have the guts to read it. When I drive onto the ferry I stay in the car, tapping my finger impatiently on my knee. The ferry has always felt like freedom, but right now I couldn’t feel more trapped. I need to find him. That’s all I know. There is nothing to even confirm that he’s in PT. When I called Greer, she hadn’t heard anything. I’m going on a gut feeling. How long has he been in PT ahead of me? Two days? Three?

I have just driven off the ferry into Kingston when my phone rings. It’s Greer.

“You have to turn back,” she says. She sounds out of breath, like she’s been running. “He’s getting on the ferry you just got off.”

“What?” I slam on my brakes, and someone honks at me. “How do you know?”

“His mom. She just got back from the almost-wedding. He spent two days in his condo, now he’s going back to talk to Della and see Annie.”

I swing a U-turn, hopping a curb and almost hit a pedestrian.

“I’m going,” I say. I hang up the phone and lean forward, almost hugging the wheel. Please, God, please let me make it. I’ll never catch him if I miss the ferry.

“You’ll have to wait for the next one,” the lady in the ticket booth tells me. “This one’s full.”

“What about if I walk on?” I ask. She nods. I buy my ticket and park. The last of the cars are being loaded, which means that I will have to run to make it up the ramp before they block it off. I leave everything in my car, clutching my purse to my chest, and run.

The porter is closing the gate just as I reach the top. “Wait, wait, wait!” I yell. He holds it open for me as I dash past.

“I love you forever,” I say.

I’m on. I’m on. I’m not sure where to go. Would he stay in his car? Wander around the decks? I have twenty minutes to figure this out and I don’t work well under pressure.

I quickly walk past the café where most of the passengers are congregated and onto the main deck. There are a few stragglers outside, holding paper cups of coffee as they blink against the chilly wind. I wind around the left side, pulling my thin sweater closer to my body. The loop around the deck takes four minutes, and, by the time I reach my starting point, my nose is running. This isn’t going to work; I don’t have enough time. He could be anywhere.

I go back inside and take a photo of the Coke machine. I don’t know if he’s turned on his phone, but I hit
send
, and hope for the best. Kingston is disappearing behind us. I walk out the doors and stand watching the water. I feel defeated, I do. And hopeless. And stupid. And my purse is heavy because I’ve been carrying Kit’s manuscript around for the past few months. I take out the envelope and hold it in my hands for a moment before sliding out the thick stack of papers. I had to let this go, right? Just like the wine cork. If he was on his way back to Florida it was probably to make things right with Della. I hold his book above the water, my knuckles so white they blend with the paper. Then I fling them into the air. For a second it looks as if a cloud of white birds has exploded around the ferry, their thin wings vibrating on the wind. My bottom lip quivers and I grab it between my pointer-finger and thumb holding it still. My body betrays me for Kit Isley, it’s not the first time. I walk back inside, my purse lighter, and my heart heavier, and I sit in a chair facing the Coke machine. I cry.

“Have something to drink. You’ll feel better.” I look up, and an older lady with silver hair is standing over me. Her hair reminds me of Greer. She shushes me and presses six quarters into my palm, then nods toward the vending machine. “The sugar. It will help.”

I don’t want to offend her, so I scoop up my tears and stand. “Thank you,” I say. “That’s really nice.” She watches until I’m at the machine pretending to consider my options. I smile gaily and wave.

When she’s gone I press my forehead against the glass and close my eyes. I’m not even allowed to cry in peace. Blindly, I drop the quarters into the slot, one by one.
Dink, dink, dink.

And then two hands appear on either side of my head. My eyes shoot open as a body pins me to the glass. I get chills. I know his smell.

Kit runs his nose along the back of my ear as his arm wraps around my waist. My mouth is open, and my eyes are closed as he circles my wrist with his free hand. It’s all warmth and the smell of woods and pine. He kisses the back of my neck and I drop the rest of the quarters. I hear them hit the floor before he flips me around to face him.

He’s right there. In my face. Forehead to forehead without warning. I’m out of breath as he runs his hands up my arms and cups my face, then pulls me tighter to him. Our lips are touching, but neither of us is moving to a kiss. It feels a little shocking to be pressed right there, against the person you’ve been wanting for so long.

“Don’t ever forget,” he says. “That it was my book, and Coke that brought us back together.”

“Your book?” I ask. He lifts his hand to reveal one crumpled page of his manuscript. “Page forty- nine.” He says. “It floated down from the Heavens and I was lucky enough to catch it before it sank into the Sound.”

“Imagine that,” I say.

“I thought I was hallucinating until I turned on my phone and saw your text.”

“Did you run up here?” I ask.

“Fast as I could.”

Our lips are touching a little as we speak.

“Why aren’t you out of breath?”

He grins. “It’s called working out, Helena.”

I touch his scruffy face, and run my hand along the back of his neck. He kisses me with soft lips and hard passion. And it’s definitely the best kiss of my life.
Of my life
.

Don’t be upset that you can’t attain constant happiness. It’s the quickest way to feel like a failure in life. If each of our lives represented a page in a book, happiness would be the punctuation. It breaks up the parts that are too long. It closes off some things, divides others. But it’s brief—showing up when it’s needed and filling tired paragraphs with breaks. Being content is a more attainable constant state. To love your fate without being drunk on euphoria. Brave, determined acceptance removed of bitterness. Be gentle with yourself. Embrace the lows so that you can more effectively enjoy the highs. Love the fight. Love it so much, and let it save you when your emotional muscles have become soft. Kit and I have that. Sometimes, so much joy our hearts ache from it. Sometimes, we have sadness when we’re away from Annie or Port Townsend. We feel torn between all the things we love. We fight; we make love. I don’t see Muslim again. And after one phone call, I never speak to him again. I hear plenty about him, and I remember our time. And I wonder if you have space in your heart for more than one person. I think you do.