One Week in Maine (17 page)

“Of course I will.”

He kissed me, softly then paused to study me. He looked as if he was locking away every last detail of my face in his mind.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” I broke our embrace long enough to pull out my cell phone. “I’d like at least a picture or two of us, if you don’t mind.”

“Absolutely. Well, as long as you send them to me so I have copies.”

We posed together as I straightened out my arm to snap the picture. I glanced at it quickly to co
nfirm that it was a decent shot and stepped away from him.

“Now a few of just you,” I suggested before snapping off a few more in rapid succession. A quick scan before I put my cell phone away showed that I had at least a few decent ones
of him in there. But they were 2D pictures, and didn’t come close to the real, in-the-flesh Will. But they would have to do.

“So, this is it.” The moment we had both been dreading had finally arrived.

“So.” He opened his arms for me and I pressed my face against his chest, inhaling his masculine scent one last time while I wrapped my arms around him.

“I’ll miss you more than you could ever know,” he whispered into my hair.

“I will know,” I joked as the tears came, “because I’ll be missing you just as much. You sure you don’t want to be a city boy?” I joked to try to ease the tension of the moment.

“I’m sure. You sure you don’t want to be a country girl?”

“I’m sure.”

He kissed me then, sweetly and softly. It was over far too soon.

“I love you. Never forget that, because it will never change. There’s always a place for you here with me, Calista.”

“I love you too.” I gave him one last quick squeeze and then stepped back to admire him for the last time. “I have to get going now.”

“Drive safely, okay?” He could barely get the words out, and I saw tears glittering in his eyes, too.

There was no use in prolonging it any further. We were both in agony over my departure, and
it was senseless to torture ourselves with a drawn out goodbye. I climbed into my car and blew him a kiss as he waved to me from the edge of the grass.

A choking sob escaped me as I drove down the driveway, but I didn’t look back. I couldn’t stand to watch the man I loved getting smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

-19-

I
managed to keep it together for hours, until I crossed the big green bridge leading into New Hampshire, and then I fell apart completely. It was so bad that I had to stop at the next rest station to pull myself together again. By leaving the state of Maine it became all too real for me. Will was gone now, just a memory in my heart and in my head.

My heart hurt, and I
was expecting as much, but what I wasn’t expecting was how physically ill I felt. My stomach rolled, my head pounded and my chest tightened as I broke out in a cold sweat. I’d never had one, but I imagined that anxiety attacks must feel like this. Was I actually having an anxiety attack? I had no idea, but I had to do something. To help alleviate my misery, I threw open my car door and desperately sucked in lungfuls of crisp autumn air. I concentrated on slowing my breathing and calming down, and it worked, eventually. By the time I felt well enough to drive again, the tears that had streaked my cheeks had long dried.

On the rest of the ride
to Hartford, I did my best to look forward, not backward. There were all kinds of ideas bouncing around in the back of my brain about my possible upcoming company, and I did my best to push those thoughts to the forefront and thoughts of Will to the background. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. When thinking about work and finding a job didn’t cut it anymore, I tried to concentrate on thinking about all my friends that I hadn’t talked to in the past week. It would be good to catch up with them again. When that failed and thoughts of Will kept creeping up again, I turned the radio up and sang along loudly with every song that I recognized.

It only made it worse. Top 4
0 hits were all about love, sex, and relationships and I found something I could relate to Will all too easily in every single song. The tears came again, but this time I remained in control as they slid down my cheeks and wet the collar of my shirt. For one split second I wished that I had never hit that deer and ended up at The Brixby Inn, because then Will and I would have never met, and I wouldn’t be in all this pain right now. I quickly dismissed that thought, because as miserable as I was, it was worth it. Our brief time together was worth every tear that now fell.

Just as promised, I sent Will a quick text to let him know that I had made it home in one piece, but he didn’t reply. With a sigh, I looked around my apartment.
I usually enjoyed coming home after a weekend away, but instead of feeling familiar and comfortable, it now felt cold and empty. I had poured my heart and soul into decorating the place and making truly something of my own, but now the warm beige walls and expensive dark leather Pottery Barn sectional just mocked me. I suddenly hated the boldly colored area rug, even though I had spent months looking for just the right one. Yes, this place was mine, all mine, but I longed for my shabby but cozy room back at the Inn.

It would get better; it just had to. All I nee
ded was some time away from him, and day by day these feelings of emptiness would fade. At least I hoped they would.

Even though some of my friends called that weekend to invite me to
go out, or to join them for brunch, I ignored them and wouldn’t pick up my phone. I would have been terrible company. On top of missing Will, I was preoccupied with the idea that I might be pregnant.

One time.
Just one time without a condom, and my whole life might be changed forever. It was too early to tell yet, but that didn’t stop me from picking apart every single scenario of how this could go.

I might not be pregnant, as I
thought
I shouldn’t be. But thinking so didn’t make it so, and until my period showed up, I couldn’t count on it.

I might be pregnant, in which case Will and I would have a lot of things to figure out. If I refused to move to Maine, and he refused to move to Hartford, what would that mean for our child? Never for a moment did I doubt that
Will would want to be heavily involved in our child’s life, so that would be a whole big mess to work out. I didn’t see how we could possibly share custody with us living so far apart. Even if he had visitation, that would mean a lot of travel on both of our ends. But if I was pregnant, would I even tell him, or would I terminate the pregnancy without consulting him?

That seemed like the easiest solution, but I could never do that.
Even if I decided that I wanted to end my pregnancy, I couldn’t do it without talking to Will. Not that I could probably do it at all. He deserved to know if he had created a life inside of me. It was simply the right thing to do, and I cared for him too much to deny him the respect that he deserved.

When I woke up Monday morning, I rushed to the bathroom to check if my period had come yet.
Nope, nothing. Not that it was unusual for it to start later in the day, or even overnight, but I was kind of hoping for a clear sign here. Nothing to do but wait some more. I debated running to the drugstore to pick up a pregnancy test, but then decided against it. If I just waited, then I didn’t have to face being pregnant quite yet, because my period could still show up. But if I took a pregnancy test an hour from now and it turned out to be positive, well, then all hopes of this turning out okay would be dashed.

By 2:00 I was getting ready to pull my hair out over it, and when my cell phone signaled that I had a text, I almost didn’t read it. Luckily I did.

Any news yet?

Will. I hadn’t heard from him all weekend, and just reading those three little words from him rekindle
d my tears. The world felt like all the color had gone out of it without him by my side.

No, I’ll let you know when I
know.

No reply came,
and my sorrow quickly turned to pouting. I know we agreed that we would touch base from time to time, but I was disappointed that we had been reduced to only short texts so soon.

Apparently I felt a little rebellious about my possible impending motherhood, because I was sorely tempted to have a glass of wine, even though it was only mid-afternoon. In the end I decided to skip it. Just in case.

Unable to stand it any longer, I decided to go for a walk. After all, just sitting around my apartment wasn’t going to make my period come any faster.

As I walked down Hartford’s familiar st
reets, I looked at the city through fresh eyes. I loved it, there was no doubt about that, but suddenly everything was noisier and grimier than I remembered. I longed to see the tops of the trees in the afternoon sky and feel a fresh breeze brush over me, but all I got was building after building and the exhaust from the city’s vehicles on the wind.

I popped into my favorite little coffee
shop to grab one of my beloved lattes to enjoy while I walked. The place was modern and trendy, and a far cry from Ginger’s café. Even though I routinely stopped there four or five days a week, none of the staff even greeted me outside of a little nod, and none of the patrons were familiar to me. We were all just strangers existing in the same space, and I longed for the familiarity of that little café in Maine where everyone knew each other. Even though the only ones who were friendly to me were Ginger and Blue that was still more than I had here.

On my way home
I came to a decision. If I was pregnant after all, I would give serious consideration to moving in with Will, assuming he wanted the baby in his life. And me. I had no idea what I’d do for work or how we would pull it all together, but perhaps we could become a family after all. I owed it to our child to give him or her a complete family, not just two single parents living in different states. But try as I might to commit to idea of moving to Maine if I was pregnant, I couldn’t quite convince myself to do it. Something was still holding me back. I wasn’t ready to trade my life in the city for life in rural Maine. Hartford was all I’d ever known.

Monday continued to be the longest day of my life, or so it seemed. When my period finally arrived around 7:00 that evening, I let out a triumphant whoop of glee. We were in the clear–no baby.
Relief washed over me as I dialed Will’s number. This news was too fantastic to share by text.

“Hey.” He picked up on the first ring, like he had been waiting for my call.

“Hi.” Just hearing his voice rekindled my pain over losing him, but I had no time to dwell on it since I couldn’t wait to share how we had both just dodged a bullet.

“So…how are you?
Any news?” He sounded nervous and tense, and I couldn’t blame him.

“I’m okay, and I’m not pregnant!” I couldn’t keep the glee out of my voice.

“Not pregnant?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” His voice was heavy with sorrow.

“Did you
want
me to be pregnant?” I teased. “You sound really disappointed.” He wasn’t taking this news as well as I expected he would.

“Of course not!
But I was prepared to do the right thing if you were. Guess I just got a little caught up in the idea of us becoming a family.”

“But we’re not.”

He sighed. “Nope, we’re not. But I’m glad that worked out as it should, I guess. Not having a baby on the way keeps things a lot less complicated, doesn’t it now?” I caught the bitterness in his voice. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you yet. I just…I know you were only here for a week, but it’s been a big adjustment getting used to you being gone. I thought a little distance from you might help with that.”

“
Has it?”

“No. If anything, I think it’s made it worse. It’s good to hear your voice again, Calista.”

His comment made me smile. “Yours too, Will.”

When we finished talking and hung up, I sat staring into space fo
r a long time, trying to figure out how I could ever move on from Will. He was a man like no other and I cursed the Fates for delivering me the perfect man only to take him away from me again. It just felt so unfair.

I did my best to keep busy over the next few weeks, job hunting and getting back into my usual social life, but it felt like I was just going through the motions. Will called me a couple of times a week, just to say hi and fill me in on life in town, and to find out how I was doing.

I always told him I was good, or fine, but those were lies. Truth be told, I was miserable without him. Guys would ask me out here or there but I always declined. I wasn’t ready to try a new relationship yet when my heart was stuck in the past.

On really bad days, the times when it was probably the last thing I should be doing, I’d pull up
the pictures that I took right before I left the Inn. I’d lose track of time staring at those pieces of my personal history frozen in time. The one of the two of us together was my favorite because it was honest. We were both smiling at the camera, but the sorrow behind the fake grins was unmistakable. Even though we pretended to be happy for the picture’s sake, it was nothing but a lie.

My life felt like that, like I was just
going through the motions now. I did what was expected of me, what I was supposed to do as a responsible adult, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt empty and drained, like I left the ‘real’ me up in Maine on that fateful day I drove out of town.

Will and I never discussed visiting each other. I think we both understood that it would only make things worse, and we were having a hard enough time being separated as it was. Seeing each other wouldn’t help either of us move on with our lives.

Not that we were doing that anyway, but my hope was that in time, it would get better for me. I just wished it would happen faster.