The Wright Brother (32 page)

With an inarticulate cry she picked up her phone and called her mother. It would be very late there, but she hoped her mother was still awake.

She picked up on the second ring. “Elisa, honey?” She sounded anxious.

“Mum.” The moment she said it the floodgates poured open and the tears began to fall. “Mum, he’s gone.”

Elisa smashed the pillow to her chest, rocking back and forth on her bottom.

“Baby girl, what’s the matter? Who’s gone?”

The tears were choking her voice, making her words come out garbled and stuttered.

“Honey, honey, slow down,” her mother crooned. “Baby, what in the world is the matter?”

Wiping her face on the pillow, she shook her head, feeling the loss of Julian in a way she’d not felt it before. “His scent,” she finally managed to say. “It’s gone, Mom. I went to smell it today like I always do and I can’t anymore. He’s just not here.”

“Oh.” Her voice drifted off knowingly. “Oh, baby. Did you guys break up?”

“I don’t think so. But…” She sniffed and scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her wrist. “We don’t talk anymore like we used to. Sometimes it’s barely ten minutes a night. He’s so busy and so am I. Our lives are just moving on, but I think we’re both terrified to be the one to say it’s actually over.”

Cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder, Elisa stared at her tattoo.

Destiny...

She rubbed it slowly. It’d felt so true the day she’d gotten it on her. Inevitable even, in her mind it’d been impossible to even think an ocean could break them apart.

“I met a guy down here,” she whispered slowly, admitting out loud what she’d tried so hard to deny to the rest of the world.

“Have you guys—” she began hesitantly.

“No.” Elisa shook her head hard. “In fact, up until last night I haven’t been encouraging him. But I feel electric when I’m around him. Alive, even. He kissed my cheek,” she said, smiling sadly, “and it was like the first time with Julian.”

“Hm.”

That was all she said, no more, no less.

“What, hm? What does that mean?” Elisa asked, desperate for some pearls of wisdom to be thrown her way. She was so confused. Everything was just wrong and upside down. “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

A long sigh sounded and then her mother said, “Elisa, do you love him?”

That was an odd question to ask. She barely knew Callum; true, they’d been working together for two years now and she liked him a great deal, he was sexy, and brilliant, and his accent was to die for, but…

“I don’t know, I feel crazy, passionate things when I’m around him. I feel like I can hardly breathe when he smiles at me, and like his mind, he was a Calvin Klein model and—”

“But that’s not what I asked you. I asked you do you love him?”

She sighed. “Of course not.” Pinching her nose, she said, “So I assume you’re getting at the fact that if I don’t love him, I must love Julian, and you know that’s true. But sometimes I’m scared that the passion is gone.”

Elisa could almost hear her mother shaking her head. “I’m going to share a secret with you, honey. One that most romantics will never own up to. Love is not an emotion, it’s a choice.”

Elizabeth laughed and Elisa frowned.

“Do you honestly think that after twenty years of marriage I wake up next to your father and still get the sensation of fireworks?”

“To be honest, I’d rather not think about you and Dad having sensations at all.” She chuckled, sticking out her tongue.

Elizabeth ignored her teasing. “What you’re describing, that’s what we call the puppy dog stage. We call it that, Elisa, because it’s short-lived and intense, but it’s not made to last. No matter how many men you date, or how long you keep searching, or how many times you think you’ve finally found ‘the one’ it will always,
always
go away.”

“Well, I know that.”

“No, dear, I don’t think you do. Because if you question whether what you and Julian have is still relevant than you’re failing to see my point at all. True love is so much more than sexual chemistry or attraction. True love is finding a mate who is as devoted to you as you are to them. Who will hold your hand through the good and the bad. Who will love you even though you’ve begun to age, started to wrinkle, when your looks are no longer what they once were. Does this man in Ireland know you at all?”

The more her mother spoke, the harder Elisa dug her fingers into Julian’s pillowcase.

“Not really,” she squeaked out.

Callum knew her fondness for apples, and her love of blues music. He knew she was a featherweight when it came to her alcohol, and that she loved to swim. But all of that was just superficial.

Surface-level stuff anyone who knew her even a little would know. He didn’t know her well enough to have told her which major to pursue. If he decided tomorrow that he was over her, it would sting, but would she be devastated?

A year from now, would she care?

“Let me ask you this, consider your life ten years down the road. Who can you live without? If you can answer that honestly, you can make your choice.”

With her mother still on the line, Elisa searched her heart.

When she’d dated Thomas, she’d tried to turn him into a replacement for Julian. She didn’t want to do that with Callum. He was Julian’s opposite in almost every way. A nerdy Irishman who loved a good beer, making people laugh, and being the center of attention.

She liked his style, liked his manners, she liked everything about him really. Then she thought of Julian. His quiet contemplation of the world around them, the intensity with which he lived life, the way he loved her…

Her heart raced.

How he’d held her when she’d cried devastated tears at knowing her one chance at the Olympics had slipped her by. How he’d brought her that apple back in high school and set it on her tray. How he’d listened to her. Really listen. Julian knew her soul inside and out, and the fact of it was she knew his too.

Callum liked British rock. He had a fetish for all things cardigan sweaters, an obsession with American movies, and a love for medieval literature.

But if she were asked to name ten things he loved, she’d be lucky to get to five. With Julian her list was endless.

Julian was a fighter, always had been. He moved and lived in a world that did not cater to his particular needs and he thrived. Julian might not be able to see color, but when she saw him it was like her world exploded with an intense miasma of it. Maybe the fireworks were gone, but what remained went far deeper than superficial lust.

“Oh my God, Mom,” her voice cracked, “what if it’s too late? What if I messed up? I don’t think he’s planning to come back here again. Last time he came, it was hard. He said I’d moved on and I got so angry at him, I denied it all.” She clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palm. “But he was right. What if he’s already moved on?”

Just the thought of it made her want to vomit, to imagine another Mandy in his life, loving him and touching him and seeing the gift of Julian for what he really was.

She covered her mouth with shaking fingers and shook her head.

“No, baby girl. Julian would never do that. When he moves on he’ll tell you.”

“But I feel it already, a separation between us. He barely calls me now.”

“Elisa Jane, how often do you call him first?”

She blinked, blinded by her hot tears, feeling the impact of those words to her very soul.

“That boy has chased you for years, but he’s a man, and we all have our limits. He still had college, you had to get a job, I think he understood that, but there is nothing standing in either one of your way now except for you guys. I told you in the beginning that long-distance relationships can kill even the strongest of love, and it’s true. Neither one of you would be to blame for it, but it will happen. Humans are creatures in need of affirmation and love. And if he’s not around to give it to you, your heart will look for it elsewhere.”

Crying ugly tears now, all she could do was shake her head. Elisa didn’t know if it was an agreement or not, but everything her mother said now struck a crippling chord.

“I love him so much, but he’s not here, and I’ve been faithful to him, but I’m so lonely.”

“As I’m sure he is too. Fact is, Elisa, there’s a choice to be made. Your job and your life in Ireland, or a new life with him. You don’t have to decide today, but you do have to decide, and once you do you need to let him know. It’s the only fair thing to do.”

“But what will I do? I can’t just quit? I don’t have a job lined up, I wouldn’t know what to do.” She punched her mattress in frustration.

Giving a sad little chuckle, Elizabeth said, “Honey, believe me when I say these things work themselves out the way they should. Don’t panic about what tomorrow might bring, you can’t walk a thousand miles in a day, the only thing you can do is decide to take that first step.”

They hung up a short time later, but for Elisa her whole world changed. Picking up the phone she made one final phone call.

“Lisa?” Chastity asked a minute later, her voice sounding sleepy, and Elisa knew she’d woken her up. “Hey, girl, you okay?”

“I’m sorry, Chas, I know it’s late there, I just…” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I just have a quick question and I need you to be totally honest with me.”

“Of course I will,” she said then smothered a yawn, making Elisa cringe. She felt bad, Chas probably wasn’t getting much sleep thanks to being a new mom now, but Elisa couldn’t go the rest of her day without knowing.

“I know you guys still hang out with Jules sometimes. Be honest, has he moved on?”

She could have heard a pin drop, her apartment suddenly seemed so silent. For a moment she thought she might throw up as Chastity’s silence seemed to take hours rather than just a few seconds before she finally said, “You haven’t been around for a while. He’s been quiet, like always, but…”

“But…but what?” She gripped the phone until her knuckles turned what. “Has he met someone else?”

“No, no,” she was quick to assure, “at least I don’t think so. I mean, you know if he wanted to he wouldn’t have a problem, he’s incredibly talented and good looking, but he’s grown distant with us, Lisa, like he’s withdrawing little by little. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but since you asked, Luke and I were actually talking about it last week, in fact, and he said it’s what guys do when they’re ready to let things go. They start to cut out the things that remind them of you.”

It was like being cut open and someone yanking her heart from out of her chest, and stomping it to the ground. Grabbing her throat, she couldn’t make a sound.

“Oh, shoot, Lisa, I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that, I mean, I don’t know for sure, we were just talking and—”

“No,” she croaked, cleared her throat, and then tried again. “It makes sense. He told me the last time he came that he felt like we were so different now. But I didn’t see it.” Squeezing her eyes shut, Elisa had the sick feeling that even if she flew back now it was way too late. “And now I do, and it might be too late.”

“Call him.”

“I can’t.” Her laughter was full of bitterness. “What would I tell him? I’m still stuck here, but I love you, don’t move on with your life, and by the way there was a guy here who for just a second made me second-guess all the years we had together? What the hell would he think of me then?”

Feeling more miserable than she’d ever felt in her life, Elisa hugged his pillow to her chest.

“I love him so much, Chas, and I let everything else get in the way of that. I want to go home.”

Chastity sighed. “I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a second, but…do you really want to come home? Or are you having a hard time letting it go? Maybe…maybe, Elisa, maybe it wasn’t meant to—”

“Stop it.” She shook her head vehemently. “It might not be meant to be, and that’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, if he tells me we’re over I think I might actually want to die.”

A memory of what had happened after Julian had bailed on her after the night of his eighteenth birthday burned its way into her memory banks. The tears, the utter despondency she’d felt when she’d thought they were over forever, that would be nothing to the desolation she’d feel now.

Because this time she knew what her life could be like with Julian. It wouldn’t be perfect, but when she imagined her kids, when she imagined whom she should be with ten years down the road, there was only one face she saw.

The image of her future children, they didn’t have brown hair with gentle brown eyes, but black hair with eyes the color of a tropical ocean.

When she imagined hands trailing down her body, they weren’t soft from years of studying books, but callused and muscled. And when her mate said he loved her, she didn’t hear it; she felt the words dance upon her skin.

“He’s got a show in two weeks. Won’t show Luke and me the paintings, but they must be damned good for him to be included as part of the Museo’s Artists in the City exhibit.”

Elisa exhaled a long breath. He hadn’t told her about that. Museo was one of the hippest and trendiest art galleries in all of the meatpacking district. For him to have gotten in there was a huge, huge deal.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I saw the invitation for you on his desk.”

She clutched her heart. “I’ll see you guys in two weeks. But Chas?”

“Yeah?”

Elisa stared at her room that had one time begun to feel so comfortable and warm and now only saw it for what it was. A mirage, a reflection of a life she no longer wanted.

“Don’t tell him, okay? I know a lot can happen in two weeks”—she thinned her lips as her heart trembled—“but I want to know that no matter the outcome, it’s supposed to happen as it should.”

She sighed. “Are you going to call him?”

Julian hadn’t called in over a week. Elisa wasn’t stupid. He was evaluating their relationship too, and he deserved to have that time to do it. Julian had always been patient with her; the least she could do was give him the same courtesy.

“No, not if he doesn’t call me first.”

“Elisa, I wouldn’t recommend that.”