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They were entering the more populated areas of Canada, and little towns dotted the road. There were also more traffic jams, some that stretched for miles, and accidents that blocked the roads, sometimes with the victims still inside. Carly knew better than to look into the interior of any car, but sometimes she caught an accidental glimpse, and she would see those bodies in her dreams.
Except for quick forays to scavenge and replace supplies, Justin kept them out of towns and cities as much as possible. They saw more people as they neared the border and though they hadn’t had another violent incident, Justin was wary. Most of the travelers wanted to trade. To trade goods, to trade news, to trade advice.
Sam took his cues from Justin and growled if anyone got too close. People were afraid of him, but Carly still saw him as a puppy. After all, Sam had just lost the last of his milk teeth. At the rate he was growing, though, he was going to be massive when he was mature. He no longer seemed to like Justin, as if he somehow knew his human was acting so strangely because of him. When Justin threw the tennis ball for him one day, Sam had gone to retrieve it and then walked around Justin to drop it in the bed of the wagon.
Carly plodded along. Her days fell into a bland sameness. She woke when he told her, ate mechanically, rode her bike in silence, stopped when he told her, went to bed when he erected the tent, and slept like the dead. She wished she could spend more time asleep, more time away from this dreary world. In her dreams sometimes, she replayed the memories of their fun times together, and she would wake with tears on her cheeks.
“I have a surprise for you,” Justin had said that afternoon.
Carly had looked up without much interest. They had stopped on the outskirts of a small town, and Justin had disappeared for an hour or so after setting up their camp. Justin returned to move around some of their supplies in the wagon to create a small space for Carly to sit, and then he took out a long black piece of cloth and tied it around her eyes. She didn’t object; she felt only a mild curiosity as to what he was doing.
Justin biked them into town, and she heard him open a door and pull the bike and wagon inside. He drew her to her feet and led her forward. Carly took a deep breath and smelled... it couldn’t be...
Carly heard Justin tell Sam to stay with the wagon. She could just imagine the look on Sam’s face. A little haughty, a little hostile. A look that said, “I’ll do it, but only because my human hasn’t kicked you out of the pack.”
Justin removed Carly’s blindfold, and she saw they were in a library. A small one, just a single floor, but there were hundreds of books around her. Carly took another deep breath of the scent of books and sighed. She’d missed this smell.
On the floor, Justin had laid out a blanket with a picnic basket. A bottle of wine and two glasses stood by it. A battery-operated CD player sat beside it, and pillows taken from the couches and chairs were scattered around it. And in the center, there was a vase with a single wildflower sticking out from the top.
Justin reached down and turned the CD player on, and Leonard Cohen began to croon. When had she mentioned how much she liked Leonard Cohen? She must have for Justin to know, but she couldn’t remember.
Carly turned to him, blinking in confusion.
“Please, sit down.” Justin gestured to the cushions and Carly plopped down on one of them and put another on her lap. Justin sat down beside her and took one of her hands into his. “I can’t stand seeing you like this, Carly. It tears at my heart. You’ve been so unhappy lately, and I know I’m the direct cause of it.”
He reached out and stroked a hand over her hair. Carly froze. She barely breathed. That simple touch meant so much, and she was afraid to do anything which might cause him to draw away.
His eyes were so warm that Carly’s heart skipped a beat. “I brought you here to try to show you how sorry I am that I hurt you. I’ll make it up to you, Carly. I swear I will. I thought distancing myself was the right thing to do—for your sake. I thought I would end up making you unhappy. But cutting myself off from you was worse. I never wanted to hurt you, honey. I hope you know that.”
Carly nodded. She’d known all along. In his mind, Justin was saving her, trying to spare her from wanting something that, in his mind, could never be.
He looked down and a hint of a flush appeared on his cheekbones. He looked a little nervous—a little uncertain—a way Carly had never seen him before. It made her ache to throw her arms around him and tell him that everything would be all right. “I care for you, Carly. Deeply. I—I like you. I’ve liked you from the moment we met. And if that’s the foundation of a good relationship, like you say, then we have a solid foundation indeed.”
“What do you want from me, Justin?” Hope was growing in her heart, like a seedling pushing from soil warmed by the spring sunshine, but she needed him to be clear with her. She didn’t think her heart could take being crushed again.
Justin’s hand fell away, and she felt cold where his hand had been. “I...I want things to go back to the way they were. I want to be your friend again. I want to laugh and sing with you, and I want to hold you when you cry.”
It was so hard to say the words. It took courage she didn’t even know she had, but she asked, “Is that all?”
“I don’t think I can stop there,” he said, and the flush that stained his cheekbones deepened, but he held her eyes steadily. She knew this had to be difficult for him, to bare the heart he had hidden so carefully behind protective walls.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she tried to push back the rising hope. “But you would, if you could.”
“I meant it when I said I’m not right for you, Carly. You should have someone your own age, someone who doesn’t have the shadows I do. Someone normal.”
“Someone ‘normal’ would probably be dead by now. You asked me once if I believed in God. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe?”
Justin hesitated. “I’m really not sure.”
“But you’ll at least admit the possibility?”
He nodded.
“What if God led you to me? What if there was a reason you were supposed to save me? What if there was a reason you came to Alaska this summer? Were you at your house in Chicago before that?” It was something she’d been mulling over. Of all of the places in the world Justin could have ended up, how had he managed to be in exactly the right place at the right time to see her scurry from her apartment to the store on one of the few instances she had ventured out? It didn’t seem possible to have happened by chance alone.
