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I want to say it back. What I feel for him is deep and unlike anything I have ever felt before. But it’s also something I can’t unsay. It’s a line once crossed I can never turn back. If you love, there are only two ways forward: love forever or loss.
I reach up and bring his mouth to mine, hoping it tells him what I still haven’t figured out.
I might not be quite there—on Santa or soulmates or the rest of it.
But I’m getting damn close.
28
We wake up early the next morning to say goodbye to Clive and Aaron, who are heading into Owen Sound for Boxing Day deals. After breakfast, it’s just Mike and Nancy who send us off with hugs and a Tupperware of turkey leftovers for our ride back to Toronto.
“You should come for Easter,” Nancy says as she hands me a thermos of coffee, which I plop into the beverage holder in the center console between our two seats. I turn around just in time to hear Mackenzie say, “Annalise will be overseas, Mom, remember?”
It hits with enough force to break the spell of the last few days.
Mackenzie doesn’t mention my leaving again the entire three-hour ride home. Or when we carry our bags back to our apartment, where our half-burned-out Christmas lights and floor filled with dead pine needles make the whole room feel neglected and underwhelming.
He doesn’t say a word until there is Thai food in our hands, and we are sitting side by side on the couch, and he is pushing his noodles around instead of eating, and it comes out as a quick and abrupt, “Can we talk?”
His eyes don’t meet mine; instead, they follow the path of his fork as he pushes it back and forth across his plate before finally giving up and setting it down on the coffee table.
“You’re leaving in a week.” He puts it so simply. “And I think we’ve both been avoiding having the conversation about what’s going to happen to us, but I don’t know that we can put it off any longer.”
All I can do is nod because my throat is dry, and my tongue feels like it is glued inside my mouth. Instead of speaking, I set my plate next to his. For a moment, I consider taking them both to the sink to buy a few more precious minutes, but then he clears his throat, and I have no choice but to accept what is inevitably about to happen.
“When I came home from the tour, I wasn’t thinking about the time we had left together. I just wanted to be with you.” He takes my hand between his. “I think, maybe in the back of my mind, I thought we’d work something out, but I realized over Christmas that’s not gonna happen, and I don’t think I can do two years apart.”
His palms have gone sweaty, or maybe mine are the problem.
“I want to be with you, Annalise,” he says. “But with the band’s schedule and the cost of flights, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get to Liverpool to visit. I know your budget is tighter than mine, and realistically, we are looking at seeing each other two, maybe three times a year, and that won’t be enough.”
His hands begin to shake, so I tug mine away and reach for my water. The liquid frees my tongue, but even then, I’m afraid to speak. I worry what will come out of my mouth is a “why?” or a “no,” or a “please.” Or maybe just a sob because I was stupid enough to think this was special enough to work. That the universe had somehow pushed us together. It’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. Actually, it’s delusional. It’s—
“I want to come with you.”
His sentence is simple, but I still don’t fully grasp it.
I have to turn his words over in my head twice, and even then, I don’t believe I’ve got it right.
“You want to come with me?”
He nods. “Yes. I mean, not next week. It will take me a little while to get the right visas, but I looked into it, and since my grandpa was born in Glasgow, I’m eligible to apply for an ancestry visa. I’ll have to find someone to sublet your place and wait until Zee finds someone to replace me in the band, but I figure I can be there in three months at most, which will give you time to settle in.”
He pauses as if he wants to see my reaction, which is to stare right back at him and question whether I am hearing him correctly. But I realize he’s serious. He’s clearly done research. This isn’t some whim he’s concocted just now over a few bites of pad Thai. He wants to move to an entirely new continent to be with me. Pack up his entire life so we can build a new one together.
“Will you find another band?” I think about Koko and her British rock star suggestion.
He shrugs. “If I can. Or I’ll bartend. Or busk. Or work at a coffee shop. I don’t really care.”
The good of the last few seconds is halted with a single thought. I’m going to Liverpool to take the next step in the career I’ve dreamed about for almost a decade, but if Mackenzie comes with me, it means he’s putting his on hold.
“But what about your music? Your writing? I can’t ask you to give that up.”
He breathes out long and hard. “But you want me to come?”
I nod. “Of course I do. But you finally have a band to play your songs. You worked so hard to get here.”
“I know.” He lets go of my hand, reaches under my knees, and scoops me into his lap. “But Zee’s not playing my stuff anymore. Ever since the tour ended, he’s been singing covers because it brings in the crowds. I’m not writing, Annalise, and even if I was, I don’t want to spend the next two years long distance. It was so hard to be apart for a month, and we weren’t even together yet. I know you don’t believe that things are meant to be, but I do—and I’m trying to find the line between not freaking you out right now and making sure that you understand that I think you and I are…inevitable.” He leans forward and brings his forehead to mine.
