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“Why didn’t you tell me you might be gone tomorrow when we walked the first time?”
I leaned forward, twisting my knuckles as my hands lay limply between my knees, dangling above my feet. I bit my lips as they rolled inward, my anxious way to buy time. “I didn’t know how far you’d take me,” I whispered, “and here we are…”
“I would’ve proposed a lot sooner if I’d known.” She chuckled, and I looked up, watching her wipe a small tear from her right eye. “Where have you gone?”
I dropped my head, looking at my feet, knotting my fingers once more. “Alaska. Germany. Japan.”
“What do you do there?” I heard her swallow, regretting this conversation drove us to the wine so quickly. “You don’t fight, do you? You’re not going to be hurt…ever…right?”
I limply fell back in the couch, turning my body to face Lizzie with my left arm extended toward her along the back of the cushions. Muffin snored softly, and Lizzie stared at me expectantly, her eyes brimming with hope, her fingers tightening around the wine bottle in her lap. I consumed her expression, devouring each freckle across her cheeks, each line of blue in her gaze, every soft wrinkle that painted her tightened eyes. I lifted my right hand to her face, gently tucking her blonde curls behind her ear, allowing my knuckles to graze her cheek and pause, absorbing her delicate skin.
“No, Lizzie,” I lied, smiling to ease her angst. “I just don’t know when they’ll call me back. I’m not a soldier, but I’m trained. I’m a medic.”
“That’s why you’re a paramedic here then,” she assumed, “because it’s what you do in the army?”
“Sort of.” I dropped my hand, inhaling a shaky breath. I reached for the wine bottle. “May I?”
The room flashed three consecutive times, a glow of white framing Lizzie and that moment in a halo. My life was private; every piece of it, every love I thought I’d found, every wound I’d felt, it was knotted inside for only me to know, but Lizzie’s breathing, her presence, her encouraging gaze, it was all so…cathartic. I swallowed from the bottle, letting the burn of wine trickle into my stomach. It warmed me, kicking me out of the darkness and into divulgence.
“After Alaska, well, during Alaska…I had a friend from high school…she was my best friend, actually, and…we were young and stupid, but…in…” I bit my lip. There wasn’t an easy way to talk about Jade, especially not with Lizzie on my couch, tugging on my cuff. I swear she inched even closer to me. She did.
Her fingertips slowly grazed my jaw, sending their wave of euphoria across my skin. “In love? That’s not stupid. Tell me about her.” She smiled at me, this woman who was quickly becoming more than a friend, more than the stranger who proposed to me because she liked my ink, more than the girl whose friend I helped save. She was becoming my friend, and that was the beginning of a chance at more I wanted to risk.
I stood from the couch, placing the almost emptied wine bottle next to Muffin, who slept silently in the storm. I couldn’t believe it, considering he escaped and fled like a banshee, but maybe he’d worn himself out and was now in a coma. Crossing the room to my bookshelf, I scrolled through the spines in search of the Jane Austen novel with tattered pages and cracked binding. It was Jade’s and all I had left. I pulled it out, flipping through until my fingers stopped on the photograph I wanted to show Lizzie.
“Just so you know,” I mumbled, steadying myself, “she’s in the past. It’s all in the past. I mean…she’s with me daily, but I’m not…”
“Stop,” Lizzie whispered, her brows furrowed. “Let me see.”
I handed Lizzie the picture, feeling incredibly vulnerable and not understanding why it felt so natural to expose this part of me to her, to someone new. Maybe it was because we shared trauma, her trauma, and that made it seem like a history had always been there.
“Jade, me, Silas, and Joey.” I swallowed, their names still tough to say after all this time. “Silas and I are the only two…left. I couldn’t save Jade, and that’s why I needed to be someone who saves people.”
“Was she abroad with you? When…”
“No.”
“Was she here? Like, a civilian? Like me?”
My stare darted to Lizzie. “You’re not like her. You’re you.”
I watched as Lizzie studied the photograph, her fingertips balancing the paper in her hand. It was a small, respectful gesture, but its weight slumped in my chest. I folded my legs on the floor and leaned against the couch next to Lizzie, balancing my left arm on the seat, continuing to look at the woman examining my past.
“You know,” her voice cracked, and my eyes were on hers, “she’s beautiful. This is a really nice picture of you all. It makes me think…it reminds me of my friends.”
Lizzie tightened her arms around her body, appearing so small within my sweatshirt. “You don’t ever need to tell me. I don’t need to know. I want to, if you want me to, but it’s your story.”
I took the picture from Lizzie and placed it back in Jade’s book, letting the paperback rest on the couch, and returned to the present. I squinted to see through the curtains behind Lizzie, watching the blossoms wiggle in the calming wind. “I think the rain stopped. Do you want to go for a walk?”
***
I held the cup of coffee under my nose, hoping the caffeinated steam would perk me up before I burned my throat. I padded quietly around the kitchen, vision limited behind the haze of a sleepless night. A sharp pain seared my shoulders and my left ankle felt sore, but sleeping in a heap on the floor while Lizzie snored on my couch was worth it. I heard the tags on Muffin’s collar clink as a warning before his claws scratched across the living room and into the hallway where I now stood, staring out the front door to check damage from the storm. I didn’t look down at him when I opened the panel for his escape, but I followed him out and sipped the scalding coffee while he did his business and I tried to wake.
I think we got maybe three hours of sleep, if that. The day was threatening to be damp; I could tell by the wall of humidity. I couldn’t enjoy my coffee as it refused to cool in the heat. Muffin was in no rush to get back inside, taking his sweet time sniffing everywhere instead of acting. I turned to peek through the window, catching a glimpse of the small lump of Lizzie’s feet on the couch, confirming she was still asleep.
My sore ankle cracked when I walked to the steps, sitting on the top while Muffin growled at a woman jogging on the sidewalk. It was too hot for that, and I wanted to warn her about heat stroke, but I sipped my coffee instead. Heat tightened around my throat, warring with the small beads of sweat now trickling down my back. I set my coffee next to me and pulled off my short-sleeved shirt, using the fabric to wipe my stomach and face before hanging it around the back of my neck. With my forearms balancing on my knees, I whistled twice for Muffin.
“He slept with me all night. I think he likes me.” I heard Lizzie as the door opened behind me. I was grinning too damn wide to turn around. She did things to me, and I wasn’t sure how to control it. Try breathing.Nope. Still feeling damn butterfly wings.
