AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My agent meets me at the gate, and then we’re off for a whirlwind few days of work. The location is gorgeous, the air soft and the sun always shining. The food is delicious and fresh, and the people I’m working with are friendly and interesting.
But my mind is never one hundred percent on my work, even though I’m still professional. There’s a part of me that’s back in Green Haven with Ragnar. I find myself calculating the time difference and wondering what he’s doing just then. Is he eating breakfast? Helping Amelia with her homework? Getting ready for bed?
Is he thinking about me?
There are so many times that I pick up my phone to call or text. But the service is spotty and the time difference is even more extreme than on my last trip, so I never do. Instead, I go for long walks by myself whenever I have downtime. It’s easier to be alone to think about Ragnar, than to have to keep up a cool façade around the client and my agent.
One of my strolls takes me through an enormous outdoor fish market. I wander around, occasionally snapping pictures when something interesting catches my eye. The area is crowded and filled with conversation and music. This is the most relaxed I’ve been on the entire trip.
Then I happen to look at one stall, which features a huge tank full of electric eels. And I remember Ragnar’s story, in boarding school, about his favorite pet eel. How he’d named it Shock and had trained it to do backflips.
At the time, the idea of having an electric eel as a cherished pet struck me as incredibly bizarre. I’d known before going to boarding school that monsters were different from humans, of course; I’d been around them before.
Yet for some reason, it wasn’t how tall the orcs in my class were, or their green skin, that really made them seem that different from me and the rest of the humans at school. And it wasn’t anything about the outward appearance of the other monsters in the school that made them seem that different.
No, it was Ragnar’s stories about Shock, his uncharacteristic fondness for this eel, that really drove home the reality that monsters were different from humans. But that was also part of what made me fall in love with Ragnar back then: that he could care so much about something. Shock made Ragnar seem less intimidating and more like a regular teenager, like me.
I watch the eels swimming around in their tank now. I want to buy one and give it to Ragnar, but I know that it would never survive the long flight back. Not to mention that I actually think electric eels are kind of gross. They remind me too much of snakes, which are my least favorite animal. The lack of legs really freaks me out.
I also know that it’s ridiculous that the sight of this tank full of eels should cause tears to press against my eyes, should make me miss Ragnar so much that, for a brief second, I think about leaving this gig early and flying home tonight.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself, turning away from the tank and wiping my eyes with my sleeve. “Get it together!”
I push deeper into the market, looking for anything to distract myself. But the earlier peace that I felt is gone, replaced with a deep longing for Ragnar. And no matter how many pictures I take or miles I walk, I can’t get away from that.
The next few days are the longest of my life. Fortunately, they’re also the busiest of the entire gig. We’re working from sunup to sundown. And after work is done, there are dinners with the client every night. My agent’s there, too, and he makes sure that I’m always seated close to the heads of the company.
Normally I’d roll my eyes at this kind of maneuvering and schmoozing. My approach has always been to work as hard as I can, and let my work speak for itself. I’m not great at small talk and networking, and my agent knows that.
Now, though, these dinners are a welcome distraction from missing Ragnar. I throw myself into conversations, asking questions and sharing anecdotes. To my surprise, I actually enjoy it – and, an even bigger surprise, I’m also good at it.
After each dinner, my agent is full of praise for me. He thinks that this gig is going so well that I’ll be offered more work with the client. When he tells me this, I can practically see the dollar signs in his eyes.
Not that I blame him – my agent works hard on my behalf, and I appreciate it. And if earning more money makes his life easier, I can’t begrudge him that.
But I also don’t share the real reason that I’m suddenly so engaged. I’m not ashamed of my relationship with Ragnar. In fact, it’s just the opposite reason that keeps me quiet.
I’m afraid that if I start talking about Ragnar, I’ll never stop. And that then the longing I feel will be even stronger. So instead I stay quiet, accept the praise, and count down the hours until I’m on the plane again, going home to Ragnar.
22
RAGNAR
It was the right choice to tell Bradford he should go ahead and go to the show. His career matters, and while photography modeling is nice, it’s not what he’s made for. Bradford needs the limelight as much as I hate it. And while I think Bradford might be willing to sacrifice his career for me if I asked him to, I know that wouldn’t be what’s best for him.
Still, that didn’t make it easy. I kept things together while I was in front of Bradford, but the moment he was gone, I could feel all the fear and uncertainty rising in my chest. I tried getting back to work, but sometimes that only made things worse. I was coming to the end of things I could do while in Green Haven. Sooner or later, I would have to go back.
Someone bumps into me. “Pardon me,” a voice says, and someone carrying a sign squeezes in front of me.
The plane won’t get here faster because you’re closer to it, I think, but I don’t say anything. I’ve gotten better about not saying things like that while I’ve been here. Not everyone needs to know my opinion of them all the time. It doesn’t stop me from having it.
The fact that we’d have to go back soon was the hardest part about him leaving this time. Our time in Green Haven has been so magical. It was as if somehow it had been what allowed us to pick up the old strings of our relationship.
If I had seen Bradford in a grocery store back in the city, would I have asked him out on that video date? I’m not sure; certainly it would have been harder. I would have had to immediately fit him into the whole of my life, and he’d have to fit me into his.
But in Green Haven, it was easy. We were both on break, and the town and the people in it let us do whatever we wanted. We could wade into loving each other, experiment with it, no big commitments made.
But that was also the problem. Green Haven was a break. Breaks come to an end. When this one ends, what will be the next step?
