A Promised Fate (8 page)

Ava wiped an errant tear from the top of her cheek
and sniffled. “Blame it on hormones then.”

“I’d say.” I pushed off the sofa.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a drink, I’m gonna grab a glass of
water.”

“Ooh, get me something – like an iced tea? Oh, and
some popcorn.”

“Popsicle!” Max hollered.

“And bring that bag of peanut butter M&Ms with
you, too.”

“Anything else?” I hid a smile.

“Do we still have those salted caramels from the
candy shop we went to in Oceanside?”

“I’ll check.”

“Thanks, if not, bring the Oreos.”

“The whole package?”

“Mmm … yeah.” Her head bobbed swiftly.

“Ok, so, one iced tea, popcorn, peanut butter
M&Ms, salted caramels and/or a package of Oreos?”

“Popsicle!”

“And a popsicle.”

“You got it. Oh, and don’t forget your water.”

“Right.” My suppressed smile slid up my face into a
full grin.

I returned a few minutes later from the kitchen
totally loaded down with snacks and drinks.

“You’re the best, Ari.” Ava scooped a handful of
buttery popcorn into her mouth with a crunch. “Your turn to pick a
movie.”

I perused the movie queue on the TV and thought I
picked something we would all enjoy. Turns out, I was wrong. Max
was bored within the first ten minutes, moved down to the floor and
dumped out a tote full of matchbox cars to play with. Ava finished
off the caramels and popcorn then eased her head onto my shoulder.
She was asleep with her head in my lap five minutes after that. She
woke ten minutes before the movie ended and popped an M&M in
her mouth.

“Is it my turn to pick yet?”

“That depends on what you want to watch.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you pick bad movies.”

“Oh, please, what
ever
– your movie is the one
that stinks. Give me the remote.”

She snatched it from my hand and turned off my movie
just as the ending was unwinding.

“You’re killing me, Ava.”

“Whatever. You know that guy with the scruffy beard
was double crossing the agent and was behind the conspiracy the
whole time.”

“I totally did not know that.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “I thought it was obvious,
sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s this movie you want to
watch?”

“
La
Métamorphose.
”

“Ehh…” I moaned. “A French thing? Really?”

“Please.”

“I thought you had already seen Le whatever.”

“It’s
La
, Ari,
La
,and I haven’t seen
it yet. I was waiting for you to watch it with me. August said it's
really, really good.”

“Yeah and Collin said it freaking sucks.”

“I want you to watch it with me. Please.” Her bottom
lip jutted out in a pout.

“You know I can’t tell you no so just put the stupid
movie on already.”

“Yay.” She pushed up on my leg and kissed my scruffy
cheek.

We watched the movie and she laughed at parts that I
didn’t know were funny, gasped when things happened that I didn’t
understand and in the end, she cried again.

“Wow. Wasn’t that just
so
good?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. French people are weird.”

“Ari!” She elbowed me energetically in the ribs.

“You aren’t French, you 're Greek -- you can’t take
offence to that comment.”

“What didn’t you like about the movie?”

“There was so much going on in the picture that I had
a difficult time reading all the subtitles. My eyes didn’t know
where to look.”

“You’ll learn.”

“I’d rather not.”

“See what happened was ...” Ava explained, with much
enthusiasm, all of the parts I had failed to understand. She is so
cute when she's passionate about something. Her hands fly around
with excitement, her eyes grow wide and her smile beams. “It was
just so sweet. You know, how the couple evolved and changed so
much. When they first met they were so young, selfish and naïve. It
was hard for them to focus on anything but themselves, but as they
matured, their personal needs became less important to them and
they focused more on their lives together. In the end, they really
lived for one another.”

“Yeah, you could almost say that they each went
through a kind of metamorphosis.”

“Exactly!” She didn’t get my joke.

The movie marathon had taken up our whole day and by
the time we emerged from the den, it was time for dinner.

“What should we cook?” I pulled open the pantry
doors.

“I dunno. I don’t really feel like eating.”

“Imagine that. Well, I do feel like eating. In fact,
I'm starving and so is Max and I think it is best that you give
that baby some kind of something healthy. You need some proper
nourishment and protein. How about meatloaf?”

“Bleh. Gag me. No.”

“Ok, what about a chef salad, then?”

“Ooh, yummy.”

“Good, can you do the lettuce and vegetables and I’ll
slice up some turkey and ham? Max can get the dressing.”

“Deal.”

And so, the three of us worked side by side in the
kitchen: Ava washed and chopped veggies, I sliced fresh deli meat
and Max ferreted items out of the fridge for us and did a great job
at finding my favorite croutons in the pantry. Any lingering
thoughts of Julia and her strange behavior evaporated as I
concentrated on my family. We ate and Ava proposed one more movie,
one that both of us actually wanted to watch. Max went down for the
night, we wrapped ourselves up in our own bed with the TV on and
the movie playing and we both were asleep before the ending
credits.

The sound came first – loud roaring powerful waves
pummeled the earth with anger, wind whistled and pierced my ears on
its journey to carve through the tall cliffs. The feeling came
second, cool sea-spray hissed and misted my face and a fear, a
gut-wrenching, deep-belly, run-for-my-life panic consumed me. Blood
pooled behind my ears and my heart hammered with each step I was
forced to take. Rocks crunched under my shoes and loose pebbles
crumbled down the narrow ledge to the rocky shoreline hundreds of
feet below. A fall from this height would kill me and if by some
chance I were to make it into the water without hitting the jagged
serrated rocks jutting out from the sea like harpoons, the rip
current would wrap around my ankles and drag me under and I would
never break through to the surface again. Looking ahead, though, I
saw images of a future I would rather die than live through, and so
I sucked in my final living breath, filled my mind with images of
her and I jumped. My fate would be the water, not the rocks.

My body jerked violently awake. I gasped and
struggled for breath. I was completely drenched in cold sweat, my
body was clenched tight and every muscle strained and pleaded for
oxygen.

“
Holy shit
. Ava … Ava!” Nothing. No sweet body
pinning me down and nestling into my chest. No half-pout and
melting eyes turned to me. Feeling around on the shapeless pile of
pillows and blankets next to me, I found nothing. She was gone.

Exhaustion blurred my eyes and my hazy, unfocused
vision took in grey muted light from the window and told me dawn
was here.

“Ava?” I called out to her, but got no response. My
fingers fumbled around searching the nightstand for my cell phone.
They hit the lamp and it tottered for moment before settling back
in place and still I came back empty handed. My mouth was dry and
my tongue felt like rough sandpaper. I moaned and rolled my face
into the pillow while my hand kept up its blind search for my
watch. Still nothing.

“Come
on,
” I groaned, complaining apparently
to no one. Finally, my fingers traced the outline of my glasses. I
stretched to grab them and then sat up. A light from the bathroom
was on and I got up and knocked on the door.

“Ava? Baby, I had a … Christ, it was a nightmare.
Anyway, it scared the shit out of me. Come back to bed. I need
you.”

Nothing.

“Ave?”

I pushed the door open to find that she wasn’t there,
sighed and began my search for her. Max was in his bed, still
asleep, the office was empty and so was the nursery room and hall
bath. The living room down below was quiet. I walked down the steps
to the kitchen – she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the laundry room
or on the sun porch or by the deck either. I found her car in the
garage. Back in the house, I rounded the kitchen again and I
focused on the countertop and on a torn piece of notebook paper
with Ava’s girly scrawl dotted across the page.

“Off for a morning run. See you soon! XO.”

“God damn it!” My molars crunched behind my ears.

Dashing back to the bedroom, I tossed open the closet
doors to find that her running shoes were gone. A quick yank to the
top drawer in her bedside table showed her ear buds were gone too
and so was her cell. She was alone on the beach and I was
blindsided by my anger with her. Memories of the week she had been
missing the summer before flooded my mind and I stormed and paced
the hall and waited for her to come home.

The door opened and then closed again.

“Hey!” Ava called out to me and walked to the sink to
chug a tall glass of water. Beads of sweat ran down her neck and
her face was nearly red from the heat. She beamed at me with a
bright, happy smile.

“Were you on the beach?” I snapped. I didn’t need an
answer. I knew she had run on the beach.

Her smile faltered a touch. “Yeah. I thought I should
get a run in after my pig-out yesterday.”

“I thought I told you not to do that anymore.”

She blinked at me.

“Running. The Beach. Alone. Damn it Ava, don’t do it
again. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“It was just a quickie – no big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal. You can't do that crap!
God, something could happen to you. I can't live through that
again. Do you have any idea the hell I went through last year? Huh?
Do you?!”

“Yes. I'm sure it was torture for you.”

Her words hit me hard. Of course I had been beside
myself with worry about her when she was taken hostage, but my pain
had been nothing compared to the ordeal that she narrowly lived
through. Her scars are an everyday reminder that she is and will
always be stronger than I could ever dream of being.

“Baby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I
softened.

“Forget it.” She went to push past me and I put my
hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Ava … I’m an idiot. I worry so much about you – you
know that. If I lose you, I die.”

“It’s just running, Ari.” She tried to push past me
again.

“If you want to run, call my mom, she’ll be happy to
go to the gym with you. They have security there, you know? If you
want to do a beach run, Rory is free on Wednesday evenings, you can
schedule something with him.”

“Lucky me.” Ava ran her fingers through her ponytail
and a gleam of sunlight hit my watch face and glinted in my eyes.
She was wearing my watch. It wasn’t just any watch, it was all that
was left of someone very special to me. It was mine.

I locked my hand around her wrist. “Why are you
wearing my watch?” I was pissed again.

“Mine broke.”

I moved her arm around exposing her tattooed wrist
and began to unclasp the worn leather band. “I see. Well, this one
is
mine
.”

“I was just borrowing it for the run. I didn’t think
you would mind.”

“You were very wrong.”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened in a
frown.

I pointed to her clothes. “You wear my shirts,” I
tugged at the hem of my boxer shorts that she was wearing, “you
wear my underwear. You steal my blankets and hog my pillows.” Her
frown turned into an angry scowl. “You eat the food off my plate
and drink the last sip of every drink I pour for myself. You came
into my life and took over every little thing that’s mine. Could
you just leave the stupid watch alone?”

“Fine.” Her eyes were moist.

Slipping the worn band off her wrist, I began to
tighten it in place around my own. “No running alone anymore,
period
. It isn’t safe. We won’t have this conversation
again.” I told her sternly, and she found a way to brush past me,
leave the kitchen and run up the stairs. The bedroom door shut
quickly behind her.

“
Crap
.” Looking down at my watch, I saw that I
was late for work –
big surprise
. I followed Ava into the
bedroom and as soon as I opened the door, she tossed my cell phone
at me. Only then did I remember that she had had it stowed away all
weekend.

“I forgot to charge it.” Her tone was very clipped
and unhappy. She walked away towards the bathroom, shoulders tense
and straight and unyielding, and I followed her again.

“I’ll charge it when I get to work. I have to go … I
love you.”

“I don’t care when you charge it.” She turned on the
shower.

“Can I have a kiss before I go?”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she snapped.

“Ava,” I sighed. “Don’t be like that.”

“Bye, Ari.” She slipped into the shower without
another word.

****

My drive to the office was brutal. The highway was
bumper-to-bumper traffic. The hot July sun beat down on the
pavement and bounced off the mirrors of the cars ahead of me,
blinding me. A headache started in one temple and very quickly
spread throughout my whole head. The smell of asphalt cooking in
the sun assaulted my already queasy stomach. I jumped back and
forth between feeling bad for treating Ava the way that I had and
then being pissed at her for running on that damn beach after I
have told her not to countless times.

By the time I arrived to the parking lot of the
baio
building, I was mad at her again. I stormed through the
entry with only a quick nod to the security guard and then jabbed
my finger on the elevator call button. The doors responded promptly
and opened on cue and the elevator whisked me up to the
twenty-second floor. I stepped one foot into the lobby and was
immediately reminded of Fauna and the fact that she had given her
resignation notice the week earlier. Sputtering some excuse about
finally pursuing her life’s obsession.