Sunrise Fires (19 page)

“Is that a better answer to whatever you needed to see?”

He looked down, trying to hide a smile. “For someone who has issues with abandonment, you didn’t mind abandoning me, Jen. You left me to deal with one of the hardest events of my life completely alone. I don’t know if I can get around that.”

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I’m sorry. I really just felt like you had decided not to come, that you had found someone else, that everything I always feared was going to happen was actually coming true. And when you didn’t call back, it felt like confirmation.”

He exhaled as if the weight of the world was upon him. He scratched his head, and then shook it as if clearing cobwebs. “No, Jen. No. It’s not that fucking simple. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen when I saw your car. I don’t know what I was thinking. But now, seeing you, talking to you and thinking about us, I have no idea how I thought this would play out or why I thought this would be a good idea.” He turned and took a step. I watched him moving away from me. Again, I was losing him, and it stabbed at my heart worse than the first time.

“Can you walk away so easily, Ryan? When you know I love you, when you know you still love me, how can you turn your back on this?”

He spun around. “You had no problems doing it. You didn’t hesitate to cut and run. Not so much as an e-mail?! Just…just… gone!”

“Not ‘just gone’! It wasn’t near as simple as you make it sound! I cried my eyes out, Ryan. I was devastated. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. But I wouldn’t beg you to be with me. I had left you to go to Germany, and I felt like you would abandon me for it. I told you that before I left and then…in August, I believed that you were proving me right. It all made sense. I wasn’t going to email you just to grovel and beg! Either you wanted to be with me or you didn’t and it seemed pretty clear to me that you didn’t. How could I have known about your father? How could I have guessed that there was something else?”

“Because I told you Germany would not break us. Because I told you I loved you. Because I showed you in every way that I could, that we were a forever thing. You were the one who wouldn’t marry me, the one who’s so afraid of commitment, the one who has had me on a string for more than six years now. If anyone was going to leave, it was definitely you. Off in Europe with business executives and retail moguls and people who think like you do and talk like you do and are interested in the things you care about. I believed we could make it, and I meant everything I said to you before you left. No. You can’t lay this at my feet.”

I looked at the sand, listened to the sound of the gulls, hugged myself, and felt my paper-dry pink skin bristle at the contact. “No one’s blaming you.” I began softly, feeling the weight of the decisions I’d made, hearing Jackie and Talia chastising me. “I’m just…” I stepped into his space, lowering my voice even more. “I’m just saying don’t walk away. Today. Just don’t make this the last time I ever see you.”

He looked away somewhere down the beach. “I need time. Time to think. Time to breathe. Time to figure out what I was thinking when I decided to stand by your car today. My number hasn’t changed. You could have called it all this time. Maybe you should consider using it sometime.” He stepped back and turned to go. I reached for him as tears of guilt silently chased each other down my cheeks, screaming,
“Your fault”
to one another as they fell. He pulled away from my grasp. “Don’t. Just stop. I need time. How hard is that to understand? I’m going back to camp. You should go wherever you were headed when you came to the parking lot.” He walked away, and I stood watching him for long minutes until he was nearly the size of an ant.

Finally, I turned back to the parking lot. My skin was reaching a shade of pink that foreshadowed a painful week of scarlet, starting before sunset this evening. Gathering up my bags and my pride, I got in the car and headed off to the drug store to find that aloe.

Chapter Seventeen

I
n the weeks that followed, I called and texted Ryan sporadically. Sometimes he’d answer. Sometimes days would go by without a word. I felt like we were starting all over again: small talk, benign topics, and general checkups on each other’s well-being. Bah, it was all so painful. I spent time talking to Talia about expectation management and whether it was worth the time and effort it might take to repair things with him.

“Honey, I don’t know. He doesn’t feel very receptive, but…….” She took a deep breath and then whispered in a tentative tone, “Can you blame him?”

We fell silent, and I listened to myself breathe while I struggled with the guilt that I felt. “I’ve thought and thought about it, Talia. We’re
both
to blame,—both of us. I mean, he could’ve called me, too, y’know.”

“Yep, he sure could’ve. And I’m not saying he’s blameless. I’m just saying—I mean—well, hun, his dad died.”

“Not my fault at all.”

“Nope, it isn’t. But he was dealing with that and all of the things surrounding that. So, maybe he couldn’t come up with the strength to also call you when he believed you didn’t care anymore.”

“But I thought
he
didn’t care!”

“Oh, I know, hun. I witnessed that little belief system at work when I was there with you. I’m aware of what you thought.”

“Is this an ‘I told you so’? Seriously?! Are you really gloating right now?”

“No. The time for gloating hasn’t come yet. I’m just saying be patient with him. It may take awhile before you get the warm reception you’re hoping for. And if you can’t be patient, then accept that this really is over.”

“But I don’t want it to be over. God, you know the guys I’ve tried dating. They’re terrible—stodgy, aloof, pompous, narcissistic, broken, low self-esteemed—guys with full sets of past-life luggage. I’ve tried them all. Jesus, the guy from last week?! The business dinner turned awkward proposition?! Where do these guys come from? And why do they find and pursue me? I just want Ryan, Talia. I want it to be like it was.”

“Even if it takes time to get it back?”

“Yes.”

“Even if he needs your reassurance and commitment?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you calling me for? Call him.”

“I love you, hun.”

“I love you, too.”

*   *   *

I continued to give Ryan space and reassurance, but I knew that nothing would ever be different if I didn’t change something. So I dialed his number on a late June afternoon.

He answered after only two rings. “Hello.”

“Come stay with me for a weekend.”

“What?”

“Come to San Diego and stay with me for a weekend.”

“I’m busy with work and stuff. I don’t think I can.”

“It doesn’t have to be this weekend. How about next? I am not going on a trip to Europe again for more than a month. I have regular office hours, and I know that the Las Vegas summer is coming into bloom, and you could use a break. So, next weekend? Or the weekend after that?”

Silence stretched the tension so thin that when he finally spoke, I jumped. “I might be able to come down next weekend, but I’m not sure I like the idea of staying at your place.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“It’s an open invitation. We don’t have to decide that right now.” He grunted agreement. “You can bring your bike if you want. There are cool tracks around here to ride…or so I’ve been told. Glamis isn’t too far east of here. It would be really cool to see you ride again.” Again a grunt. “Okay. We can plan that as the week progresses. How was work today?”

And conversation fell into the typical meaningless drivel of checking in and making small talk. By the time I hung up, I felt tentatively hopeful at what was to come.

*   *   *

Over the next week, we spoke more frequently than we had been, and I loved it. His voice had not changed. It still had its impact on me. I wanted to hear it in my ear again as we lay naked on the bed in the aftermath of our sex. I wanted to hear it at the back of my ear as I cooked in the kitchen and from across the condo as we made plans for the day. I just wanted him near me, and each day that passed made that more of a possibility.

The weather forecast for the weekend was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better setting for this time together. He arrived on Saturday morning, refusing to come down Friday night because he didn’t want to stay in a hotel and was as yet undecided about staying at my place. This day felt like a trial run at something, and that made the excitement, and nervousness, tangible.

We met for coffee at a nearby restaurant. I offered to show him around town or to do any one of a number of other things, like going to the beach, going to a motorcycle track, going to a movie, and so on. He was quieter than he had been on the phone, but I didn’t let that bother me.

“I’d love to show you my place. It’s right on the beach, and we could swim or hang out or….”

“Okay. Let’s go see your place for starters.” He smiled across the table at me. “I’ve missed the beach. I love Vegas, but I miss the beach.”

As I drove, I was silently taking inventory. Was my place clean? Had I made the bed? Would he like my condo even though it was small? Would he be spending the night? As I pulled into my assigned parking space, the butterfly colony in my stomach threatened to fly right out of my mouth. I took deep breaths and swallowed hard. “I need some water,” I said as he grabbed his bags from the back of his truck. I noticed he hadn’t brought his bike and wondered why.

Opening the door to my condo felt as if I was looking at it again for the first time. The waves crashed on the beach, white caps glistening in the bright sunlight. It was gorgeous today. The kitchen was clean and still looked as rich and luxurious as it had on day one. I grabbed a glass and poured myself some water. Taking a sip, I offered the glass to him. “Want some? It’s filtered…”

He didn’t answer. He was walking slowly from the front door toward the balcony, mesmerized by the view. When I took his bags from him, he finally acknowledged me. “Wow. Now that’s a view. I love this place if only for that.”

I smiled proudly. “I love it here. It’s worth the money for beachside. You want some water?” He took the glass from me and took a big swig, handing it back half empty.

“Do you sit on the balcony?”

“All the time.”

He opened the sliding glass door and let himself out, taking up roost in the chair I normally sat in. I set the water on the side table and sat down, musing to myself that I was sitting in the chair that I mentally think of as the one for guests. We sat there quietly, watching the beach, the gulls, the people, and the waves for quite some time. And when he finally stopped staring at those things long enough to look at me, I spoke. “So, umm, there is more to this place than the balcony. And it turns out that I’m giving tours today. Do you want to see the rest of it?”

“Sure,” he said with the natural smile that I remembered so fondly. “Sure, hun, show me the rest of the joint.”

The tour was short. A one-bedroom place doesn’t offer much in the way of side trips. Then we spent the afternoon on the beach. We changed into swimsuits and walked right out of the complex onto the sandy dunes. We probably walked at least three miles in one direction before deciding that we were getting hungry enough to turn back around. On the way back, my hand found its way into his, and he didn’t reject it. It was amazing to be in this space at this moment in time, holding his hand and walking along the wet sand at the water’s edge.

“Jen,” he stopped and faced me, “I can’t promise you anything. I really have no idea why I’m here, except that a part of me feels powerfully compelled to be.”

“Baby, stop. I am just happy that you are here. I’m not asking for promises. I know this thing got broken when I went to Germany. And I can accept that we have things to talk about and work through, but I can’t go on dating people who are probably nice enough guys who just seem terrible because they aren’t you. You are my yardstick by which all other men are measured, and so far, I can’t even find a guy who can get past the first foot. I can’t keep doing that without knowing for sure that this cannot be salvaged. What we had was magical, a thing of fairy tales, my own fantasy relationship brought to life. And maybe we never get that back. Or maybe we can’t get all of it, but I’m not willing to let it rest without knowing.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“What?”

“Where do women like you come from?” We both smiled at the memory. “Cuz I know a few guys who need a woman like you, and it’d be great to tell them where to go to—”

“Nowhere. They can’t go anywhere to find another woman like me. There are none,” I playfully punched his arm, “but you knew that already.”

We walked on, back to my place, joking and laughing for the first time since I could remember, probably since before Germany. As we got back to my place, I hopped in the shower while Ryan headed for the balcony again. Ten minutes later, I emerged, feeling refreshed and sand-free. “I have some wine if you want,” I called out toward the living room.

Ryan didn’t initially answer. Figuring he didn’t hear me, I began to rummage through my dresser for some clothes to wear. “Did you think I could hear you over the ocean out there?” He was standing at my bedroom door.

“Ohhh, you startled me,” I said, standing up and pulling my towel more tightly around my body, suddenly feeling shy. “I said I have some wine if you want some. Or there’s beer in the fridge, too.”

“Wine sounds amazing. Sweet white, I’m guessing…?”

I smiled. “Yea. It’s in the fridge, bottom shelf.”

He turned, and a few seconds later, I heard the refrigerator open. I put lotion on my body and hurriedly threw on some panties and a sundress.

His voice echoed back to my room, “Where’s the corkscrew?”

“In the drawer next to the stove!” I called back.

I expected to find him on the balcony with two glasses of wine, but when I came out of my bedroom, he was standing in the kitchen, looking at something I couldn’t see.

“What’s up, hun?” I asked, rounding the corner into the kitchen. And then I froze. He was holding my old cell phone, examining it like an artifact. My heart leapt to my throat, and I immediately felt my cheeks burn. I cleared my throat. “Well, now, that doesn’t look much like a cork screw.” I chuckled and smirked, trying to seem casual. “It’s on the other side of the stove, in this drawer.” I reached for the drawer but saw that the wine was already open, cork on the counter beside the bottle.