Vanguard (5 page)

Christmas break couldn’t come fast enough for Sophie. Miserable, she avoided Michael and snubbed his constant attempts to rekindle their friendship. Instead, she focused on their upcoming two-week visit to the Soviet Republic. In their last Finnish city, she half-listened to the staff member droning on with the usual daily report.

“We leave for the Soviet Republic in three days. Due to visa issues, Michael Nariovsky-Trent won’t join us. He’ll travel out of Finland to start Christmas early with his extended family in Orlisia, and will reconvene with us in Japan in the new year.” This didn’t surprise Sophie. The Soviet Republic didn’t grant visas to Orlisians, even ones with dual US citizenship. What came next, however, shocked her.

“Michael is taking Mirielle home with him to Orlisia to meet the family.” The room filled with good-natured catcalls. “So make sure to wish them both a good holiday in the next few days.”

~~ - ~~

After a successful tour of Asia, the class crossed the Pacific and landed in Ecuador in March. In Quito, the staff organized a party to welcome them back to the western hemisphere, with dinner and an evening of traditional dancing and music. As the students headed to the dance floor, Sophie’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She left the music behind and found a quiet hallway to chat with her mom.

After she hung up, Sophie caught movement out of the corner of her eye and froze in fear. How many times had they been warned not to leave the larger group without telling someone? She turned slowly to see who was there.

It was Kyle Clark, one of the Canadian students. Sophie started to tell him he’d nearly given her a heart attack, except he wasn’t paying attention. Mirielle was kneeling between Kyle’s legs, her head moving purposefully. Mortified, Sophie shrank into the shadows and looked away, wishing she could be anywhere else but here. After what felt like an eternity, they finished. Seconds later, footsteps sounded behind her, and she heard Ana’s voice.

“There you are! I was getting worried. What have you been…” She stopped when she saw Kyle and Mirielle hastily pulling themselves together. “Oh.” Her eyes darted between Sophie’s frozen face and her classmates’ guilty expressions.

Mirielle stepped forward. “This isn’t what it looked like.”

“I thought it was exactly what it looked like,” Kyle objected. “Didn’t you already tell Michael that you’re with me now?”

“Sophie,” Mirielle pleaded. “Please don’t tell him.”

Sophie said nothing. Ana took her arm and pulled her away from the awkward tableau in the hallway.

~~ - ~~

The class was abuzz about Mirielle’s shocking defection from Michael to Kyle when they arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina, two weeks later. Theirs would be one of the last ships to visit the Antarctic before the winter closed in and the dangers of pack ice became too great.

Sophie stepped out of the hotel, then heard footsteps follow her out into the mist. She let out a shaky sigh. Staying away from him was becoming more and more difficult.

“Sophie, wait. Please.” For the first time in months, she didn’t walk away. She waited until he caught up, then they walked down to the harbor, stopping to lean against a railing overlooking Beagle Channel. Foghorns sounded on the water. Finally, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“You knew,” Michael said. “Mirielle said you knew, that you saw them together.”

“Yes. Did she finally tell you the truth?”

Michael nodded, his expression unreadable. “She did, although far too late for honor’s sake. But why did you not?” He took her shoulders, turned her so that she was facing him.

She caught her breath at his beautiful face so close to hers, and that breath turned into a sob.

“I couldn’t.” Her voice cracked and wobbled. “Who am I to judge Mirielle? I have a boyfriend at home, and I’ve done wrong by him too this year.” She couldn’t look away from his eyes, even when her own were blind with tears. “I couldn’t be the one to tell you.” Sophie suddenly realized she’d never seen Michael cry.

“You can tell me anything,” he said, deadly serious. “I need to know you will never lie to me. That no matter what happens, for the rest of my life, you will always be the one person who will never lie to me. Promise me.”

Sophie nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. They might be among the most brilliant young people in the world, but, she finally understood, that didn’t mean either of them knew anything about love.

She opened her mouth to try to speak again, but he brushed his fingers over her lips.

“Hush. I know. Do not blame yourself,” he whispered. “
Mana mila
, I have missed you terribly.” Sophie removed his finger from her lips and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her and they stood in the fog, lost in one another.

God, how I love him.

The thought floated down into her consciousness like a feather falling from a great height. It didn’t shock her. She had known it all along.

After a while, his mouth shifted to scatter kisses across her face. Then his lips came back to press against hers one last time. He took her hands in his, foreheads touching. His eyes met hers. She could see the question rising there.

What now?

Her future beyond this year, beyond GYL…what then? Michael would go to Harvard Medical School. She had a conditional acceptance at Stanford University to study international development on the opposite side of the country. And Matt, waiting patiently for her to return.

Sophie couldn’t lose Michael; she’d already spent too much of this year apart from him. But neither could she imagine him as part of her carefully planned, ambitious dreams. She had no way to control her rampaging feelings for him, no strategy to neatly cubbyhole his impulsive, explosive personality into her orderly plans to change the world. Their love would undo her.

She had to follow her own dreams. For now, at least.

For a moment, she looked back at him, her heart in her eyes. Then she shifted her gaze over his shoulder, eyes on the mist beyond. She felt a shiver of reaction pass through his body. He understood the magnitude of what had just been decided between them.

“I love you, Sophie.”

“I love you too, Mikael.”

It was the only time Sophie would hear those words from Michael in a decade.

~~ - ~~

The end of their year came too soon, and it hurt worse than Sophie had imagined. Saying goodbye to the people who had been family, friends, and colleagues for the last 365 days was wrenching. She’d never cried so much as she did that day, each farewell more painful than the last on the GYL campus, back where they had begun. But the most important person was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Michael?” she asked Carter frantically.

“He’s gone,” he replied. “His parents picked him up early this morning. He didn’t want to say goodbye to you, to anyone. He doesn’t think it proper for a man to cry, especially in front of a woman.”

Heartsick, Sophie stumbled onto the shuttle bus to catch her flight back to California.

~~ - ~~

The years passed. Sophie got her undergraduate degree and her masters in international development at Stanford. Learned to speak French. Remained in constant touch with Will Temple, who grew from being a casual acquaintance to her greatest mentor and teacher.

She returned to Matt Cain, grieving and guilt-ridden. He accepted her confession surprisingly well, and they remained together for the next two years. Their relationship was calm and conflict-free, if not a little boring. Matt became a lawyer, moved to New Jersey, and married. Sophie consulted him for all her legal matters.

She stood as the maid of honor in Ana and Raphael’s wedding in São Paulo, and attended the gigantic bash when Mirielle and Kyle married in 2005. Thirty-seven of the GYL02 class made it to that affair. Understandably, Michael Nariovsky-Trent did not attend.

Michael and Sophie stayed in touch from opposite sides of the country. The night Sophie broke up with Matt, Michael had sat up with her on the phone assuring her that she’d made the right choice. Partway through his third year, Michael had almost given up on his grueling medical studies, and it had been Sophie’s turn to support him.

Sophie dated, fell in and out of love, met some terrific guys. Moved in with a man she’d met in Bangladesh on a field placement, but moved out soon after when she realized he wasn’t so wonderful in real life. Michael dated casually over the years, but never settled down.

She saw him again in 2008 at Carter’s wedding. Walking into Michael’s arms felt like coming home. He was Carter’s best man, and she thought she’d faint at the sight of him in a tuxedo. When he took her out on to the dance floor at the reception, the years melted away.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered in Orlisian.

“As do you.” He complimented her accent; she had continued her Orlisian lessons throughout college. Much later, they strolled in the spectacular hotel gardens in the summer night. He took her hand and interlaced their fingers.

“You are happy,
mana mila
?” he asked.

“I would be happier if I could see you more often,” she said with a smile. “But yes, Mikael, I am happy. Are you?”

“For now, yes.” He walked her back to her room and lingered outside the door. His green eyes flickered down to her mouth, then he leaned down to kiss her. She let her tongue brush over the edge of his lip. He caught his breath and deepened the kiss. When they pulled apart, his cocked an eyebrow at her in an unasked question.

Sophie was sorely tempted to invite Michael into her hotel room for the night. But as appealing as that was, Sophie valued his friendship too much to risk it on a one-night stand. Their time would come, and when it did it would be for keeps.

Chapter 3

January 11, 2014

Sundays were difficult.

Sophie took the train into Manhattan in the morning. She didn’t own a car, had never needed one in New York City. She got off in Midtown and walked three blocks in the icy January wind to a street of elegant brownstones.

She always dressed nicely when she came here, although she couldn’t say why. Respect, maybe. Perhaps pretending to be something she wasn’t. She pinned her red hair back and wore charcoal dress pants, a white silk blouse, and a black cardigan under her coat.

The door opened before she could touch the doorbell, and she knew the woman standing before her had been waiting for her. Signe Nariovsky-Trent greeted Sophie with a small but genuine smile.

“Come in,
mana meita
,” Signe said, taking her coat and hanging it away. Sophie felt her cheeks heat up at Signe’s casual use of the traditional Orlisian parental endearment “my daughter”. Michael’s mother had always been kind to her, but their interactions had changed in months Michael had been missing.

The elegant older woman turned to embrace Sophie, kissing her on both cheeks. “It is good to see you, as always.”

“Thank you,” Sophie said. “It’s nice to be inside. The wind is chilly today.”

Signe was beautiful. Her blond hair was pulled up into a neat chignon with not a strand of gray in sight. Long lashes framed blue eyes. Despite her years, Signe had a dancer’s figure – slender arms, a swan’s neck, graceful carriage. Even her nose seemed aristocratic. Sophie wished she could have seen her dance at the height of her career.

Looking into Signe’s face made her want to cry out in pain. Michael bore a fierce resemblance to his mother, and Signe was a stark reminder of exactly what had been lost to all of them.

“You will stay for lunch?” the older woman asked. They went through the same ritual every week. She always asked, and Sophie always stayed for lunch. Signe led her into the living room where Maxwell sat reading the paper and drinking tea.

“Sophie.” He rose to embrace her. “So good to see you.” Every time she visited, Maxwell looked a little older. His black hair had gone almost completely white. “Please sit down.”

Sophie didn’t bother with small talk. She knew what they wanted from her, and what she needed from them.

“The coalition received a new intelligence report from the area surrounding Parnaas,” she began. She handed Maxwell a photocopy of the report, and he added it to an overflowing folder in front of him. Sophie told them everything the coalition had accomplished that week, every scrap of new information they’d learned. She held nothing back.

When Sophie finished, Maxwell shared what he’d heard through diplomatic and UN channels. As an advisor to the UN on Northern European affairs, Maxwell had access to a great deal of information.

“No indication yet that the Soviets will back down about allowing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees into the camp,” Maxwell reported. “Security Council is still deadlocked; no one wants to take on the Soviets. In other words, the UN is effectively tied up in its own knots at this point. Your coalition is the refugees’ best hope.”