I pulled into the driveway, frowning at the car that was already there, engine running and wipers slapping back and forth. What now? My money was on my mother, the only one who hadn’t weighed in recently on my life choices. That was very unlike her. I braced myself for her eternal woundedness, her martyrdom, as I climbed out of my car. I even cautioned myself to be kind. After all, who knew what her prison looked like? Who knew what she was hiding from herself?
But it wasn’t my mother who swung out of the driver’s seat and faced me across the snow flurries. It wasn’t my mother who made me stop still and stare.
It was Alec.
20
‘Impossible,’ I said flatly, as if I thought he were an apparition brought on by stress. Which he very well could have been. ‘You flew out yesterday.’
‘I was supposed to fly out yesterday,’ he agreed, the familiar kick of temper in that low, commanding voice of his. ‘I made it to JFK for the New York to London leg. I was all ready to go. It’s a long flight, Sarah. Flights, in fact. London to Johannesburg and then on to Windhoek. It takes forever. And I didn’t get on the damned plane.’
‘You don’t change your plans,’ I said, like I was arguing. ‘Ever.’
‘No, Sarah, I don’t,’ he muttered dangerously. ‘Yet here I am. In your driveway. In the snow.’
He looked surly and delicious, all dark eyes and his bone-deep crankiness. He wore a ridiculous fuzzy hat with a pompom jammed down on his head, no coat and those same ancient jeans that did things to his legs. He should have looked foolish. Or at least cold.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. But I’d seen so many movies. I knew what I wanted this scene to mean. Was this where he swept me off my feet and carried me away? Was this where the curtain fell over a happily-ever-after kiss? There was a part of me that wanted that – him – desperately. Maybe I always would.
But I didn’t want that now. I didn’t know if I believed in happily ever after any longer, and I had only just realized all the things I had to do.
It didn’t matter that he was here. It couldn’t.
I opened my mouth to tell him so.
‘I’m not the marrying kind,’ he gritted out at me, shocking me into silence. ‘I don’t see that changing. Why should a piece of paper or a religious ceremony mean more than what two people know they feel? That doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don’t think it ever will.’
‘I didn’t propose to you, Alec,’ I pointed out, rocking back on my heels as if he’d accused me of clinging to his pant leg. ‘And I don’t need a run down of your objections to something I don’t even—’
‘Please shut up,’ he said, through his teeth. He waited for a moment, as if to see whether or not I would, that lean body of his seeming to vibrate with some kind of electric current, some kind of charge. I shoved my freezing, gloveless fingers into my pockets, let the snow flurries fall on my face, and shut up.
‘Here’s what I promise you, Sarah,’ he said, moving closer, looming over me right there in the driveway, in front of the house and the life I was abandoning. At last. ‘I will never forget you. I never have and I never will. I will always miss you when you’re not with me. I always do. I have two photos of you that I carry with me everywhere, like an obsessed person. But I accept that.’
I stopped caring that it was cold, that I was already running on empty, that I was exhausted from all the different layers of grief I’d been slogging around in for so long. I stopped noticing anything but that grim, resolute mouth of his that never made promises he couldn’t keep.
Never.
‘I will annoy you with coffee and other food you don’t want every morning you wake up with me,’ he continued, moving even closer. ‘I will irritate you. I will probably drive you crazy, and I’ll probably think that’s pretty funny.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ I told him, though there was a lump in my throat. ‘I don’t need you to do this.’
‘I promise you that I will never lie to you, even if it would be easier,’ he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m not a cheater. I don’t see the point. I promise that I will treat you like my equal in all things, even when that gets uncomfortable. I promise to expect nothing less from you.’ He was standing directly in front of me then, looking down, his expression one I’d never seen before. Solemn, but lit from within. As if these were vows. ‘I promise that I will listen to you, and try to understand you, and try to give you the benefit of the doubt when the things you say make me angry. I promise never to ask you to hold my scalpel, unless it’s a medical emergency and I need your help. I promise to treat you like the smart, fascinating, capable woman that you are. And I promise to listen to you if you feel like I’m not giving you what you need.’
‘Alec.’ I could barely speak. ‘Come on. Stop. What do you think this is?’
‘I think this is long overdue,’ he retorted, his voice gruff, but that odd light in his gaze. ‘A necessary clarification. I promise not to ask you to follow me anywhere unless I think it’s somewhere you’d want to go too. I promise not to act like my career is more important than whatever you choose to do, even if I secretly think it is, because I am, after all, an arrogant asshole. I promise not to get too pissed when you call me that. It’s true.’
‘Am I going to call you that, do you think?’ I asked, reluctantly enchanted by this. The man, the snow. The things he was saying. What they meant. ‘Often?’
He only smiled that specifically Alec smile, little more than the curve of his mouth.
‘I promise to count every single one of your freckles, all over your body, because they could change, and those are important facts that I need to be on top of,’ he said, his voice dropping then, becoming husky. ‘I promise you that you are the most interesting woman I’ve ever met, that you haunted me for years, that I blame you for my inability to really move on with someone else, and that I’m not at all sorry your marriage isn’t working.’
‘That’s the most romantic one yet,’ I managed to get out, but I was smiling despite myself.
‘I promise that I won’t hold it against you if you decide you can’t handle me – at least, not too much. And I promise you that if you give me a chance, I will celebrate you,’ he said fiercely, running his cold hand over my cheek, then using it to hold my face up to his. ‘I will spend every minute we have together making sure you know that in every way that matters, I will always choose you. I will always want you. I will. I promise.’ His eyes searched mine. ‘There’s nothing temporary about the way I feel about you, Sarah. There never was.’
I don’t know how long we stood there, gazing at each other, breathing the same air, soaking in all those promises. My hand snuck up to cover his. For a long time, I didn’t even notice the chill. I was too off-balance. Too wild inside. And I understood, at last, that this particular kind of out-of-control was a good thing. This was where life happened, this feeling. It couldn’t be regimented or regulated. That was prison. This was … joy.
Eventually, I led him inside, to stamp off the snow. To pull that silly hat from his head. He looked dishevelled and disreputable as he prowled around the big open floor plan of the house’s first floor, frowning at all the things I’d collected, few of which, I told myself, I would even remember once I left here. And even fewer that I would miss.
Alec roamed over to the couches set around the coffee table, and sat down, leaning forward to run his hands over my old pack. He picked up one of the guidebooks that lay beside it and flipped through it.
‘I’m taking a trip,’ I told him. I felt almost bubbly with nervousness, as if I were carbonated. I drifted over to the couch across from him, considered sitting there as if this were an interview, but thought better of it. I circled the table and dropped down next to him. Close enough to feel the heat of him, to smell the snow against his skin. But not quite touching him. ‘A long one. That one I always talked about.’
He looked sideways at me, then back at the books. He picked up China, then New
Zealand. He ran his fingers over India.
‘How long?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. A year?’
He nodded. ‘Alone?’
‘That’s the plan,’ I said.
But that didn’t seem sufficient. It was non-committal. It didn’t do justice to the things I wanted – and I was afraid it sounded like some kind of invitation. Which it wasn’t. If these last few months had taught me anything, it was that I needed to take some time on my own to figure out who I was. What I wanted for myself. I never wanted to feel like Goldilocks again, trying on other people’s lives for size. I wanted my own.
‘I mean, yes,’ I corrected myself. ‘Alone. Just me and whoever I happen upon along the way.’
He leaned back then, stretching that rangy body out next to me, his long arms along the back, and his gaze was so bright it made those bubbles inside me seem to fizz over.
‘Good,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘You should.’
Because to Alec, dreams were never crazy, no matter how big or grand or out there. It would never be a question of why. It would always be when.
‘Well,’ I said after a moment, trying not to grin like a fool, and not even really knowing why I felt so giddy. This wasn’t a magical moment. This wasn’t the kiss to build a dream on, or any of that nonsense. But then again, maybe that was why. Tim had kissed me. Tim had flattered me. Alec understood me. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’
He reached over and pulled a strand of my hair between his fingers and tugged on it, very gently.
‘A year is a lot longer than it seems,’ he said, studying me. And close. So close. ‘You might want to see a friendly face every few months. To get your bearings.’
I let myself grin then the way I wanted. ‘Would this friendly face be located in Africa, by any chance?’
He dropped my hair and traced a gentle little pattern along my jaw instead.
‘It would,’ he said. ‘You should think about dropping by. Maybe even making it a base of operations. The clinic could always use another good brain, you know. Especially a lawyer.’
‘You’re talking about work,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m talking about a long-overdue journey to find myself. And I could end up anywhere, Alec. The Russian steppes. Machu Picchu. Possibly not in Africa at all.’
He shifted then, and stroked my hair back from my face, with so much tenderness that I thought for a moment I might weep. But I didn’t. I found myself smiling instead, even wider, and twisting around so that I faced him, one leg drawn up on the sofa cushion between us, touching him.
‘Wherever you are out there,’ he said, and his voice was strong and sure, ‘you’ll find what you’re looking for. I don’t have any doubt.’
‘That’s good,’ I whispered. ‘Because I do.’
He smiled then, a genuine smile. ‘You’re the only one.’
He didn’t want anything from me, I realized then. He had said all of those things, made all of those promises, and he wasn’t going to push me into making any declarations in return. As if he trusted me to make the decisions I had to make. As if he believed in what I was doing, whether that fitted into his plans or not.
Of course I had loved this man so much that losing him had set off a seven-year chain reaction of questionable choices and assumed identities. Of course. It wasn’t that I regretted Tim, or our marriage. I didn’t. But suddenly, I understood it better.
And in understanding it – and me – I was that much closer to free.
‘Maybe I will stop off in Africa at some point,’ I said.
He let his fingers trace over my lips, and his eyes burned, but he was still smiling.
‘Promise?’ he asked.
And I smiled back, because I trusted him, and I knew that this time, I would make sure to trust myself, too.
‘I promise,’ I said softly, knowing that to him, this was the only vow that mattered.
‘There’s this beach in Namibia,’ he said, his hand sliding around to cup the nape of my neck as he leaned closer, that serious mouth so very close to mine. Close enough to kiss. ‘Someday I’ll show it to you. I think you’ll like it.’
And he was right. I did.
Megan Crane, Once More With Feeling
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