“Come on, now,” he said, taking a couple more steps towards me. “I’d come in there and wrestle you out, but I don’t think that would be appropriate anymore.”
I wanted to holler out, Marco, yearning to have him throw his arms around me because every time he’d done so before, I’d known that everything would be alright. His embrace was that convincing . . . or that mind-numbing.
His feet remained planted to the ground, so I made the first move, hoisting off the jungle floor—my white tank and khaki shorts smudged GI Jane camo style from the hours, miles, and falls the forest had inflicted on me.
“Uh . . . hi,” I offered lamely, twisting my leaf-ridden hair behind my ear. I pushed aside the prehistoric-looking plant, coming out from my hiding spot.
His eyes flashed wide when he first saw me before he was able to recompose himself. I looked more Sasquatch than woman and I was going for my last-ditch, make-or-break plea to get back a man that could have been spawned by the gods. I really needed to start thinking my plans out better.
“Hello, yourself.” He swallowed, waiting for me, but I couldn’t untangle my thoughts enough to get the first thing out.
“Hey.” I bit my lip, willing something to come to mind, but it seemed being away from him for so long had brought on an unexpected dose of confoundedness. “That was really beautiful what you did in there,” I said, dodging the whole reason I’d come here.
His eyes narrowed, not in a glare, but like he was trying to figure me out. Good luck with that. “She did all the work. I was just there to make sure everything went as it should.”
“What did she name the baby?” I asked, peering over his shoulder into the tent.
“Eh . . . William,” he mumbled.
“Does that happen a lot?” I had an urge to stare into the baby’s face knowing his namesake was the man I loved. A stolen glimpse didn’t seem enough now.
He shrugged, refusing to meet my eyes. “From time to time.”
“From time to time,” I repeated. “How many from time to times?”
He paused, circling his eyes to the sky. “One can lose count.”
“Someone names their baby after you and you lose count?” My voice, face, and posture were all stark with dubiousness.
“One thousand-and-thirty-three,” he answered, his eyes floating to me. “Actually, one thousand-and-thirty-four now.”
My jaw dropped and I let it hang there. There had been hundreds of little William’s scampering over the world through the years. None carrying the genetic makeup of their namesake, but knowing what I did of him, his compassion that saturated the air wherever he went had surely found its way into these baby’s lives. Compassion through osmosis—maybe there was hope for the world after all.
“Please forgive me, I know this is going to sound all wrong,”—he looked down, scuffing his unlaced work boot into the tacky mud—“I’ve been saying everything wrong as of late . . . but what are you doing here?” He looked at me apologetically, but he was right, it did come out sounding all wrong. Too cold and unemotional to come from his mouth.
“I needed to talk to you about something important—”
“Is everyone alright?” he interjected, his body stiffening, making his muscles burst through the sleeves of his shirt. To accompany the aching, I now had yearning to contend with and with their combined forces, my gut felt like it was being ripped to shreds. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through this.
“Everyone’s fine,” I said, reaching my hand out for him automatically. My hand hung in the air long enough before I pulled it back to know he’d intentionally denied it. “I just left them a couple days ago and everyone was happy and healthy.”
His body relaxed instantly. “Is anyone with you?” He looked behind me, searching. The way his eyes had narrowed told me he wasn’t referring to his family when he’d asked if I was on my own.
“No. I’m alone.”
“They let you come alone? He let you come alone?” he asked, his eyes shadowing around darkness. “Do you realize you gave John the perfect opportunity to snatch you up? All alone, wandering around a foreign country.” His eyes clouded over, his jaw clenching in anger. “What was Paul thinking?”
“Thanks for the concern,” I said calmly, hoping to influence his tone with mine. “And no offense here, but I don’t let anyone tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“Yeah. I remember that.” He looked up at me, sharing a remembered thought. “So what was so important that you had to traipse through a continent to tell me? All alone,” he emphasized.
I inhaled, for nothing more than to straighten up. “I’m not going to pretend I know how much I hurt you when I left. It’s unforgivable and it’s a good thing I have forever because I’m going to need it to earn your forgiveness.” I kept my eyes down now that the words were flowing. I knew if I looked at him my tongue would knot into something undoable. “I owe you, not only an apology, but an explanation.”
“No,” he said, tilting his head. “You owe me neither. All I’ve ever wanted for you is happiness, whoever that may be with,”—his jaw clenched around the words—“but if it would make you feel better . . . I forgive you. And as for the explanation, I’d rather not hear it if that’s alright with you. I’ve got the general idea and knowing the details will only make things worse, I’m sure.” The way his throat caught each word as they surfaced broke my resolve of not looking at him. He was trying so hard to stay composed, but couldn’t give it any permanence.
“I think what both of us are beating around the bush is that”—he looked up, staring at me—“you chose him. Trust me, I don’t need any of the details that accompanied that decision.” His eyes flashed away, but not before their pain could play like a movie before me.
“There never was a choice to be made in the first place,” I whispered, wanting to ease whatever unpleasant emotion was plaguing him, but I didn’t know if he wanted me to be that person anymore. I didn’t know if I had a right to ease his suffering after I’d been the one to create so much for him. “I’ve never had a choice in who I loved.”
He turned away, staring up at the waning moon. “I know. You’re not the only one needing to get an apology off their chest,” he said, drawing in a heavy breath. “I’ve loved you from the start—from the first dream. I was so certain we were meant to be together that I stifled you into believing the same thing. I was the one who took that choice away from you. I’m sorry.”
If there was an award for taking things out of context, William would have won the gold medal.
“Cora was dead on when she said there were no two more dense people than us . . .” I muttered, dumbfounded, ignoring the confusion on his face that requested an explanation. That one could wait, this one couldn’t.
“Okay, so here it goes,” I said resolutely, swinging my arms forward and back.
“Here what goes?” he asked, looking even more confused.
“My forthcoming pathetic plea to get you back.”
“Your what?” he asked, taking a step closer.
“Please, let me just get through this without any questions. It’s going to be hard enough as it is,” I begged, wiping away some of the crusted mud on my arms, trying to make myself more forgivable-looking.
He crouched down, fingering the earth like it was keeping him grounded. His face was flat, except for his eyes. They were shining.
“When I said I didn’t have a choice in who I loved, it’s because from the day I met you, there no longer was a choice. My choice was you, you, and you,” I said, pointing my hands at him. “I didn’t need a choice because you were all I wanted, all I’d ever want. I left because I almost killed you that day in the clearing. I let you believe I left you for someone else because I knew that was the only way you’d let me go without a fight. I thought you’d find happiness with another woman one day and when Patrick told me you had, it gave me enough deterrent to stay away from you because, lord knows, I wanted to run back to you every second of every day.”
His face was a mask—a frozen mask glowing in the gentle moonlight. If my face was a frenzy of emotion, his was the opposite, but I found the courage I needed to continue in his eyes.
“So, back to why I’m here. Sorry it took so long to get back to that,” I said, laughing a few nervous notes. “I found out there isn’t anyone else in your life, there certainly isn’t anyone else in my life, and I’m supremely confident I won’t kill you.” I smiled apologetically at him, receiving nothing but the blank stare in return. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance. I know I don’t deserve you, but there was a time when you thought so. I’ve lived my life without you and I never want to do it again. I can’t live without you. I mean, I could survive—it would be a pathetic, shallow, hollow existence—but I guess my point is,”—I grimaced, realizing my rambling was getting me nowhere with him. I’d lost him—“I don’t want to live without you. Although I understand if you no longer feel the same.” I bit my lip, pausing, when all I wanted to do was rewind time. “So that’s why I’m here. To see if you’d be willing to give me a do-over.”
A do-over?!?!?! That was the best I had, begging this man—who would have moved heaven and earth for us to be together before I’d decided to crush his heart—for a do-over? If I’d had a smidgeon of a chance to get him back, I’d just pulverized it by employing the technique a grade-schooler would call out in kickball.
It was time I shut my mouth and kept it shut. Actually, it had been that time a few sentences back. So I waited for the inevitable.
And waited.
“I’m an idiot. I’m a naïve, stupid, reckless girl,” I said, saving him—saving me—the discomfort of what he was readying himself to say.
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered, shaking his head, that perfectly flat face stupefying me. He rose, walking indirectly towards me. “I appreciate your honesty, I really do.” I cringed, waiting for the let’s just be friends curse. I think William and I both knew we could never be just friends. “But so much time has passed, and so much has happened.”
He stalled a few feet in front of me, running a hand through his hair. I just stared at his eyes, they were the only thing I could still see hope in, as misinterpreted as it likely was. “I don’t know what to say.”
His eyes flashed to mine, sparking with something that had, at one time, preceded something that weakened my knees. Before I could let their effect take hold, he closed the remaining distance between us, eyes never leaving mine. He surged into me, arms locking around my back. I didn’t have time to gasp, or sigh, before his body pressed into mine, his lips leading.
The fullness of his lips on mine, the warmth they exuded, the urgency pulsing over them, it was these kinds of moments that made me believe in perfection.