Falling, Yes I Am Falling
…floating gently to the surface; the tug of sheets being rearranged. His eyes were closed because it was easier that way, but still: I’m here.
More importantly: I’m alive.
“He’s awake.” Alan didn't recognize the voice, but he recognized the tone: surprise. A door slid open, a machine beeped.
Then he opened his eyes, because he was here, because he was alive. He squinted against the light. Then shadows moved in, bending over him.
“Welcome home, Mr. Hays”, the shadow said. It prodded his face, gently. “Do you know where you are?” Her voice was low and soothing.
“Uhhh…” Was that his voice? Felt dry, unused.
“You are in Northwest Memorial. You’ve had a bad fall.”
He gripped the sheets, hard. Not because of what the doctor said, but because he remembered, and he remembered all at once. The loud snick of the crampon as it came loose from the rock face, the instant heart-in-the mouth feeling-
He felt a hand on his chest, easing him back. A crazy-fast beeping slowed down.
“I… remember.”
The shadow smiled faintly. “Unfortunately, I can’t cure that, but we’ve done a good job with the rest of it.”
And then it all came into focus, three faces staring at him, dull tan walls, medical apparatus. “Ahhh,” the doctor said, a much bigger smile on her face. “Now you’re really with us.”
He nodded, aware that he was aware, finally. He looked around. “Memorial?” He cleared his cotton throat. “How long, you know -”
“Six days”. She raised an eyebrow. “We’ve kept you under to help things move along.” Then, “We’ll get your brother.”
“Why?” She looked at him, and he said, “Oh. Ya, I guess…”
“You can just…” but her voice faded away, as did the sounds of recovery.
“Who were you trying to impress?”
He blinked, tried to focus. Kip leaned in and spoke again. “I mean, really. No one likes you.”
He almost laughed, but winced instead. Kip’s expression changed. “You alright? It hurts?”
He took a shallow breath and nodded. “Bit.”
“Pussy. And don't laugh.”
Someone in nursing scrubs slipped into the room. “Are you molesting my patient?”, she asked.
“Not hardly.”
She was pretty, and had a bright smile. He might have seen her before. “Nice to see you up and about.” She waggled her hand. “Well, about, anyway. How are you feeling? Any questions?”
He looked down at bandages and a small tent contraption at the foot of the bed. “Other than… you know.”
She nodded. “The doctor will be down to give you the full package. In the meantime, you’re sort of stuck here.” She looked pointedly at Kip. “Which means stuck with him. Unless, of course, you want him arrested.”
He smiled, but took care not to laugh. When she left, Kip followed her with his eyes. “I think I’m in love.”
But he wasn’t really listening.
“Alan Hays is 32 year-old civil engineer. Fit, active- and a rock climber.” She paused, but it wasn’t for dramatic effect. “A week ago, Mr. Hays had a fall. Best estimate is thirty meters.”
The doctor looked back at him, assessing with her eyes. She dropped her voice slightly. “You’re still okay with this?”
He nodded. ‘This’ was a bed surrounded by a handful of med students, looking at him, looking at his broken body.
“He presented as unconscious, with multiple contusions and abrasions. Fractured femur, 3 broken ribs, moderate to severe concussion… you have a question?”
One of the students took a quick, almost embarrassed look at Alan, then asked. “Excuse me, but.. a hundred feet? Isn’t that supposed to be… you know -”
“Fatal? Yes. The first part of Mr. Hays’ fall was vertical, but the rock face flared out. The second part was down a 65 degree slope into some scrub.” She paused, then spoke to him directly. “It was a good thing it was chilly- your extra layers kept abrasions to a minimum. And one of the people who saw you fall was a pediatrician hiking with his family. Called EMS, and you were here within an hour. The rest was just good doctoring, as we call it. We put you under to help things move along.” She patted his arm, then looked back to her students. “So- anyone?”
There were more questions, mostly about injuries and treatments. Alan listened with half an ear, because his engineer’s mind was trying to analyze it all, including the other thing. He came out of his reverie when he heard a question with the word ‘prognosis’ in it.”
The doc looked at him. “Mr. Hays is in very good shape, and that helped. No apparent spinal injury, no underlying health issues.” Her smile was good news. “We expect a full recovery, once bones fuse and abrasions heal. I am confident Mr. Hays will be climbing mountains again in the near future.”
“So he’ll be able to play the piano?” All eyes turned to Kip, who had come in behind the med students. Alan gave him a look, but before he could say a word, the doctor jumped in. “Don't ever fall for that one,” she said to her students. “Ever.”
She turned again to Alan. “I’ll check in again after rounds.”
They filed out, and Kip settled into the armchair beside the bed. Alan said, “You are such an asshole.”
“She wants me, I can tell,” Kip said, watching the doctor lead the med students down the hall.
But by then, Alan wasn’t really listening anymore.
Kip turned, a taunt on his lips. He stopped when he saw the expression on his brother’s face. Alan was far, far away. His brow was furrowed, his head cocked as if in question. Kip watched the emotion playing across his older brother’s face, until he started into the here and now.
“What was that?”
Alan shrugged. “Nothing.”
For once, he was alone in his room. The doc had come and gone, her visits much less frequent lately. ‘In fact’, she had told him, ‘you’ll probably be out by the end of the week’. Still hobbling, but able to get around on his own power. Couple more days of rest and recoup, and he would be good to go.
She left with a smile, leaving him to himself, which maybe wasn’t such a good thing.
He settled back, staring at nothing.
So how do you explain it? And what does it mean?
Alan pursed him lips, thinking. Ok, go thru it again, the whole thing. The crampon releasing, barely audible but the loudest sound in the world. The sudden sense of …loosening, the adrenalin shock of panic. Flailing for anything to grab, even as it was beyond his reach.
And then, and then… scuffling in the dirt with Scott. His father’s tired voice. The touch of her hand. All there as he fell, mind in overdrive, everything unspooling in front of him-
He realized he wasn’t alone any more. Kip was staring at him, that look on his face, the ‘what to fuck’ look he was so good at, when Kip was at his most annoying.
Alan didn't want to deal with it. So he groaned, not really having to fake it because the pain still gnawed, a little bit.
Kip shook his head. “Naa, you’re not getting away with it that easily.”
Alan blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Fuck off.” Kip looked at the door, checking that they were alone. “Something’s bugging you, and you’re not talking”.
Alan shrugged, which hurt. Which added confidence to his voice. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe this?” He spread his arms, inviting inspection of his broken body.
“Bull shit.” Two words. “It’s not about that at all. Hey bud, I know you. And you’re in bullshit mode.” For all of his fooling around and sunny view of life, when his brother got focused, he got focused.
Alan closed his eyes. He was right, of course: they did know each other. Two years apart in age, and they had shared pretty well anything of consequence: girls, hopes, fears, girls again, sex, college, career, marriage (or lack thereof). And the reality was, Kip knew what he was talking about.
Still… “Nothing.’”
“Fuck you and your ugly horse. Tell me.”
“Nothin’.”
“I’ve been watching. Like, for a couple of minutes.” He paused. “And it’s not the first time.”
Alan stared at his kid brother, and suddenly his eyes misted and he turned away.
Kip didn't break his gaze; just because Alan got all gooey, he wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
“What, bud?” he asked softly.
It took Alan a good thirty seconds before he could answer. He started and stopped a couple of times, and through it all, Kip pinned him down with his eyes.
Finally: “It was fucking scary.” And he almost lost it again. “I mean.. you see it all. Kid stuff, grade school, who you kissed… it’s like a .. panorama. It’s like a review. You know, ‘life flashing before your eyes’. I thought I was gonna die.” And that’s what so unnerved him. Sort of.
“You thought you were going to die. Scary enough.” A statement.
“Scary enough.”
Kip stared. “That’s it? That’s what’s weirding you out?”
Alan nodded. “That’s what’s bugging me,” he said, more confident now. “Just getting adjusted to it all.”
Kip continued to watch him, expressionless. Then he shrugged. “Tell you what. I’m going to buzz off for awhile, because I have a far more interesting life to live.” Not a whit of a smile. “And maybe sometime, if you feel like it, if it’s not too much trouble, you can tell me what’s really bugging you. Because I’m not buying your ‘poor me’ crap.”
Alan blinked. Not the reaction he expected, at all. His brother was the kind of person with whom you could share anything, and he would be right there beside you, taking the load, wrestling problems to the ground. But Kip wasn’t doing that.
And he had that look in his eyes, daring him to put up a fight. Alan didn’t, because he couldn’t.
“What did they say?”
“The usual. Don’t push it, lay off the climbing for awhile.” Alan smiled faintly. “Don’t fall off a cliff.”
Kip pointed the wheelchair toward the front entrance. “How’s Nurse Lovely?”
“She thinks you’re a jerk.”
Kip snorted. “As if.”
They rolled out into the sunshine. Alan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, basking. “Feels good.”
“Ten days in a hospital room will do that to you.” Kip stepped back. “Come on, Gimpy. Do it yourself.”
Alan pulled himself out of the wheel chair without much effort. He walked to the waiting car, unsteady but on his own steam. Once he settled inside, Kip ditched the wheelchair and came around to other side.
Alan looked back toward the entrance. He deadpanned, “I’m going to miss this place,” and Kip laughed. Then: “Smoked meat. Now.”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Smoked meat,” Alan repeated. “This instant.”
They dug in, Alan clearly savouring the meal. Kip could see that he had lost some weight, so it was good to see him eating. His brother was paler, but seemed to have the appetite of a dozen.
Alan made short work of his smoked meat, then sat back. Thoughtful. He looked around the nearly-deserted restaurant, then looked at his brother. He said, “It wasn’t mine.”
“What?”
“That’s what’s weird. That’s what’s… sort of been going on.”
Kip saw the look in his brother’s eyes, but for the life of him couldn’t understand where this was coming from. So he did the best thing he could: he didn’t speak, didn’t say a thing.
Finally, Alan looked away. He seemed almost resigned. “It wasn’t mine,” he said. “When I fell. The ‘life that flashed before my eyes’? Wasn’t mine. It was somebody else’s.”
Kip held his tongue, processing. He had about a dozen snarky remarks lined up, but they were snarky. So instead, he said, “I don’t know, man. You fall off a cliff, you don’t die, and you get all fucked up because things get confused? Sounds normal to me.”
Alan shook his head. “Not ‘confused’. It was crystal clear. It was mine, but it was someone else’s.” He wasn’t being argumentative, just stating a fact. Or what he thought was a fact.
“Which sounds very rational,” Kip said, exasperated. “I know you like this stuff, but really?”
Alan was sometimes prone to going off on weird tangents, turning things over in his mind, parsing them down to their component parts. It made him a great engineer, but it also sometimes made for boring conversations. For Alan, the meaning of life was a constant curiosity; for Kip, the meaning of life was simple: life’s short, so live it. Don’t be a jerk, have some fun, help people out: that’s what it’s all about. But Alan always wanted to look at the building blocks, measure and restack them instead of putting them down and going out to play, or some other stupid metaphor. Usually, it was a great way to mock his brother, but not here, not now.
“Come on, check the logic,” Kip said. “You’re falling, brain’s pumping you full of morphine or steroids or whatever. Of course it’s going to be weird. You’re going to think about anything, and everything. You thought you were going to die.”
Alan stared back at him, lights wheeling behind those engineer’s eyes. Not setting up a counter-argument. Thinking.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” Kip said.
Alan shrugged. “Ya, maybe.” He turned away.
Kip read his eyes. Alan said ‘maybe’, but he didn’t mean it. He was still somewhere else, still thinking.
“That’s private.”
“Ya, and it’s nuts.”
Kip didn’t even look up. He closed the notebook and flipped it onto the coffee table. He had let himself into Alan’s apartment; that part was fine, because they had been doing it forever. Going through Alan’s journal was not fine.
“Do you tithe?” Kip asked.
“What?” Irritation.
“Do you tithe?” Kip nodded toward the notebook. “You know, for your cult?”
“Fuck you.” Alan stripped off his T-shirt. He had just come in from his run, and he was breathing heavily. He walked to the table and scooped the notebook. “Come on, man, don’t be looking through my stuff.”
Kip ignored him. “How’s work?”
Alan shrugged. “Work’s work.”
“Not into it?”
Alan stopped, stared at his younger brother. “What the fuck.”
Again, Kip ignored him. “Go have a shower. You’re stinking up the place.”
“My place.” But he turned and headed for the shower.
Water streamed over him, washing away the sweat, washing away his thoughts. It was the only time he was at peace, during the run, pushing himself so that all he thought about was breathing, putting one foot in front of the other, and nothing else.
The shower was a balm, and he wanted to prolong it as long as he could.
“So what’s up?” Alan plopped onto the couch and started to peel a banana.
“That’s my question, and I know what you’re doing.”
“What?”
“Asking the question you know I was going to ask.”
Alan shrugged, and concentrated on his banana. The run, the shower, the balm, all starting to dissipate.
“Are you still feeling it?” Kip asked.
“Bit. Leg’s okay, but once in awhile, a little tweek in the ribs, if I push it.” He pursed his lips. “So I push it, and it goes away. Almost all gone.”
Kip nodded. “That’s good. What about work?”
“You asked that. It’s fine.” Annoyed.
“Uh-huh. Not what I hear.”
“And what do you hear?”
“You’re there, but you’re not.”
Alan bit into his banana. “So what’s this, an intervention?”
“Don’t be an asshole. Why are you like his? Why are you not talking to me?”
“I’m not ‘not talking to you’.”
Kip glanced at the notebook. “What the fuck, man. You writing a manifesto? And I quote: ‘What if everything resonates? What happens then’?”
“I said it was private.”
“Since when have you ever been private with me? Why are you keeping this to yourself?”
Alan sighed, but didn’t say a word.
“You know, I’m the one pushing back. When someone says ‘Alan’s changed’, or ‘he’s not the same’, I’m the one telling them to fuck off, give him space. Yet I’m the one getting shrugs. Because you won’t say anything.”
“Whaddya want me to say?”
“Talk at me.”
Alan rearranged coasters on the coffee table. Then he shrugged. Again.
They still hung out, but it was always at a distance, because there was always something going on in that head of his. Kip knew enough not to push, but it was tough. How do you help someone who doesn’t want it, or even think they need it? How do you talk to someone who doesn’t communicate?
So he kept at it, always being there, even if Alan wasn’t.
For once, they were having a good time.
Shooting pool in Bumpers, low-key place at the back of a local mall. Not really a serious game, but drinks on the line. Kip was a better natural shot, but Alan knew how to work the angles.
“Corner.”
“You make that, I’ll grant you sexual favours,” Kip said.
Alan missed on purpose, and they both laughed. Kip leaned in and ran three balls to end the game, then joined his brother at a cruiser table set against the wall.
It had been Alan’s idea to come here, a pleasant surprise. He seemed more relaxed lately, looser, probably a good thing figuring how tightly wound he had been for the last few months. They nursed their drinks in silence, watching the gameplay on other tables. Enjoying the moment.
Then Alan asked, “Remember Scott Thompson?”
“Sure.” Kip grinned. “Your first fight.”
“My first tussle,” Alan corrected. “I was ten. It was more like rolling around for awhile and I ended up on top.”
“But you kicked his ass. I saw it.”
“I always thought he was stronger than me. It was the first time I realized ‘hey, I can handle this’. It was big deal.” He paused, took a sip. “How about when Dad died?”
Kip looked at him. Their father’s death hit both of them hard, but it was a long time ago. “Uh-huh,” Kip said guardedly.
“Tough for both of us.”
Kip frowned. “Yes, it was.” His brother was going somewhere with this, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see where it was headed. “What’s up? Dad? Scott Thompson?”
Alan shrugged. He stood, went back to the pool table. He racked the balls, then settled in to shoot. His concentration was something to behold, his engineer’s analytical mind checking the angles, figuring the spin, all the things Kip just ignored when he shot.
His brother sank one, no surprise. Then he said one word, big surprise.
“Jill.”
Kip frowned, unsure of what to say. Finally, “Your choice, man. It was your decision”.
It was his decision.
She was smart, full of life, and he found out very quickly that the sex was terrific. New job, new apartment, and she was the new neighbour.
The two of them hit it off, and they fell into a quick, summer affair. Turned out that she had a sort-of boyfriend, but the operative phrase was ‘sort of’: he was on the other side of the world for the next year, saving humanity from itself. But they ‘had an understanding’: they would live their own lives for now, but at some point, they would get back together. The closest thing to an engagement without being engaged. Even their families were in on it.
That was fine with him, and maybe it even made things better: no pressure, no commitments, just some vague ‘understanding’ for the future.
She was fun, they were fun, and all of a sudden, it was seven months later, and they were still going strong. They didn’t talk about the other reality, that there was sort-of someone else, and gradually it had faded into the background.
Until: “I got a note.”
The week before Christmas, and they were curled up in a warm bed on cold Sunday morning. There had been occasional ‘notes’ before, but this was different.
“And?”
She took a breath. “He wants me to come for a visit. He’d pay for the trip.”
Alan knew it wouldn’t be just a casual visit; there was more to it than that. Still, they had been together for awhile now, and he knew she liked it as much as he did.
“And what did you say?”
She exhaled. “I haven’t.” Then she looked at him. “What do you think? Should I go?” And of course, the question wasn’t about the trip, was it?
She watched him, eyes intense. He had a sense of worlds in motion, of a fundamental turning point in his life, in their life, all there for the taking. Or not.
And he said, “Up to you. I think you should go.” He saw the disappointment in her eyes, and he felt terrible. And then everything shifted.
The moment had come back to him occasionally, over the years. Why had he said it? Because he didn’t know, because he was - not afraid of commitment, just not ready for it? Or maybe it was because he thought there was a contest, and this way he wouldn’t have to risk losing? Or on that day, he just felt cranky? All he knew was that everything had changed, the relationship, the trajectory of what might have been.
So she went, and then came back, and when he picked her up at the airport, she said, oh so quietly, “We’ve decided we’re going to make a go of it. When he gets back.” Watching him as she said it.
And he just nodded.
They stayed together for another couple of months, and she even helped him move to another job in another city and anyway, her guy was coming back, so what was the point? ‘Her guy’? What the fuck was that all about?
They parted as friends, as ex-lovers, so fucking civilized and a part of him wondered why he had been such an idiot.
But it was, after all, his decision.
“Ya, well, my decision.” He shot again, and missed.
Kip didn’t say anything, because he knew anyway. The self-doubt, the emotional wreckage. Seven years on, and the effects still lingered. Alan had girlfriends and girl friends, but he still hadn’t found anyone who moved him the same way she had. Even if the decision had been his.
So Kip wasn’t going to make a comment. About that, anyway. He said, “Okay. So?” Alan would know that the next part of the sentence was ‘what’s this got to do with anything’?
“So…” Alan’s voice trailed off. He stared at the pool table, fighting that emotional catch people get when they are trying to compose themselves.
“So. Scott kicked my ass. Dad got better, for awhile.” The slightest of pauses. “Jill and I made a go of it.”
Kip stared at him. They had always been able to figure out what the other was thinking, picking up threads of conversations even weeks later. But this one, not so much. Which made yet another time it had happened in the last few months.
Kip shook his head. “I’m not getting it.”
“The things I remembered.” He said it casually, as if it didn’t mean anything. Then, “When I fell.”
Kip stared. What to hell did that mean? He saw Alan marshalling his thoughts, and he cocked his head; this was going to be good. Then his brother started to speak.
It was the most amazing thing, his life flashing by in a heartbeat, while playing out in hyper-real slow motion. So clear and yet so different: Scott Thompson, rolling off with a smirk, triumphant, instead of getting his ass handed to him; his father laughing wryly that he still had a few more years left, instead of dying; and Jill, nestling in with the comfort of starting their life together. Instead of not.
It was all there, so vivid that he remembered remembering when he finally floated back into the real world in a quiet hospital room. But the memories were still there. Different, but still just as clear. And there had to be a reason for it.
When he got out of the hospital, he dove right in, reading everything he could - articles, research, even the white-light stuff. He read about electro-chemical brainstorms during trauma, thoughts and emotions in overdrive, processing, making connections, threading the line between life or death, all in split-second slices of time and consciousness.
And consciousness seemed to be the key. The research kept coming back to it, the way consciousness layered on itself, memories within memories, the brain trying to make sense of a fragmented world. He remembered it all, the fight with Scott Thompson, Dad, Jill; reality layered on reality, shocking, profound, and very real.
Alan stopped, looked at Kip. “So that’s it. That’s what I’ve been… dealing with. Since… you know.”
Kip was uncharacteristically silent. When he finally spoke, it was a rarity: the quiet, thoughtful Kip. “See, I get it, sort of. It’s about things that happened and people you know. But it’s… There’s gotta be a reason for it. I don’t know, fever dreams, maybe?”
Alan shrugged. “You know those times when everything is perfect? You’re doing something, or you’re with someone, and all of a sudden something flips up here.” He tapped his skull. “Everything clicks, everything fits, there is… . you just feel good, about life, about everything?”
Kip nodded. “Sure, we all have them sometimes.”
“Psychologists call them ‘peak experiences’, but to me they’re ‘golden moments’. Call it ‘nirvana’, whatever you want – they’re things you always remember because they’re so… transcendent. They resonate through your entire life.” He paused, looked away. “So. Maybe that’s what I remembered. Golden moments. Things that just punched through everything because they were so incandescent.”
“Even though they didn’t happen.”
“But they might have.”
Kip gave him a look of utter confusion. “Wha..?”
Alan looked away. “Ya, well, I wanted to know it all, so I read it all. Everything.”
Kip waited. When Alan didn’t say anything, Kip prodded. “Don’t be a pussy. I’m dying to hear this.”
Alan shrugged. He walked around the table, checking the angles, lining things up. But his mind wasn’t on the game; he was looking into the middle distance of his thoughts.
He had read it all, had analyzed what made sense and what didn’t. The memories were so real, and so specific, that they couldn’t just be imagination or hallucination or regret of things that could have been.
Finally: “See, here’s the thing, and they all say it in different ways. The more we know, the more we don’t know, about how we think, about time, about the way the universe works. Consciousness isn’t something we can touch and examine and take apart, but it’s there. Deja vu is the brain remembering that it remembered? What’s that all about?”
He shook his head. “We make this decision or that decision, but all other possibilities are right there, all the time. Those possibilities actually exist, because we think them. At any moment, it could be this, it could be that. Or neither, or both. We’re just starting to realize that things can happen here and there at the same time, wherever there is.” He shrugged.
Kip gave him a look that bordered on distain. “Really? You’re going there?” He sighed, resigned. “And?”
“See, it’s not as if things resonate in only one direction. If something resonates today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life - maybe it resonates back the other way, too. So maybe I remembered what didn’t happen, but could have. Scott, dad, Jill, I remembered all those possibilities.”
“Even though they didn’t happen. But could have.”
After a pause, Alan nodded.
Kip had always been impressed by his brother’s rigorous thinking. That analytical mind of his quartered things down bit by bit, isolating problems, seeking the source. When it made sense.
But he always went further, beyond facts and figures and equations and outcomes, into conjecture, into weird. And his favourite ‘weird’ had always been wondering what lay just past the realm of the physical, the touchable. Which was where this was headed right now.
“So now what happens?” Kip tried to keep the resignation out of his voice. He wondered if his brother was sliding away from him. Alan had been through a life-altering trauma, and maybe that life had permanently changed. He was wandering some pretty odd pathways, and Kip didn’t know where they might lead. He suspected Alan didn’t, either.
So it surprised him when his brother said, “Nothing happens. Because it doesn’t matter. I’m here, now.” He stopped, thoughtful. “The one thing, though, I do wonder about: what does it mean?”
That was the only catch. If memory, if life resonated in both directions, how did that manifest? What were the consequences?
“Other than being fucked up, I don’t know.”
“Said the man whose world view is that we live, then we die.”
“Your point?”
Alan shrugged. “There ain’t no point. And that’s the point. I understand that I don’t understand. Something you think now has resonance back then? Nu-uh.” He looked down at the table. “I’m here, now. Living the life I have, not whatever might have been. Or could have been.”
He looked for a shot, a simple one. Checked the angles, checked the possibilities. Made it, straight into the corner pocket.
Kip read his brother’s face. Settled, at peace. Not haunted. Not living in the past. “Hello, stranger,” he said quietly. He made a show of checking his watch. “How long has it been? Six months?”
“Fuck you and your ugly horse.”
They were in bed, about as content as he had ever been in his life. A string of Christmas lights lined the window; outside, snow was falling. Cheap basement apartment with a wheezy heater, but they were living in a Hallmark card.
Jill sat up and adjusted the duvet. Nesting. She took a breath, and tensed, just a little. “I got a note.”
The sound of the heater fell away; the silence opened up.
“And?”
She hesitated, surprising because she wasn’t the hesitant type. Finally, “He wants me to come for a visit. He’d pay for the trip.”
Alan pulled up beside her, aware of her scent, of her stillness. They both knew this moment would come, but over the last few months they had enjoyed each other’s company so much that they compartmentalized it, packed it away for some time in the future. Which had just arrived.
He nodded. “And what did you say?”
“I haven’t.” Then she looked at him. “What do you think?” She paused. “Should I go?” She watched him, watched everything, his eyes, his focus, his intent.
And what was his intent? Alan didn’t really know, but he saw it all, Jill flying to the other side of the world, renewing a promise she had made before they had even met, before the light and heat. And who knew, when she got back they might even remain friends, at least for awhile, until it inevitably petered out and faded into memory.
He felt the words rising, ‘Maybe you should go’, because he honestly didn’t know. He really liked her, but there would be others, because there were always others. Although he wasn’t sure he could feel this way about anyone else.
He felt it all, everything opening up, free to do whatever he wanted with his life, and he surprised himself by saying, “I don’t want you to go.”
She looked at him, eyes wide. She kept her composure, at first. Until he added, “I don’t want you to go, because I love you and you love me, right here, right now.”
Then she dissolved, and he dissolved, the past, present and future seeming to come together in one golden moment. No doubts, no regrets, everything crystal clear, as if remembering something that hadn’t even happened yet.
Tom New