Savor It

Chapter 34. Sage

I try to stop and soak up the scene on the beach, to close my eyes and hear the cheerful sounds, to look around at this whole place that’s shown up for me. To savor it down to my bones. I think even if we hadn’t “won,” this alone would’ve made me realize what a victor I am.

When the rest of the Spunes racers cross the finish line, too, we keep the celebration going. Ian and Cassidy make their way directly to us, and Fisher pulls me into his side.

“Congratulations,” Cassidy says, though it’s obvious she’s struggling not to break into a sob. I give her a tight squeeze.

Ian grasps my hand after he shakes Fisher’s, too. “Good work, Byrd,” he says to me. “You earned it.”

“No shit, Ian,” I say with gumption, patting his hand. “And thanks.”

I spend the rest of the day in my dirty, smelly, salty-wet clothes, enjoying garbage carnival foods like corn dogs and funnel cakes with my Michelin-starred love. I indulge myself with him and all the little favorite things I’ve loved to partake in over the years, and some I’ve never been able to before. I do my first photo booth session with a man that I love. I dance barefoot on the blacktop with him that night, under the lights strung up around the new restaurant patio.

When we get home later, we don’t rush into bed together, instead taking turns to greet and love on all the animals we missed so much over the past week. When I leave the barn and find Fisher in the goat house, he’s fallen asleep with Bert and Ernie in his lap. And maybe it’s the exhaustion of the day finally catching all the way up, but I have to cover my mouth and swallow back a cry at the sight. It’s like the cruelest tease of the life we might’ve had, if our paths had found a way to converge. Instead, I know this loop is coming to an end, and I have to find a way to appreciate it for the beautiful maze it’s been.

We allow ourselves six more days of blissed-out and now after the festival ends. No worries or talk of the future, even though they are supposed to leave on day eight. Just Fisher bringing me a snack in the garden, now. Indy lying in the grass with Gary keeping vigil, now. Fisher running after one of the goats when he escapes from his pen, hauling him back under his arm like a chastised child. Legoless rubbing against Fisher’s chin at the breakfast table. Fisher opening the sunroom door at 12:01, sometimes to make me see stars, other times to lie together and look at the moon.

It’s day seven that things start to slip.

“What if,” he starts to say. “What if we tried long distance for a while?”

His question only leads me to more. “With what in mind? When would it become… not long distance?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m not sure.” A million more loops take shape in my mind—like, what if Indy decides to leave after she finishes high school, would he want to come here then, to live? Could I make it three years, and would he still want the same things?

I blow out a torn sigh, remembering Silas still in his hospital bed and how fleeting life can be. I imagine living for phone calls and FaceTimes and scattered trips. Never living for the present. Always waiting, always anxious for the next time. I can’t expect promises from him, either. How could he give up or severely downgrade his career, limiting himself by staying? I can’t ask that of him, either, not when he’s as brilliant as he is. He deserves to get that back for himself, to conquer his own win again.

I think of one of those articles I’d read when I broke down and googled him all those weeks ago, how he’d talked about wanting to hit Pause on the inevitable. I think that might be what this is, too. Once he’s actually away, it will all unravel eventually.

I’ll think that giving him space will make it easier to keep him. I’ll act fine when phone calls go missed or get rescheduled, because I won’t want to waste any of our time fighting or on any negativity. He’ll think I’m apathetic instead. Or maybe it will all be the other way around. I don’t know.

I think trying to stave off the inevitable would only make it worse in this case. I can’t imagine not having him and feeling like I’m continually losing him, over and over. I’d rather savor this wonderful thing we have, for what we have left.

“I can’t,” I say, voice so empty it sounds like a breath. I look around at my parents’ house and all my displaced animals, and for a moment, I regret hemming myself in.

He shuts his eyes, but nods in understanding.

Another loop: What if he asked me to come with him? People who work in New York live in other states, right? Maybe I could bring the farm somewhere out there? Even as I spin up in the thought, something breaks in me at it. I love my home.

I think if he asked, though, I wouldn’t be able to refuse him. Part of me wonders if he knows this, too, and that’s why he won’t.

That night, he doesn’t come to the sunroom.