Chapter 31 Rachel
Currently playing: Sunday Kind of Love by Etta James
***
The last month with Adam had flown by.
I was getting pretty good at running. Well, I thought so, anyway. Adam said I looked less and less like a baby deer the more we trained. I guess, somehow, that encouraged me. Either way, I hadn’t hit that “runner’s high” thing yet, but I was getting into a routine. We’d bike in the early mornings, watching the sun rise as a cascade of yellow, orange, and purple formed around us, his short hair barely moving in the wind while mine flew all over the place like it had a mind of its own. We’d both laugh going downhill and cringe going up. In the evenings, we ran. Before dinner, as the sun was setting, those same yellows, oranges, and purples from the morning dying before us. We listened to my training to become a war hero playlist, and Adam profusely reminded me that I should stop calling him sir when he gave me directions. To which I said yes, sir.
We had our routines. He made my coffee the way I like. I baked sourdough bread the way he wanted. I watched over his house when he would go help Crew with his truck. He would feed Myrtle when I didn’t have the chance to. Eventually he volunteered to take over her care. The next day, he fed her and made his own discard protein waffles before I was even awake. Next thing I knew, he’d written her name in a scraggly font on the lid of the mason jar. When I asked about it, he said in case we get confused. Which was essentially the equivalent of the dad who never wanted the dog but was now buying the brand name food for it, along with an abundance of toys it didn’t need.
We were still checking off other items on the bucket list. A couple of weeks ago, Adam went to the gym—because biking and running every day clearly weren’t enough—and left a new Polaroid camera on the kitchen counter. Next to the white camera and several packs of film, he left a note. Take more pics. With a little check mark next to it. He was really, really cute.
I took a selfie with it, holding up the note and cheesing brightly at the camera, before sticking the photo on the fridge. I fully expected to come home from work and see it gone from the spotless stainless-steel appliance. Instead, he had added to it. A picture of my headphones sitting on top of my dragon romance book. The caption written below in black Sharpie read Little weirdo.
I cackled when I saw it, so I took a picture of his perfectly straightened shoes at the door and put it right next to hiswith the caption Big weirdo. We both laughed at it over coffee the next morning. Our fridge was now almost covered, and part of me was sad that we were going to run out of space soon. I’d need to get some kind of photo album eventually.
Summer was winding down as if it hadn’t just started. The hot July mornings were now turning into cooler late-August evenings, and the smell of freshly cut grass was slowly being replaced with the smell of fallen leaves. Transitional as it was, Adam was always steady. My one constant.
This evening, I sat on the floor in front of his sectional, on a rug—which he claimed he had been meaning to buy for a while, when in reality, it bothered him that he didn’t have one when I enjoyed sitting on the floor so much—testing various records. After my recent raise—thank you, Poppi—I splurged and bought some vinyls at an expo downtown. I dragged Adam with me, initially looking for things for the store, seeing if there was anything I could grab to display there. But I should have known it was more for myself than anything.
Adam didn’t argue or complain, and every now and then, he’d ask a little question like Why is that one so special? Or Do you have to have a certain kind of turntable for it to work? Is that what they’re even called? Turntables? He listened intently to each answer, a kid clinging to his best friend’s words. The glimmer of innocence shined in his eyes, and it was utterly adorable.
I ended up with five records. Two Fleetwood Mac, one CCR, one Crowded House, and a final Alice Cooper single. Yet my mind kept going back to the one I left behind. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The song itself was a classic, of course, but the artwork on the cover was what I needed. The pastels would have matched perfectly with my mahogany Fluance player, the perfect mix of dark and light.
I flipped the Crowded House vinyl between my fingers, settling for it instead, before placing it carefully on the player and letting the needle fall. “Mean to Me” strummed around me, and I settled in to it, my shoulders relaxing and my chest loosening.
The back door opened and shut. Perfect timing. Adam seemed to come home at the same time every day if he could help it. Occasionally he would get caught up with one of his brothers and come home, squeeze me like we hadn’t seen each other mere hours before, and ask me how my day was. He was ten minutes later than usual today. His boots smacked the ground, followed by the sound of him immediately straightening them.
I smiled to myself. “I’m in here!” I called from my designated floor spot.
Adam didn’t answer, but I could hear his slow steps approaching around the corner. He met my eyes, no slight pull of his lips, no quick walk to squeeze me. He didn’t look upset or distraught, more so…distant. Like he hadn’t slept well the night before.
“What’s up?” I leaned my head back, grinning wide-eyed his way.
He stayed silent, eyes focused on the album cover in my lap.
“Uh-oh. The circus called. They want their lion tamer back,” I joked, but he didn’t even flinch. Just kept staring.
“Adam? You’re freaking me out.”
“I, um—” He cleared his throat and shook his head, taking a couple of steps toward me before settling on the chair off to the side. Not to his normal spot next to me on the recliner. He usually liked to sit behind me while I stayed on the floor. His fingers would brush through my hair, playing with the ends like a curious child. It almost always ended up with me falling asleep, head leaned against his spread muscled thighs.
His eyes lifted to mine, and there was something unspoken in them. Something that, by the droop of his shoulders and the corners of his lips pulling down, I wasn’t ready to hear. I lifted my head up and tilted it to the side before he said the worst sentence I could have prepared myself for.
“I have to leave early for Hurlburt Field.”
Hurlburt Field…as in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As in he was leaving me early to go back to his job full of saving lives and constantly tossing himself into danger.
I blinked a few times and scrunched my eyebrows together. No. No, no, no. I still had three more weeks before he had to go back. We were supposed to keep training for the race. We still had to practice swimming. We still had things to finish on the bucket list. I was supposed to stay in this euphoric bliss for at least another three weeks.
“Oh.” I sank into my seat as the “Don’t Dream It’s Over” began. I was too shocked to notice the irony. “Like…leave leave?”
He nodded solemnly. “They called me in early. One of the other guys got injured on the job, and they needed someone to cover. I’m the only one left on call.”
It wasn’t his fault. I knew that. But that didn’t stop my heart from wanting to beg him to stay. Beg him to tell them no and to find some other job, find a career that meant we could wake up to coffee each morning and fall asleep on the couch each evening since neither of us wanted to be the first to say good night.
My jaw ticked. “So, so you’re just going to leave me here? To go run off to Florida with the alligators and tan women in teeny tiny bikinis? Where you’ll be wearing your hot uniform, and I’ll be up here alone, running by myself with no one to make pasta for?”
His lip pulled a bit as he shifted forward, leaning over his bouncing knee. “I guess? Although I will avoid women in bikinis and alligators as much as I can.”
I scoffed. Women were going to flock to him. He was a walking magnet. Even though he proudly wore my ring, that wouldn’t deter some of those women. My face scrunched.
Adam sighed. “Please don’t be mad at me, Stevie.”
Mad wasn’t the word for it. How could I be mad at a man who’d sacrificed so much for me and my dad? It was just…wrong to hear him say he had to leave. I wasn’t meant to handle that part on my own. I was supposed to have a month to prepare for his departure and be able to dissociate myself in a mature manner. But I was far from dissociated. I was…associated? I didn’t know the word for it, but we were there, and I didn’t have time to turn back. I was far too gone for this man for him to up and leave.
I sniffed and slumped back in my chair. “I just really, really don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t either. I really, really don’t.” He leaned forward, ducking his head so he could catch my eyes. “Most times, I’m not exactly excited to go out, but this time…This time feels harder. To leave.”
This time was different. The last time he was in Florida, for one, I was mad at him, and two, we weren’t…anything. Not really, anyway. Not like this. Before Vegas, it was never like this between us, so easy and natural. Fun, flirty, and yet…purposeful. Meaningful in the way that everything he did, he did with me in mind. Everything I did seemed to revolve around him. We were finding this new groove, or rhythm, or whatever you wanted to call it, and it was perfect. It was finally working for our good, and the cycle was going to break when he left. How hard was it going to be to get it back when he came home?
“C’mere.” He opened his arms, and I gladly walked into them.
He cradled me into his chest and wrapped one arm under my knees, bending them into his lap as his other arm rested on my back with slow, smooth strokes of his hand. I rested my head just under his chin, my shaky breath against his collarbone.
“When do you leave?”
His hands stopped. “Saturday.”
Two days.I only had two full days with him like this.
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say. It wasn’t like he was leaving forever. I knew that. The other trips he took had flown by, and who knows? He may be sent home earlier than those last ones. There was no way for me to know, so it made sense for us to flip this switch and enjoy the time we still had left. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to sulk. I wanted to sit in Adam’s strong arms all night and never let him out of this chair.
My brain started rattling off all the things I was going to miss about him. His scent in the mornings, our chats over coffee, falling asleep on the couch together with our legs intertwined, taking pictures and putting them on the fridge, even running. Running…Was he going to miss the race?
I sat up from his chest alarmingly fast. His eyes widened at me. “When are you coming ba—”
“I’ll be here for it. Two days before the race is when I should be back.”
Should be.Because there was never any guarantee with him. He was trying to set low expectations now, when he should have done that months ago before picking up the role of world’s best husband. I nodded and settled back into his warmth. He continued rubbing my back, and my heart rate came back down to a somewhat normal pace.
“I’ll do my best to be there, honey. If I have to fly a plane there myself, I will be there,” he gruffly whispered in my ear. “With a sign in my hand, and even if you wanted me to shout your name, I would.”
I smiled at the thought. A loud Adam—which was an oxymoron itself—screaming for me at the finish line with a giant poster. He wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t make him. I knew where his comfort zone was, and I didn’t like pushing him outside of it, but the thought was incredibly sweet.
“So.” I sighed into his chest.
“So,” he repeated.
“What do we do now?”
His hands froze at my back and then squeezed me closer, if that was even possible. “Let me hold you like this a little longer.” His fingers flexed against my skin. “Just a little longer.”