Chapter 14 Skye #2
I take a long inhale. “When I was a kid and we first moved here, my dad, mom, and I used to walk this trail together. There’s more of a proper park a little ways farther.
My mother and father were fighting that day.
Once they started yelling, I ran away. They didn’t fight often—hardly ever, really—but when they did, it scared me.
Anyway, when I ran, I found this spot. It was a day like today, with heavy mist. I was throwing rocks into the water and watching the ripples.
One of the ripples kept getting larger and larger.
A huge silhouette came out of the water and then crashed back in with a massive splash. ”
Miles let out a breath, like he had been holding it while I was talking. “Whoa. That’s amazing.”
I smile. Miles listens with his whole body, leaning in, eyes locking on mine. It’s intoxicating.
“Did it surface again?”
“No. My mom found me after that, and we all went home.”
“What were they fighting about?”
I’ve told this story to a handful of people over the years, and no one has ever asked me what my parents were fighting about that day. It makes me reach back through my memory for it. “I don’t really remember.”
Miles nods. “It must be hard to have a singing career and a young family.”
“She’d given it up by then.”
Would it have been that hard? I know my mom traveled a lot when she was a singer, but if it was her dream, it seems like my parents should’ve been able to work it out. She shouldn’t have had to give up all of it to make peace. I shift on the log but don’t say anything.
Miles clears his throat. “Sorry. I just assumed that’s what you meant. Not that I would know. I mean, I have a demanding career, but I haven’t had any serious relationships to try to juggle during it.”
Miles is, well, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, he’s friendly, and he seems to crave company. I can’t figure out why he hasn’t had any serious relationships. It surprises me so much that I ask, “Why not?”
Miles rubs his hands on his pants. “Oh, um…”
“It’s none of my business.”
“No, it's fine. I met a girl on the set of a movie. She was gorgeous, and we just hit it off. But she wasn’t a one-man kind of girl, it turned out, and I…” Miles pauses, his eyes scanning the water, which is getting darker as the clouds roll in.
He sighs before continuing, “I didn’t see it coming.
It hit me harder than I expected. I pictured a whole life with her.
I really thought we were meant to be together.
For a while, a couple of years at least, I held hope that she would come back.
I sent her gifts, emails, texts. But she wasn’t in love with me. ”
Miles's face is turned toward the hills, his jaw clenched. I don’t know what to say. “That’s awful.”
He half smiles. “You know what the worst part is? I wasted all that time on a fantasy.”
I run my hand along the log we’re sitting on, feeling the coarse bark under my fingertips as I consider his words. But I’m not sure how to take them. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just, I met other women—nice, stable, accomplished women—during the years following Lana.
And I still clung to this hope that she would come back.
We weren’t even together very long. I just had it so set in my head we were meant to be.
I squandered real-life chances at love, while what I had with Lana…
” He shakes his head. “None of it was real.”
“But none of it’s ever real.”
“What?”
“Love.” A gust of wind blows my hair off my face, and bright-yellow leaves rustle on the ground.
I cross my arms over my chest to try to warm up and contain my thoughts, but they spill out anyway.
“Even when feelings are reciprocated, someone always loves the other person more. Someone is either left pining with a broken heart or has to contort themselves to fit in the confines of the other person’s expectations. ”
Miles lets out a chuckle as he picks up a leaf by his foot. “Gee, tell me what you really think.”
I scrunch my nose. “Obviously, I have a lot of opinions on the subject.”
“But weren’t you reading a romance novel the other day?”
I shrug. “I used to read Peter Pan as a child. That doesn’t mean I believe in faeries.”
Miles looks at me with warm eyes, twirling the leaf between his pointer finger and thumb idly. “What a shame. But you believe in Nessie?”
“I’m a believe-it-when-I-see-it type of person. I saw Nessie. I don’t necessarily believe she’s a sea monster, but something is out there.”
“So I’m assuming, after that speech, you aren’t in a relationship?”
I shake my head.
“Were you the one left pining or the one contorting?”
I laugh. “I’m that transparent, huh?”
Miles shrugs and lets his little leaf fall to the ground. “Shot in the dark.”
“I was both, turns out.”
“Ah, a classic overachiever.”
I’m about to retort when a ripple breaks the surface of the water. Miles jumps up and runs to the edge of the loch. I follow, adrenaline pumping through me. Could it be Nessie? I’ve come here almost weekly since that day when I first saw her and never spotted a hint of her again.
As I get closer, I see it clearly.
Miles is still watching intensely as the creature dips below the surface.
We both stand silent for a minute, and I’m just about to explain, when Miles lets out a massive whoop of pure joy.
He turns to me like we’re at a football game about to high-five after a hat trick, but instead of holding up his hand, he picks me square up off the ground and spins me around.
The world whirls by in streaks of blue, gray, and golden yellow. The only thing that is steady is the massive smile on Miles’s face.
He puts me down and leans in close. I mirror him, and before I fully register the implications of any of this, I put my mouth on his.
His lips are pillows, and I sink into them like a sleep-deprived maniac.
I can’t get enough. He tastes of coffee and something a little sweet, almost like he had cinnamon toast for lunch.
I open my mouth, needing to decipher the taste, needing more.
He opens his mouth to let me in, and a moan erupts from somewhere deep in my belly.
It’s an animal noise, and it startles me so much I pull away.
I put my hand to my mouth as if I could shield the kiss there forever, as if the mist is threatening to snatch it back into the ether.
Miles turns toward the loch, and says, “I can’t believe it. We saw Nessie.”
“Miles…” I almost don’t want to burst his bubble, but my mouth keeps going. Apparently, it has a mind of its own today. “It was a seal.”
“A seal? No. It’s a lake. It can’t be a seal.”
“They hang out in the loch a fair bit. They come in from the river.”
As if on cue, the seal pops his little head up, closer this time, and swims around. We watch for a while as it glides effortlessly through the water, then dips down and disappears below the surface.