Chapter Eighteen
The Man Who Walked Away
Shane
Present
“You would go to Mars?!” Ariana asked, jaw popped open.
“You wouldn’t?!”
“No!” She laughed, staring at me like I was insane. “Absolutely not.”
“Not under any circumstance?”
“I can’t think of even one.”
I sat up in the hammock we were sharing, one that was sprawled between two tree trunks on the edge of the University of Tampa campus where it hugged the Hillsborough River. Boats and kayaks passed us as we swung, Curtis Hixon Park alive with activity across the river from where we sat.
The hammock was large, but it didn’t matter the size.
It was still impossible to put much space between us.
Even when we tried, the way the hammock hung pushed us back to the middle, our thighs touching, Ariana’s hands wrapped tightly together in her lap like she was afraid to accidentally brush mine.
“Not even if you were ninety-nine years old, slowly dying, and they offered you the chance to be the first to go?”
Ariana considered it. “No, not even then.”
“Why on Earth would you say no to that?!”
“Because I’d want to spend my last moments with the people I love,” she answered simply. “With Georgie.”
“And Nathan,” I finished for her.
She flushed a deep red. We’d somehow managed not to talk about him all day. “Yes, and Nathan. I wouldn’t want to be alone. Wouldn’t you feel the same?”
I sat back again, bringing our bodies closer together. My eyes wandered to the water in front of us. “I’m pretty good at being alone.”
That quieted us both, but I quickly cleared my throat and laughed it off.
“Besides, I’ve watched too many space documentaries and read too many books not to be curious enough to say fuck it. If I’m going to die anyway, might as well die among the stars.”
“It would be cool to see Earth from space,” Ariana conceded.
“Just a marble floating around,” I mused. “Puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”
My day with Ariana was flying by as quickly as I anticipated.
I knew just having one day with her wouldn’t be enough, but I didn’t know how easy it would be to talk to her the way I used to, to catch up and hear about who she was now.
I reveled in anything she gave me — how she liked her coffee now, how she’d become a big fan of sushi, how she’d ended up at the same party as Michael Jordan once by happenstance.
Some things didn’t sit right with me, like the gaps she wouldn’t fill about why she never ended up pursuing her career in social work.
She’d had gigs within the space, that was for certain, but it was like her path was interrupted somehow.
Of course, she hadn’t stopped working in the nonprofit sector, but it had changed, her work tied up with her husband’s.
Which makes sense, you idiot, I chastised myself internally. Of course their lives would intertwine.
I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t like it.
I was sure it had something to do with the fact that I’d always imagined me in her life, and this didn’t fit any picture I’d had in my head.
“I can’t imagine going to college here,” Ariana said, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled at a group of college kids passing by us.
Two of them held blankets under their arms and the third had a Frisbee.
They traipsed past us, oblivious to the world before setting up camp a few yards away.
“It’s kind of like Boston,” I mused. “On the water, a city with its own vibe.”
“It’s a lot warmer,” Ariana pointed out.
“And has beaches.”
“But no train.”
“And no North End.”
She groaned at that. “What a shame. Poor kids. I actually feel sorry for them now.”
I smiled, taking in her profile. This woman had aged so goddamn beautifully it hurt.
Every soft line on her face, the weathered skin of her hands — all of it told a story.
I could close my eyes and envision her laughter, her time in the sunshine, all the nonprofits she’d worked for, all the memories she’d made with Georgie.
She was so strong. She’d fought so hard for the life she had now.
I ached to be a part of it in a way I didn’t deserve.
“I got you something,” I said after a moment. “At the market.”
“What? How? I was with you the whole time.”
“When you went to the bathroom,” I answered easily. “Close your eyes.”
“Shane.” She laughed.
“Oh, just do it.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, but she was smiling when she finally did as I asked.
“Hold out your hands.”
Even with her eyes closed, I could tell she rolled them, but then she plopped her hands out.
I dug into my pocket, fishing out the delicate gift wrapped in tissue paper. I unwrapped it and then pressed it into her palm.
“Okay, open.”
She peeked one eye open and then the next, gaze drifting from me down to what she held in her hands.
A wooden page holder.
“Wait, is this…?” She smiled, holding the trinket up and tilting it this way and that.
“A page holder,” I answered, taking it from her long enough to show her the hole through the middle. I took her hand in mine without hesitation, sliding her thumb through the hole to demonstrate. “So you can hold your paperback open with one hand.”
She let out the most pleased laugh, soft and light, and then pulled the device closer to inspect it. She ran the fingertips of her opposite hand over the script engraving that read just one more chapter.
“How do you know I even read anymore?” she asked, arching a brow at me. “We haven’t talked about that. Maybe I haven’t read in years.”
I scoffed. “Please. If you were breathing, you were reading. No way could you live without books.”
I smiled wide, my cheeks flushing at the truth of it.
“I still remember the ugly look you gave me when I borrowed your copy of Meditations and returned it not in perfect shape,” he said.
“You had bent, like, twenty page corners!”
“I was highlighting the ones I liked most!”
We both laughed, the two sounds mingling to create my favorite old song.
After a beat, Ariana shifted on the hammock, then leaned back slightly, bracing herself with her hands before letting her shoulders rest against the fabric. Her feet stayed on the ground, but her posture relaxed, gaze tipping up toward the sky above us.
I followed her lead a second later, the hammock creaking softly as I reclined beside her, the late-afternoon sun warm on my face. There were clouds in the distance now, slowly rolling in.
She lifted the small wooden page holder toward the sky, holding it up like she was sighting something far away through the hole in its center.
“I still have that, you know,” she said. “Marcus Aurelius always seems to know what to say to calm me when my mind starts spinning.” She turned her head to say something else — and stopped.
Because I was already looking at her.
The moment stretched, quiet and charged. Her pupils flared just slightly, her breath catching before she smoothed it out, and I felt the shift in the space between us as clearly as if she’d reached for my hand.
“Sometimes, I open up to one of the pages you tabbed and try to figure out which one spoke to you,” she admitted softly.
My throat was tight with my next swallow. She’d held onto me, too.
We were so close, our eyes searching one another, our breaths shallow. There was an aching heaviness between us that I wanted so badly to point out, but was afraid I’d lose the day entirely if I acknowledged its existence.
“Well, now you can just ask me,” I said.
The corner of her lips twitched and fell. “I guess I can, can’t I?”
I could have stared at her forever. I could have let the sun set and the night take the city and stayed right there in that hammock with her.
Unfortunately, the moment was cut entirely too short by the clearing of a throat behind us.
Ariana and I scrambled to sit up in the hammock and peeked up over the side to find a young college student, barefoot and holding a notebook under his arm.
“Um… that’s my hammock, dude.”
I turned to Ariana, whose brows shot up into her hairline, and then we both burst out laughing.
· · ·
An hour later, after having a beer each at Sail Bar, Ariana and I walked the riverwalk from the convention center toward Curtis Hixon Park, our paper bags from the market swinging on either side of us. The sun was setting on the day I’d asked for, and I felt greed swelling in my chest.
I wanted more.
I wanted another day with her. I wanted a night. I wanted a week and a month and a year after that.
It would never be enough, no amount of time I had with her. I could never know all I wanted to know. I could never hear her laugh enough to satiate me. I could never find enough excuses to touch the small of her back or slide my hand into hers.
I knew this day would be a dangerous one even when I asked for it. Still, I couldn’t resist. And it made sense, why I would want to torture myself just for the chance to reconnect with her.
She’d always been it for me.
But what I had struggled to figure out, more and more as the day progressed, was… why had she agreed?
She was married. And yes, I’d practically begged her to come, I’d sworn it would be all innocence, and to be fair, it had been.
Still, I was her ex. Even if it was a lifetime ago, we had been in love.
Why had she agreed to spend the day with me when her husband was away?
And had she told him about it?
These questions plagued me to the point that I couldn’t ignore them as we walked the river. The clear-sky day we’d had was now turning gray, clouds rolling in, wind sweeping over us. It wasn’t cold, but the weather was whispering a warning, humidity filling the charged air around us.
I ignored it like the fool I was.
“So… when does Nathan get home?”
Ariana’s steps faltered for just a half-second, barely noticeable unless — like me — you caught every flicker of change in her. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, eyes fixed ahead.
“Tomorrow,” she said lightly.
I hummed, pretending like I hadn’t just felt a crack splinter through the day we’d built. “You two doing okay?”