52. Ariadne
52
ARIADNE
B eing back in Seattle has me out of sorts. I’ve done everything I can to fit back into my old life, but it’s like I’m a mismatched piece in a jigsaw puzzle, and no matter how you turn me on the board, I just can’t find a slot to fit into.
Michael’s testing the last shred of patience I have, so I look for an apartment. I’ll have to dip into my savings to make it work, but I’ll gladly do that if it means I can keep my sanity. But nothing sticks. I trek from one side of the city to the other, and I can’t settle on anything. I don’t want to settle on anything. I think I deserve more than that.
I’ve had a few good job offers since I’ve been back. Obviously, some editors still believe in me. Plus there’s the job with Kingsley Accardi. But I’m finding it hard to accept anything on the work front, too. My heart’s just not in it.
Almost every experience since I’ve come back makes me feel like I don’t belong here anymore. I feel like I’ve outgrown Seattle. Or perhaps Seattle has outgrown me? Because nothing is making me happy. Nothing is satisfying me. And I find I keep going back to my time away and the things that happened while I was in Guatemala, and the fulfilment I had when I was there. There is no comparison between life in Seattle and life with Caleph.
Because ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. It’s not about being in Guatemala. It’s not even about being on a boat out in the middle of the ocean. It’s about being with Caleph. My heart will only be content wherever he is. And I come to this realization the minute he tells me he’ll be going to sea and my heart yearns to be there with him, even knowing how seasick the water makes me.
The thought of being away from him strips away at something in my heart. It tears that thin layer of armor that holds my heart in place, sifting through the vessel, threatening to crack it wide open.
My heart cannot withstand being away from him. He’s currently on the other side of town and yet he’s too far. If he leaves me here, it’s going to feel like he’s at the end of the earth. I don’t want to be where he’s not, and I don’t want to be here without him.
* * *
“You’re doing what ?!?”
Nina screeches like a hyena when I tell her. I’ve never seen so much confusion on her face, and it’s quite comical.
“I’m leaving,” I tell her, throwing my clothes into a small suitcase.
“But where will you go?”
“Wherever Caleph is going,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen in surprise, then soften as she looks at me with a tenderness I’ve never seen from her. Nina tends to veer on the side of bossy older sister when life changing situations arise.
“Does he know?”
I shake my head and bite my lip. I haven’t discussed it with him. He didn’t ask me to come with him. Not outright. But I know he stayed this long in Seattle hoping we could pick up where we left off. He said as much when we were in Guatemala and he told me we would never be over. And the fact that he still hasn’t left and keeps intruding on my life. He’s never going to go away. I don’t think I want him to.
“It’s so cute the way you two are in love but choose to dance around each other,” she says, clapping her hands together like a good romantic.
“Who said anything about love?”
“You did,” she points out. “Right then – when you told me you were going to be with Caleph. People don’t make that sort of a leap unless they’re in love.”
* * *
For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m in control of my life. And it feels good.
I enlist Attila’s help and order an Uber to take me to the private airstrip. I have precious little minutes to spare before Caleph’s jet takes off. They’ve just removed the stairs and closed the doors when my Uber comes to a stop on the tarmac. The jet is starting to do a slow crawl down the runway. I take out my phone and call him, hoping against hope that he hasn’t switched his phone off yet.
“Ariadne.”
The way he speaks my name into the phone makes my heart gallop with longing and desire.
“Do you have room for one more on the plane?” I ask.
There is a pause on his side of the phone as I wait. Mere seconds pass before the jet stops moving and the door falls open. Caleph is standing there, his head bent, looking out at me with an intensity that tells me he’s going to shred me to pieces once he gets his hands on me. It was never a matter of if, but when, I’d run back into his arms. He lifts the phone to his ear and breathes heavily.
“Don’t move.”
When the metal platform is pushed against the door, I watch as Caleph disembarks slowly and walks toward me. He takes his time, like he has all the time in the world, certain in the knowledge that he's not going anywhere without me.
He’s wearing my favorite navy suit with a white shirt and no tie. He is the most handsome man I’ve ever met, and if it were at all possible, he’s even more dashing than he was the day I met him.
He stops a few steps away from me, his gaze assessing, before he closes the space between us and lifts a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I thought you’d never get here,” he says.
“I couldn’t let you leave without me.”
“And what if I’d already left?”
“I would’ve caught the next plane to be with you.”