12. Roman
CHAPTER 12
ROMAN
Fall had come to Germany, and the last few months had blown past us. Mama had made friends with several of the officers’ wives and was volunteering on base. Margot started school and was thriving. She loved school, and the teacher said she was doing well socially. I hadn’t been worried about her academically. She could do simple addition and sight-read some words, but she was the only child of an only child and the only grandchild of a doting grandmother. She got a lot of one-on-one attention to feed her natural curiosity.
With the Ott women adjusting to living abroad, everything was good. Excellent even, except…
I was outta sorts.
I couldn’t even claim not to know what was going on. I knew what it was.
Or rather, who.
Carson Wilcox.
Since he was here this summer, I’d not heard from him. But that didn’t keep me from obsessing over the man. I’d been the same way ten years ago when I left for college.
Then and now, he monopolized my thoughts. My saving grace back then was I didn’t have an easy way to contact him. I mean, I knew his home number, but I forced myself to make a clean break.
I didn’t have that luxury now. Now, I had a cell phone with a text message thread that called out to me as if it were a living, breathing being. I read those messages so many times. There wasn’t a lot there, but it was enough to feed the obsession.
And then I found his social media, which led to trolling his account, adding even more fuel to the fires of my obsession.
Like now.
It started out innocently enough in the beginning. I was scrolling my own accounts as I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. I stumbled upon a mutual acquaintance who tagged him. And now, it was the first place I went when I checked my accounts. I couldn’t help myself.
There wasn’t much there, though. His accounts were as close to being a barren wasteland as any place on earth. Had it not been for the stuff he’d been tagged in, they would’ve looked like spam accounts. Anytime I fell down that rabbit hole, I spent hours scrolling through photos his family shared on his feed. Mostly, it was his mama sharing old photos. I even found a few that included me. Mrs. Wilcox had tagged Mama in a few photos, each one a vibrant snapshot of a memory of the life I ran from.
There were a couple of just Carson and me, and I spent way more time than I cared to admit staring at them. There was one of us at the river. We were in swim trunks, our tanned chests bare. My arm was around his shoulder, his was around my waist, and our mouths stretched wide.
Whoever was behind the camera captured the essence of Carson Wilcox. If you knew him well, you could tell he was laughing when someone snapped the picture. He was looking straight forward, but not me. I was staring down at him.
I didn’t remember the exact day. There were so many it could be, but looking at that photo, I could see my feelings for him as if there were a billboard over our heads. How everyone around us hadn’t figured out how I felt about him was shocking.
Fast forward ten years, and I wondered if his comment about not being able to risk renewing our friendship was because my feelings for him, which flared back to life the moment I laid eyes on him, were obvious to those who’d seen us together. Or if it was something else.
The time we spent together in front of his teammates had been negligible. But who knows what my face lets out into the world? I had one of those faces that might as well be a billboard. If I thought about it, my face said it.
I tossed my phone to the side. This was getting me nowhere. He clearly didn’t want me in his life, which meant I needed to find a way to walk away from the man for a second time. I needed to make a life for myself. Being Amelia Ott’s son and Margot’s daddy wasn’t enough. I needed to find a life outside the Army, the hospital, and my roles as a father and son.
I just didn’t know if I could do it.
Could I turn my back on my feelings for Carson? I hadn’t been able to do it in all these years. There wasn’t anything different about this point in time and my feelings for Carson than there had been in the past. Was it possible I fixated on him because he was off-limits? Or did my fixation mean he was it for me and I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life?
My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up. I rolled my eyes as I did so. It was always the same. Any time a text came in, my first thought jumped to Carson.
What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.
I pulled up the text.
Ursula
A few of us are going on a day trip to Munich tomorrow for Oktoberfest. You want to tag along?
My first thought was to turn her down, but maybe this was my sign that it was time to put myself back out there. I wasn’t ready to date, but now that med school was over and Margot had started school, maybe it was time to carve out a bit of fun just for me.
Roman
Sounds like a great time. Let me make sure my mom can wrangle Margot first.
I got up, showered, and headed downstairs. Mama was cleaning, as always. She cleaned, and she cooked. The only time she wasn’t doing one of the two was when she slept, played with Margot, and volunteered. I honestly thought she volunteered so she could have something else to clean and organize because God knows our house was cleaner than most hospital operating rooms.
“You’re up early,” she said as she caught sight of me.
I nodded and headed to the fridge. I rummaged around, pulling out stuff for a smoothie. I grabbed the protein mix and blender and started dumping the ingredients into the cup.
I wasn’t usually much of an early eater. If I put food in my stomach the first few hours after I woke up, I’d puke before it all landed. I also wasn’t a fan of puking. I was fine if I ate a traditional breakfast before I laid down in the morning, but when I first woke, no matter what the time of day it was, me and food just did not mix.
“You okay?” Mama asked just as I flipped the switch.
The grating sound of the blender filled the room. It mixed and mingled with the smell of the yogurt and fresh fruit. Once the ice chunks seemed pulverized sufficiently, I switched out the caps and took a huge swig.
Mama pulled out a chair and pointed at it as she said, “You know how I feel about standing to eat.”
Mama had a bunch of feelings about a slew of topics. Sighing, I dropped my rear in the chair. It was on the tip of my tongue to smart off that I was drinking, not eating, but if I wanted her to watch Margot so I could take the day trip, I knew I needed to mind my p’s and q’s.
It didn’t escape my notice that I was censoring my thoughts as if I were still a high school kid waiting for his mama to say he was good to hang out with his friends after school. I scoffed under my breath.
Or I thought I did.
Mama’s brow shot up her forehead. She could have an entire conversation with those things, particularly the right one. That thing had a mind of its own.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Can you watch Margot?”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Why are you asking? I always watch her when you work.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s not for work. It’s for fun.”
Her mouth dropped open in a perfect circle. I could almost hear the “Oh” even though she didn’t make a sound.
“What kind of fun?” she asked when she recovered.
Her diverted gaze and the softness of her voice told me exactly what kind of fun she thought I was getting at.
“Jesus, Mama. Not that kind of fun. Just some of my coworkers getting together.”
This time, the “Oh” wasn’t silent.
“Well, that’s good. You need to get out more.”
I hummed in agreement. She wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t know if I could walk away from the only person on the planet that made me feel something other than lust.
“I do,” I finally said. “We’re going to take a day trip into one of the neighboring areas to do some sightseeing.”
Her brow furrowed. “What are you? Sixty?”
“Huh?”
Eloquent, I wasn’t. At least not then.
“That sounds like something a bunch of old fogies would do. Not something for a handsome man in his prime.”
I laughed at her. “Mama, I sowed my wild oats already. Remember? If not, you should. We have a three-foot-tall reminder filled with sarcasm and sass to jog our memories.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to stop living, kiddo. It means you need to live harder. Margot needs to learn that while she’s important, she’s not the sole focus of our lives. She needs to be able to find, stretch, and use her wings. Same as her daddy.”
I nodded, then asked again to be sure, “So, you’ll watch Margot tomorrow?”
“Yes. I have to volunteer with the FRG, but it’s never too late to instill a sense of service to others. So, our Little Miss can tag along after me.”
I chuckled. Margot was a helper through and through, other than that first minor hiccup when I came home from Bagram. Most days, Margot loved helping and doing her chores. It didn’t hurt that we made it a competition. We all had our names on a chore chart and got stars. Margot got a prize if she did all her chores, but she got an extra treat if she did them without prompting from Mama or me.
“Thanks, Mama. I really do need to get out and meet some people. Even if we won’t be here for very long.”
“I agree. You’re a fabulous son. You always have been. I was a little worried at first, given what sort of role model you had as a daddy. But baby, you’re an amazing daddy. I couldn’t be more proud of you, but you’re not even thirty yet. You need to get out and find your person.”
The urge to tell her I had nearly overwhelmed my good sense. This trip was the first step to moving on from him and finding a life outside of the unrequited feelings I have for Carson Wilcox.
“Roman… is there someone already?”
She could read me like a book. I swallowed and shook my head as my mouth turned down.
To push my point, I said, “No, Mama. There isn’t anyone.”
The lie burned from my guts to my lips, but what else could I say? It was clear he wanted nothing to do with me, and as much as I wanted him in my life, I refused to chase him.