Fifteen
O N SUNDAY EVENING MY dad’s car service drops me off at the airport in Boston.
I’m flying back to Savannah. On what I hope is Isaac’s flight.
When I decided on this plan yesterday, my dad changed my ticket from the morning flight we’d originally scheduled, and when he went to reserve my seat, the one beside it was taken.
Surely that’s Isaac.
If he’s not on this flight today, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.
I’ve had a good week with my family. The best time I’ve had with them for a really long time. Raven left for her honeymoon trip on Friday, but she was around for a couple of days. Dad and I have been taking a drive down the coast nearly every day, and Mom and I have gone for tea every afternoon and to a pottery-painting place and to my favorite flea market. She’ll never be an earnest, open person, but her apology and resolve to do better with me has been written all over her face and manner.
She won’t miraculously change, but she’s trying. That and the geographical distance will be enough for me to be content with our relationship. That’s better than I used to believe was possible.
But right now my full spirit is focused solely on Isaac. On what I’ll say to him when I see him. On what he might say back.
I honestly have no idea how he’ll react, but I have to try.
He already knows I’m flighty. Maybe he won’t be surprised that I changed my mind.
If he is, he’s allowed to be. He’s also allowed to be careful. Protect his own heart. All I can do is offer and wait. The way he offered and waited for me.
When it’s my time to board, I stay seated until the line has mostly cleared. Then I greet the friendly gate attendant and make my way down the ramp and onto the plane.
The flight attendant is the normal one. She gives me a surprised smile and a wave but has no time to chat because she’s helping an elderly gentleman get settled in the business-class cabin.
The seat next to me is still empty when I sit down, but that’s not a surprise or particularly worrisome. I put down my tea and my phone and lean over to dig my sketchbook and knitting out of my bag since I’m not sure which one I’ll prefer to do.
Depending on what happens with Isaac, I might not want to do either one.
A familiar presence in the aisle at my row surprises me so much I jerk. I bump my head on the seat in front of me and rub it as I straighten.
Isaac. Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved black crewneck. Holding the strap of his bag with both hands. Completely motionless as he stares.
“Hi,” I say with a crack in my voice.
He clearly hasn’t shaved in a few days. There are shadows under his eyes and a hunch in his shoulders that’s never been there before. He looks...
Crushed.
In the exact same way I’ve been feeling.
His lips part, but he doesn’t make a sound.
“I’m here,” I say quite stupidly.
He blinks.
“I changed my mind.”
The strap slips out of his fingers and the bag drops. He barely catches it before it bangs on the floor. He collapses into his seat, still staring at me.
“I did,” I go on, forgetting my preplanned, coherent, gracious explanation and babbling everything out instead. “I changed my mind. I know it’s not fair, and I understand if you don’t want to bother anymore. But I was wrong. I mean, I wasn’t wrong entirely, but I was wrong to give up because it will be hard. Being long-distance is going to be hard. But it’s not impossible. Couples do it. It doesn’t always tear people apart. And I’d like... I’d like to try.” I gulp. Twist my hands together. “I’d like to see what might happen between us. If... if you still want that too.”
He opens his mouth again, but still no sound comes out.
The flight attendant strides over with a sympathetic smile and puts Isaac’s suitcase into the overhead compartment for him. Then she picks up his bag, which he set in the middle of the aisle, and hands it to him.
She gives me a covert wink as she walks back to the front.
“You want to try?” he finally gets out.
“Yes. I do. I really... I’m more into you than I’ve ever been before. With anyone. And I think it scared me. Because I always pour my heart into everything, but I’ve been able to keep a little bit in reserve. Where it’s safe. But with you... with you, it wouldn’t be safe. It would take everything. And I kept thinking about what might happen if you... if it doesn’t work. But I’m not going to be that person. The person who runs and hides when things get scary. I’ve never been her, and I’m not going to start now. So if you still want... if you still want the same thing, I want it too.”
I bite back more words since they would only be more rambles. Everything inside me is jittering with fear and excitement both.
Because the truth is I have absolutely no idea what Isaac is going to do now.
“You want to be long-distance?” he finally asks. One of his hands is clenched around the armrest.
“Yes. I mean no. I don’t really want that, but it’s the best of all other options. I’m not going to move. Not right now anyway. In the future, I would probably be willing, but we’ll have to be in a different situation than this.”
“I never once asked you to move.” His eyes are running over my face like he’s desperately seeking answers to an unknown question.
“I know you didn’t. But your job. Your career is so important to you. Way more important than mine is to me. I don’t want you to miss out on anything you want.”
He’s breathing heavily. “And you think instead, I want you to miss out on the life in Savannah you want?”
“No! No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that at all.”
He shakes his head as he leans over to pull a large envelope out of his bag. His mood is strange. Tense. I can’t interpret it, so I have no idea what he’s about to say. “You still think you always have to fade into the background so other people can take the applause. You still believe that you’ll never be center stage. That you’re not worth going to the ends of the world for. That who you are—your radiant, beautiful spirit—doesn’t cast sunshine on everyone you meet. That it hasn’t transformed everything for me. That it doesn’t propel my plodding heart into the stratosphere.”
My eyes burn as I process what he’s saying. Everything he’s saying. I whimper and cover my mouth with one hand.
His low, hoarse voice softens into almost a whisper as he adds, “You still don’t understand that you’ve always made me fly.”
He hands me the envelope.
Tears plop onto the paper as I open it with trembling hands. I slide out an official-looking document.
I read the first paragraph. My eyes blur, so I wipe them before I read the paragraph again. Then I read the rest of the letter.
When what it says finally registers in my befuddled mind, I make a silly whining sound. “You... you... you... you got a transfer to the Savannah office?”
“I did.” He’s smiling now. It starts slow—barely there—but it gradually grows until his whole face is warm and tender and shining. “I understood why you thought we should end, and I tried to accept it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t . Maybe all the evidence lined up neatly to prove it was the right thing, but it didn’t feel right. It felt horribly, irrevocably wrong. So I finally realized that I couldn’t keep living like this. I needed to do whatever I could to give us a chance. I didn’t know if you would even want to, but I was willing to wait. Just for the chance.” He reaches over and takes my hand. Squeezes it. “For even the smallest chance of a life with you.”
So I end up sobbing again. I really wish I could stop. I manage to recover in just a minute because there are other things I desperately need to know. “But your job. Isaac, what about your job? You won’t have nearly the chances for advancement in Savannah, will you?”
“No. But it’s really okay. I’ll have a regular finance job in the office. And I will be able to move up to a certain level. And, in several years, maybe we’ll be more willing to move so I can take a position somewhere else, but if not, I really don’t care. You told me yourself that my job wasn’t making me happy, and you were right. I don’t want to have to keep traveling all the time. I don’t want everyone to dread the sight of me. I want to do something different, and this gives me the chance.”
“Really?” I reach out to clutch at his shirt.
“Yes, really.” Very gently he unclenches my fingers one by one. Then he surrounds them with both his big, warm hands. “River, I want this. For my career but—far more than that—for you. I want you. For as long as you’ll have me.”
“R-really?” I choke out again.
He shakes with quiet, affectionate laughter. “Really.”
“So you’re... you’re declaring eternal devotion?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I’m not sure I would phrase it in exactly that way, but... but yes. I am.”
I’m giggling now. It’s spilling out of me. “How would you phrase it?”
He lets go of my hands with one of his and cups my face with the palm. “I would phrase it like this. I love you, River Kennedy. In the sky and on the ground. In Boston or Savannah or anywhere in between. Today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows I can see right now. I love you.”
With a burst of sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, I throw myself at him, hugging him and then kissing him and mumbling out over and over again, “I love you too.”
***
A FEW MINUTES LATER , the flight attendant has to come over to remind us to put on our seat belts. She adds she was worried that the love story playing out on her plane every weekend had taken a tragic turn, but she’s glad to see that we’ve worked it out in the end.
Isaac is a little embarrassed that our intimate moment ended up semipublic, but I don’t care at all.
We spend the flight getting as close as we can, talking and laughing and generally reveling in the overflow of sappy feelings. When we land, we take a rideshare over to my place. Isaac is going to spend the night and all the nights this week.
He’ll move to Savannah in another month, and we agree he’ll get his own place so we can take our time with the relationship.
I’m happy to take our time. In fact, I’m excited about it. I’ve never gone through all the stages of a relationship and felt secure about them, but I get to do that now with Isaac.
After we unpack and make ourselves sandwiches and take showers and get ready for bed, I’m still in the same blissful state but also so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open.
I’m in bed when Isaac gets through in the bathroom. He comes out in his boxer briefs, smiling and smelling like soap and toothpaste. He climbs under the covers.
“I know now’s the time we should have our passionate culmination, but I honestly think I’m too tired tonight.” My voice is casual, but I check his face to make sure he’s not disappointed.
He’s not. He smiles and chuckles and turns off the bedside light before he pulls me into a loose embrace. “To tell you the truth, I’m pretty damn tired too. A broken heart can really take it out of you.”
“It can. But they’re not broken anymore.” I press a little kiss into his shoulder.
“No, they’re not.”
He nuzzles my hair but doesn’t deepen his advances. We lie together in soft silence until a question needles its way to the forefront of my mind. “When did you first realize this could be serious?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, thinking it through before he speaks. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I was into you from the very first day. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire weekend before you showed up again on my flight.”
“Same here. I’ll have to show you the funny sketches I made of you throughout the weekend.”
“Oh no. I’d guess they’re not flattering.”
“Not entirely. But they’re not too bad. I was annoyed with you, but you definitely made an impression. I didn’t know what that impression was for a while.”
“Same here. I thought I didn’t like you, but I kept wanting to know more about you. You kept crossing my mind while we were apart. Then when I saw you help that old lady who had the panic attack, I knew there was something special in you. Something I had to get closer to. After I broke up with Sophie, it really went into overdrive. I started looking forward to every single flight—despite how much I hate flying—because it meant I got to see you again. And I don’t want to describe the lustful fantasies I was having for fear it might creep you out.”
That makes me laugh. I smother it against his chest. “I hope it doesn’t disappoint you, but I didn’t have a lot of lustful fantasies at the beginning. Not until I was really falling for you.”
“I know that. You’re different than me. I don’t care when the lust came for you as long as it came.”
“Oh, it came. No question about that.” I smile against his shoulder. “Just not tonight.”
“Understood. But back to your question, for several weeks, you were all I could think about, but it wasn’t until that flight when my grandfather was in the hospital that I realized it was a lot more than attraction. I guess it was then—after that flight—that it got serious for me. I knew it was too early, and I was worried about coming on too strong and scaring you away. So I tried to play it cool. But I wasn’t cool. Not inside.”
“I’ve never been cool.” I run my fingers through his hair and let them curve around the back of his neck. “I’ve never figured out how.”
“That’s one of the many things I love about you.” He’s quiet for a minute, like he’s waiting for something from me. “What about you?”
I lick my lips. “Well, it’s a little fuzzy for me too, but I’m pretty sure I was serious the first time we had sex. I convinced myself we might have a fling, but that was a hopeless delusion. So I think we’ve been serious about each other for close to the same amount of time.”
“Hmm,” he murmurs. “Maybe we should have said something sooner. We could have sorted it out without all the angst and confusion.”
“Have you ever known anyone who can sort out their own hearts without at least a little angst and confusion?”
“Now that you mention it, I’m not sure I have. Have you?”
“Only boring people.”
That makes him laugh. The familiar sound of it washes over me.
“Well,” I add, snuggling against him and closing my eyes. “We’ve sorted it out now.”
“Yes.” He presses one more kiss against my hair. “We’ve sorted it out now.”