12. Maggie
12
maggie
I’m sitting on the hood of my truck chatting. “And it’s like magic. We’re completely in love for life, and he’s coming here to tell my parents with me that I’m going to transfer schools next year to be with him. Then I get to wear the beautiful prom dress and flit around like a princess. Happily ever afters do exist. You got to put yourself out there.” I point to the world around us.
The woman taps the car with her orange coned flashlight. “I hear you. And that’s all well and good, Miss, but you have to move your car.” And then I see him. I leap up on the hood. “Hi!”
He yells as he runs toward me. “Did you just pop up like a Meerkat?” He grabs my legs, pulls me off my truck, and lowers me to the ground.
“Hi!” I say again and kiss him before he can say anything. Then I hold him tight and smell his perfect seaside smell. It’s been two weeks since Mak and I had to leave suddenly. He came home from Paris a week early. I hope it was because he missed me. He holds on too long, and the lady whistles at me.
“Okay. We’re leaving. Thanks for listening.” We jump in my truck and as I pull out, he points to the short-term parking lot.
“Hey, Mags, can we just pull in there for a second?”
“Sure. But only if we get to make out.” He doesn’t laugh. “Or I can straddle you for the cameras.” Again, no laugh. “Let’s give the Colonel some good, scandalous footage.”
I speed up and pull into the first available spot. He’s off.
“What’s wrong?” I lean over him and shove the seat all the way back before scrambling across the car into his lap. He groans and then wraps his arms around me. He buries his face in my neck.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes. No. I mean everyone’s fine health wise. Christ. Maggie, I’m so fucking in love with you. I’m going to be so lost.”
“I’ll love you for forever. Okay? You get that right. Is that what all this worry is about because I will just take that from you, Mister.” I run my hands down his back and then I feel something wet on my shoulder as he shakes.
“Maggie. I don’t know how to do this. Fuck. Maggie. I don’t know how.” And then he’s sobbing. I hold him, but I think I’m the one who will need it when he gets done with his sentence.
“Shh. It’s okay. Whatever it is, we can get through this. Shh.”
“Oh, God. Mags, if only.” And there’s more crying. I’m starting to panic but things have to be fine, they just have to.
I stroke his hair. “If your dad doesn’t like the image or thought of me. He should meet me. I’m great with strangers and parents. I could raise money for him. I go to church. I volunteer. I get excellent grades. I’m like the perfect candidate’s son’s girlfriend. I can convince him.” I plead, and it only makes him cry harder.
“Colt, please talk to me. You’re worrying me.”
“Can we get out of the truck?” I move back to my side and face him.
“No. Break my heart here.” I cross my arms, realizing that it might be hopeless, and I will not move to another location to fall apart.
“Not like this,” he utters.
He wipes his face and composes himself. He takes my hand. “Maggie. I need you to listen to me. If you want to tape this with your phone so you can believe what I’m telling you years in the future, please do.” He wipes his face with the back of his hand and squares his body to mine. He’s looking at me with the eyes that will always belong to me. Even if someone else gets to see those soul-filling eyes, that look will always be for me.
“Colt. This is really scaring me now.”
“I’m scaring me. And scarring us. I will never in my life love anyone the way I love you. To the depth of our bed in Paris to the heights of what you make me feel. Fuck, I love you so much. You’ll always be the hopeful morning light, the midday sun, and the sunset. So beautiful that it hurts.”
I’m wary of what’s happening. “Okay, I’m sunny. What else you got?”
“You were a part of me from the very beginning, but something has happened.”
“What? The Navy?” He laughs through his tears then leans forward and kisses me. I feel his salty tears run down my face. I’m sure mine will join his in a second, but for now I open to him and his tongue slides home.
He breaks the kiss. “Gemma’s pregnant.”
“And Gemma is?” He laughs at my joke, but not the laugh I know well. I know all about the ex-girlfriend. But then I realize what he’s saying to me. “What? Wait, oh, my god,” I gasp. “Are you okay? How much pregnant?”
“Five months. She waited to tell anyone until it was too late to do anything, knowing my father would insist we keep it. And become a family for the cameras. I swear that’s all it will ever be. You’re my home. You. We’re supposed to be us, not this.”
He’s holding my hands and I whisper my nightmare. “You’re getting married to someone else.”
He nods. “It’s not just for my dad. Despite Gemma leaving us no options or choices, I could never abandon my duty as a father. Fuck. I’m about to be 18 and a dad, apparently. It’s a little girl. I won’t be a stranger in her life. I won’t leave her in the life without some kind of buffer from Gemma who wants the fame, and my father who wants a photo op.” He runs his hands through his hair, and I struggle to breathe. I let instinct take over because it’s all I have.
“Of course, you’ll marry her and be the best dad.” Tears spring to my eyes, but I hold them back a little because he needs me to be strong. I can fall apart after he leaves, and I probably won’t ever stop breaking. “It’s one of the reasons I love you so much. You’re the stand-up guy. You’re the one everyone relies on, that I rely on. You have to be there for the baby, but do you have to marry her?”
“My father is about to make a run for higher positions on committees and in the party, which is his path forward to the White House. I won’t be trapped forever, but I do know Gemma well enough that if we’re not married, I’ll never get to see that little girl.”
“Oh.”
“I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks and I have to be strong for him now.
I shake him off. “No. There’s going to be a baby and babies are good things. And you’re gentle and kind and you’ll be a good dad. You’ll also have to juggle your stupid dad and school. And you’re probably not going to get to see the Thailand elephants or even go hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro or…” He kisses me suddenly then pulls back.
“Focus, my Maggie. My very perfect, sweet, funny, big-hearted Meerkat.”
I burst into tears. “Let me babble. And stop saying nice things that will only haunt both of us at this point. Save them. It’s the only way I can get through this.” He pulls me into a hug. “When is he going to be done with the White House?”
“Oh, Mags. You will always be the love of my life, but I have to go be this. I want you to go and be happy.”
“But what if I need you to be happy?”
“I want you to stop giving things away, stop making it okay for everyone else. It’s okay to be upset by this. Don’t let me off the hook.”
There’s a moment and I say what’s in my heart. “But there’s a baby and I want it to know the kind of love you can give it. I’d prefer you don’t give it to Gemma, but that baby will need it.” I blubber out and then quickly compose myself.
He squeezes my hand. “Fuck. Your turn, stop saying things that will destroy us through the years apart. There are more noble things than happy.”
“Then I’ll say this, I love you. You should have something. To hold on to when it all gets to be shitty. I know you do not love her, and eventually the baby will be grown but you’ll still be trapped.”
“I have a while to go before I’m not trapped.”
“Can I give you something to hold on to so you know someone in the world loves you the most? Someone would choose you over everyone.”
“That.” He blubbers as he pulls me to him and now, we’re both a mess.
“What?”
“That’s what I’ll hold on to, your words.”
“Doesn’t seem like it will work. I meant something tangible, like a locket or this pen.” I fumble in the cup holder and hand him a purple pen from the Reno Elks Lodge.
“I have to go. I have a flight back.”
“Oh, God. Take the pen. Something to remember me by.”
I’m an idiot handing the only man I’ll ever completely love a pen. He takes it, gets out of the truck, comes to the driver’s side, and pulls me out. We stand holding each other for so long I can’t even keep track of the minutes. He kisses the top of my head before he places his hands on either side of my face.
“Maggie, Meerkat. My love. No matter what you see it will always be an act. Don’t look, okay? Don’t watch us or follow our charade. Please. I’ll send you a picture of the baby. Don’t google it. Ever. Please don’t look. Go be happy and know that you were once completely loved, accepted and understood. That’s what I can give you.”
I’m sobbing. “You don’t have a pen?”
He laughs a sad little laugh. Then he digs through his backpack and hands me a red and blue pen, and I grip it to my chest.
He kisses my forehead and turns to walk away. I sit in my truck and try to stop crying while clutching a Boston Revelers baseball team pen.
END OF PART ONE