Coming Back (15 page)

Christie

“Hey, hey, it’s alright.  It’s just me,” said Nick.

I immediately felt silly for my overreaction as I clambered to my feet. “You’re like a giant ninja.”

Nick shrugged his shoulders and held his hands out to his sides.  With the sun no longer directly behind him, I saw his familiar features again and felt that pang of loss that I had been mostly expecting.

“You look good, Christie, you look like… yourself.  Again.”

“Thanks.  Yeah, I feel a lot better.  You weren’t kidding when you said you’d be right here.”

Nick nodded.  “I got pretty lucky with flight times.  It was just so good to hear from you, I think it’s the first time you actually called
me
.”

I pulled my gardening gloves off and wrung them nervously.  “Yeah, it was.  I was wondering about something.  I mean… I need your help.”

“What is it?  Anything, Christie,” Nick looked even more concerned.

I thought about everything I’d wanted to say and stumbled over my words a couple times.  Part of my mind was staring out in disbelief at the plan the rest of my brain had concocted, but if I was ever going to move on, if I was ever going to love all the way, I needed to do it.

I took a deep breath and started again.  “Would you walk with me?”

“Sure, where to?”

“You’ll know it when we get there.”

All around us, the sights and sounds of a small town on a sunny day contrasted sharply with what was noisily whirling around in my head.  We made meaningless small talk as I led us down the streets we knew so well but when we turned on to the road the two of us used to live on, we both became much quieter.

Finally, there it was on the opposite side of the street.  The house we had rented together.  Our place.  I sat down on a bus stop bench, and after a moment Nick lowered himself next to me.

I looked across the road and imagined the ghosts of our past.  The epic water fight we had while washing the car happened
there
on the driveway.  Through the front window, I saw the memory of us kissing in what I knew was the living room. 
That
was the front door we walked out of on our way to the airport the last day we were together and in love.  I glanced at Nick, and I knew he saw them too.

Tears welled up in my eyes.  “I
told
you not to go.”

“I know,” said Nick quietly, glancing down.  “I’ve replayed that day over and over again in my head.  Millions of times.  Everything that happened…”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and turned to him.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean for this to be ‘I told you so.’  There’s some things I need to say to you.  I
need
to say them and you need to hear them.”

“OK.”

Every time I opened my mouth, I had to clench my jaw against a wave of sadness.  Then I thought about the way Harper had looked when she talked about Nick.

“Those days after you went missing there was a lot of stuff going through my head, but one of them was that I never got to say goodbye.  It wasn’t fair.  I wished for it harder than I’d ever wished for anything, I tried to make it the smallest wish I could, as if that would make it more likely to come true, you know?  I didn’t ask for you back for a day.  I said I just wanted five minutes, to say goodbye, to tell you you were loved, to make sure you knew that you changed me as much as you always said I changed you.  Well, I guess when wishes come true, it can happen in pretty painful ways.”

Nick’s hands moved to the edge of the seat, and I saw him gripping it tightly as his eyes went glassy.  His mouth opened a couple of times, but I shook my head to cut him off, not wanting to lose what little momentum I had.  I reached out for his hand closest to me and pulled it into my lap, holding it with both of mine.

I looked down at it.  How many times had this hand reached out for me in the night?  Countless.  How well it knew me, and how well I knew it, its incredible gentleness despite its strength.  Could I really be saying goodbye?

“I… I wanted to apologize for the way I acted the last time you were here-”

“You don’t have to do-” Nick interrupted.

“Yes, I do.  I didn’t mean those things I said to you.  Here’s what I really mean.”

I looked him right in the eye and held his gaze until my lips stopped quivering and I was sure he was really
hearing
me.  This was it.

“I want to say I loved you
so much
, Nick.  You were loved.  You changed me as much as you said I changed you.  I’m. 
So
.  Happy.  You’re alive.  I’m. 
So
.  Happy.  You found somebody like Harper, somebody who helped you see… beautiful things in the world again.  Somebody who looks at you and sees what
I
saw.  I never wanted to hate somebody more in my life and failed.  I only met her that one time… and I know you were telling the truth.  She’s something special.”
H

The tears were rolling freely down both of our faces now, but it didn’t matter.  It felt like poison leaving my body, a cleansing process.

“I found somebody too, Nick.  Somebody who makes me want to wake up each day again, somebody who does for me what Harper does for you.”

“Oh, Christie… that’s… that’s good, I’m-”

“But here’s the thing,” I continued.  “Here’s what I need your help with today.”

“Yes?”

“I need you to help me say goodbye to ‘us.’  That’s why I thought we should come here.  Our place.  I just want to remember, with you, some of those things that only
we
know about.  Not even just the serious stuff.  The silly stuff, the stupid stuff too.  Maybe those are even more important.”

“I’d love that,” said Nick.

“Then… this is the hard part.  Afterwards, I need you to do something really big for me.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to not contact me for a while.  Not until I contact you,
no matter what you hear about me.
  Every time I see you or hear from you, I feel like I go into a tailspin.  I need to concentrate on me for a while, and on Dean-”

“Dean… Hawking?”

“Yeah.  Can you do that for me?” I asked.

He was quiet for a while before speaking.  “OK, Christie.”

After a moment, Nick leaned to one side and straightened his leg before struggling to retrieve his wallet from the pocket of his jeans.  He took his hand out of my grip to assist in opening it up and took something out.

“I still carry this picture of us around.”

Nick passed me the well-traveled photo and I recognized it immediately.  A lump rose in my throat.  I used to have a copy of it myself until the night I was abducted.  In the photo, we were kissing with preposterous fish-lips and eyes squeezed shut.

“Kissyface,” I said and paused for a moment.  “I think… I think it’s time we put this away.  OK?”

“OK.”

I looked across the street at our old house and had an idea.  Before Nick could stop or question me, I was up and on my way to the front yard, to the semi-hollow tree with all the roots that Nick had always hated mowing around.  I popped the photo into the tiny hole in the trunk and returned to the bus stop.

“That seemed right.” I shrugged.

After a shaky start, our reminiscing started flowing naturally, the wonderful visions of the past dropping one after the other like it was raining diamonds in the sunshine.  We cried, we laughed till we hurt, we shone new light on parts of our memories that had grown dark with time.

We promised we knew that everything we had was real, real and beautiful, and that we wouldn’t forget it.  Finally, when I felt like I’d been scoured out on the inside, we fell silent.  I rested my head on his shoulder one last time.

Dean

The instant I turned on to Christie’s street, I could see people standing on the sidewalk outside their house.  I strained my eyes and when I drove closer, Rusty right behind me, I could see that Mrs. Jayne had Christie in a death-grip hug and Nick Martell was standing next to them.

As I parked, I scanned all around, looking for anybody watching the scene, any cars that suspiciously decided to pull away as soon as they saw Rusty’s cruiser.  There was nothing, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted Christie off the sidewalk.  I breathed a sigh of relief that came right from the soul.

Nick crossed the road as I opened my door and walked right up to me.  He looked like he’d had a hell of a day.

“Hey Nick, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Christie asked me to come, but I’m just leaving now.  Listen…”

The big ex-Marine paused for a second and looked back across the road towards Christie, who was apologizing profusely and trying to extricate herself from her mother’s arms.  He turned back to me with an unreadable expression.

“Just… love her a lot, OK?”

It was jarring to hear such a desperate tone come from somebody as physically imposing as he was.  What it felt like was a bit of insight into what Christie used to see behind the tattoos and scars, maybe what Harper Bayliss saw now.

“I will.”

Christie crossed the street and looked from Nick, to me, and back again.  “Goodbye for a while, Nick.”

My brow furrowed even further at the way she emphasized ‘goodbye,’ making it sound so much more final than usual.

“Bye Christie.  Dean.”

Nick walked slowly towards a car with a rental company sticker on the windscreen and crammed himself into it, driving off while staring determinedly straight ahead.  Rusty was standing by his car just inside the open door and held out his hands in a what’s-going-on gesture, and I had to shrug.

“What’s going on, Dean?” Christie asked.  Apparently that was a popular question at the moment.  I wanted to ask it myself.  “My mom was just about incoherent, she’s had to go inside to lie down.”

“We’ve got to get you inside, Christie.  I think the guy that abducted you might be in the area.  I’ve been doing some…”

Christie held up her hand with an expression of deep confusion on her face, which looked every bit as strained as Nick’s had.  She shook her head.

“That… that can’t be…”

“Does the name Kodey Garrod mean anything to you?”

“No, but I never knew his name.  I’m sure it’s not the guy.  Dean,” Christie glanced over at Rusty.  “I was going to do this tomorrow, give myself a chance to work up the nerve.  Will you come out back with me?  We need to talk.  You can send Rusty away.”

“I can hear you.  I’m right here,” said Rusty.

“You’re…
sure
?  How?” I asked Christie.

“I am
sure
,” she said with sad conviction and an apologetic look at my colleague.  She ignored my second question.

I looked over at Rusty and shrugged a little.  “OK.  Sorry for the panic, man.  Thanks for having my back.”

“Alright, screw it, my shift was supposed to end five minutes ago anyway.  See ya, Dean.  Bye, Christabelle.”

Rusty got back in the car and in a few seconds was slowly driving off in the same direction Nick had gone.  Christie grabbed me by the hand, holding it incredibly tightly as if she was afraid I might pull away, and led me around the side of the house, the same way I’d gone when I first brought King to visit her.

Without letting go of me, she went through the gate, up the back steps, and to that seat she used to sit in and stare out at the forest from, pulling me down beside her.  Now that we were sitting still, I could feel her hand was shaking, and she looked even more distressed than Nick had.

“What did you bring Nick here for?” I prompted when Christie seemed to be at a loss as to where to start.

Her anxiety was catching and it quickly reignited my own.  The worst-case scenario was off the table, that she’d been killed or kidnapped again, so my mind sprang to the next worst alternative.  Were she and Nick planning on getting back together?  No, if that was the case, then what was that ‘love her a lot’ all about, and that strange goodbye?

“I… I brought him here b-because I w-wanted to apologize to him for the last time h-he was here and b-because I wanted to tell him n-not to contact m-me f-for a w-while b-because…”

Whatever was troubling Christie was getting worse, not better.  Her stutter became more pronounced as her breath hitched and she looked like she was walking the plank and getting close to the end.

“… b-because talking to h-him m-makes it too h-h-hard to move on… and I w-want to m-move on, Dean.”

Her face contorted for a second as she tried, and subsequently failed, to hold back the tears.  I pulled my hand from hers and drew her into a hug, feeling her shudder against me as I shushed in her ear and squeezed her tight.

“It’s OK, Christie, it’s OK.  Shhhh… that’s a good thing… isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer for a long time.  Instead, those sobs gradually calmed down and she went still.  Her face was buried against my neck, but she turned it to look out at the forest for a minute or so, her head resting on my shoulder, before pulling back and sitting up straight.

“I’ve already asked for a lot of favors today.  I need to ask you for some too.”

“What do you need?” I asked.

“Please… please would you give me the sweetest kiss you ever gave anybody and… tell me you love me?  Please… I need to hear it.”

I cradled her face with my hands and leaned in, tenderly kissing her with everything I had.  Years of admiration, longing, lust, respect, and all the love I felt for her, all packed into a single kiss.

“I love you, Christabelle Jayne.  I thought I told you to believe that?”

Christie’s eyes stayed shut for a few seconds after our lips parted.  When they opened, she had a look on her face like somebody saying goodbye for the last time.

“That’s the problem, Dean, I
do
believe it.”

“I don’t understand… what’s the problem with that?”

“Because I love you too.  So that means you need to know me,
really
know me.  What I am.  I’m scared that might be the last time I ever hear those words from you.”

“It won’t be.”

“Thank you for holding me.  Here.  Here.  And here.”  Christie touched my head, my chest, and my arms.  “If you hadn’t held on, I think I would have slipped away.  You brought me back.”

She paused and I saw her throat work a couple of times. “Here’s the thing, Dean.  I remember.  I actually remember
everything
.  My abduction, I remember everything and…” She paused.  “I have to tell you what happened.”