Forever and a Day (62 page)

She watched as his hand reached up and covered his heart. Then he spoke to her, his voice full of pain. “People who love each other don’t hit in anger!” He choked out at her. “Just now, you—you were just like Evie, at least she didn’t draw blood… freaking same place too.” He muttered indignantly as he touched his bleeding cheek again.

“Xander! I’m sorry! W—what do you mean by ‘love’?” She blurted out quickly trying to stop him from leaving.

He glared at her, “It’s just a saying, don’t read anything into it… just, just leave me alone!” He croaked and tried to clear the lump in his throat. “I—I don’t want to see you, I’ll make sure you have food and water, you can use a flare ONLY in an emergency.” He cleared his throat again and fought at the pain telling him to just shut up. He watched her cover her face in her hands, “I—I uh, hope you enjoy your new home, Miss… H—Halo…”

With the last of his words, he saw her shoulders begin to tremble and he knew she was crying behind her hands. Part of him screamed at him to go to her and hold her, but he hung on to the excuse that he was worried that she would hit him again as she was acting so unlike the Halo he came to know. The temptation to stay was threatening to root him in place, but the pain in his chest was too much to bear. All he could think of was to get away. Without another look at her, he spun around, stepped off the deck and sprinted off towards camp.

Halo saw the depth of the hurt in his eyes as he turned to her on the deck, her heart felt flattened by what she saw. He had said, ‘people who love each other’ and she felt a burst of hope begin to inflate her heart. She had to ask and she did, but his answer was flippant as part of her expected. He was so upset and he had all the right in world to be, she had just hit him for no reason other than she did not get her way. She covered her face as she began to cry for hurting the man she had fallen for. Then his last words were so cold… like she was nothing to him now. Her heart pained like it had been stomped flat.

She fell to her knees with sobs quietly wracking her body. She became angry with herself as she thought about her pity party; it was her doing that caused this mess. With a shaking hand, she reached up to the bamboo railing and pulled herself up. Opening her eyes, she saw he was gone and knew she had to get to him—this was all her fault and he did not deserve how horribly unacceptable she treated him.

She headed off after him, questioning herself about why she was acting so unlike herself. Other than protecting herself from Johnny Stone, she had never hit anyone in anger in her entire life. Her mind reeled on how she was going to explain herself. ‘Sorry Xander, I turned into some psycho bitch from hell… but it was just for a moment!’ Yeah that will go over great she thought.

She picked up her pace on tired legs, down the narrow path back to camp thinking of what he revealed to her: Evie had hit him too. Fuck! She wanted so badly to treat him better than his wife and here she punched him and cut his beautiful face. Remembering his is look going from absolute shock to sadness then disappointment flattened her heart, she covered her mouth as a sob burst out and she tried to pick up her pace.

The way there, she tried to keep the pain in her heart at bay by distracting herself with questions on what in the hell could be wrong with her. Was she sick, did she have a brain tumor, did she have some sort of stress disorder? She kept rolling those questions around in her mind as camp came into view. She found a tree to slip behind as she looked around the camp from a distance.

Moving closer from tree to tree she finally saw him: he was sitting on the chair at their small table. She shaded her eyes from the sunlight filtering through the trees and focused on him. Her heart unexpectedly fell to the pit of her belly and felt flattened once more… his shoulders were bobbing up and down with his face buried in his hands. A few of his choked sobs reached her ears from the distance and suddenly her guts felt as if they were just kicked in by a mule. She hugged the tree as her tears sadly rolled down her face and she sobbed out quietly, “Halo, what have you done?”

She berated herself for being selfish because of the pain she felt and began collecting herself to go to him. He suddenly stood straight up and knocked the table over angrily with his hand. She saw him wipe at his eyes and caught a glimpse of his face, it looked red and wet as he ran into the tent.

Suddenly his suitcase flew out from inside the tent and tumbled across the sand. It skidded to a stop as it kicked up a flurry of white sand. He stormed angrily up to it and for a moment, she thought he was going to kick it, but instead he dropped to his knees, unzipped the suitcase then began pulling some clothes out.

Her breath caught and knew she had to go to him, but she was frozen in place as she watched him fuss about angrily. He jammed the clothing under his arm, just when she thought he was going to get up he simply sat there kneeling in place staring into his suitcase.

That was her cue she thought and stepped out from behind the tree to go to him. She watched him slowly stand up and she paused. He had something in his hand, it was a gray jacket, one she had not seen before. He then angrily wadded it up, turned and threw it hard towards her direction. She quickly ducked down in a panic and watched the jacket fly over the grass and bushes. She froze wondering if he was going to come after it, instead he slammed his suitcase shut and heaved it back into the tent with a grunt then stomped in after it.

Soon he came out and she saw he had a clear Ziploc bag full of mini bottles of booze. She chewed at her lip in frustration, with him being so angry she was hesitant to go talk to him, even though she knew in her heart she should. He glanced at the bag in his hand and then took off at a run towards where the outrigger was docked.

“Oh no!” She gasped and shot up to her feet, she knew he was going to take her up on her ultimatum and leave her island! Even though her legs felt like Jello due to all of the morning’s activities, she started running after him. She hardly made it thirty feet when she let out a yelp and went down in a heap close to Xander’s fallen jacket. Exasperated and angry she pushed herself up and tried to run again but a shooting hot pain in her ankle caused her to squeak painfully and come to a limping stop.

With a frustrated cry, at the top of her healing lungs, she called out to him, “Xander! Come back, please!”  Knowing he was out of earshot and with tears streaming down her face, she fell to her knees and released her anguished sobs, she repeatedly hit the sandy soil with her fists in frustration.

Several minutes later, she managed to get ahold of herself and wiped her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. Noticing the gray jacket close by, she reached over to it, picked it up and brushed it off. It looked expensive and as she turned it to see the front, it looked oddly familiar. It was a cool looking military like jacket, she spied the label and it was from some Italian designer she had not heard of.

She stared at it trying to remember if he had worn it and came up with nothing. For one it had not gotten cold enough for a jacket… but something familiar about still itched at the back of her mind but she could not place it. She brought the jacket up and breathed in his scent that still lingered on the fabric. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth with his jacket pressed hard against her face.

After a few minutes, she let out a sigh, carefully folded it up and with a pronounced limp, carried it to the camp. She righted the fallen table and saw the streaks of blood diluted by his tears on the top. She ran her fingers over the wetness then shook her head and limped to the tent. She grabbed a few blankets, her purse and some water then exited the tent and looked to where Xander ran off to. Hoping he had forgotten something and was coming back. He was still nowhere to be seen. The image of him paddling off to the other island hurt her stomach and she let out a groan.

With Xander’s jacket tucked under her arm she began her painful limp back to her new house praying he might be there looking for her. All the way there she relentlessly scolded herself: here a handsome guy she has only known for a month or so, who saves her ass, nurses her to back to health—then goes and builds her a house… just for her with his bare hands. Here she rewards his efforts by screaming at him and hitting him. She wanted to place the blame on something other than herself, but in the end she knew it was all her fault. She wondered if he would ever forgive her for her callousness.

With her insides and heart in a turmoil, she limped slowly onwards. Soon her new home came into sight and she wished desperately that he was there waiting for her, but as she came up her hopes were dashed as she found that she was alone. The man of her dreams was gone…

“Halo Raines… you are so fucking stupid.” She sighed and went in.

She paused as she looked around at his handiwork. The bamboo walls were so tightly fitted that she could not even see daylight between them. Looking up she saw the framework that held up the roof, the ceiling was open with thick bamboo cross pieces connecting to the top of the walls. She noticed burn marks and tiptoed up to look closer. She realized why his hands wore blisters, he had burned holes in the thick bamboo poles to slide smaller bamboo pieces in to lock the pieces together.

Looking up she saw the pitched bamboo rafter work of the gabled roof. The horizontal crosspieces that stretched across the top held three support pieces that held the center ridge piece and braces, it reminded her of three fingers splayed outward. She saw they were fastened the same burned hole way and the joints were all tied together with woven palm strands. She wondered how he accomplished it all alone.

Tears began streaming down her face and she sat down hard on her palm woven cot. She held up his jacket to her face and let herself fall sideways onto her new bed. With the jacket muffling her sounds, she gave in to the sobs as they wracked at her little body.

The beams of the early morning sunlight streaming through the shuttered bamboo window caught Halo’s attention and she turned to look up at it. She sighed heavily at yet another sleepless night. She was alone once again… no JJ or her mother here to ease the emptiness. She wondered why she had kept to herself all this time. Hiding from the paparazzi was one reason. Yes, there had been an occasional date… but no one ever felt like someone she could trust or they did not measure up. Measure up to who? Her father? Maybe, but there was a new person now: Xander. She doubted that anyone could ever measure up to him and here she was the one who ruined it all.

She wiped her nose then covered her face with her hands. God she missed him terribly and her heartache refused to be tempered by any distractions she could conjure up. She sighed and watched a mote of dust drift along a beam of sunlight, she wondered what he was doing and where he was.

She had seen no sight or sound from him for days, he did as he promised and left food and water for her every morning and evening. The first day he left it at their original camp. After the second day, he secretly left food for her without notice on her little veranda’s table. He must have seen her limping she guessed, and felt safer that he may indeed be keeping an eye on her rather than leave her all alone on her island.

She began leaving flowers out for him after the first day in an attempt to apologize, but every day for four days her flowers lay untouched. The food he left for her was cooked and wrapped up carefully in leaves or covered up in the ceramic bowls from the downed jet. The fruit was always cut up carefully and the fish was always prepared tastefully, it was as if she had an invisible chef. She was sure to always clean the dishes up and leave them out where he left them.

She fought the impulse to sit out and wait for him, but reasoning always won out, as she did not want to pressure him anymore.

She swung herself up to a sitting position and gingerly tested her ankle on the bamboo floor. She should have known better than to run after him, as she was still so weak from being deathly sick. She could not help herself as her heart pushed her to get to him as he ran off. Putting pressure on her foot caused only a small twinge of pain today. Part of her was eager to go out to the veranda and check and see if he had been there but she felt a great deal of trepidation, for last night she tried something other than just leaving flowers for him.

From her checkbook she made out a check endorsed to him for one million dollars and signed it. On the back, she wrote him a note saying: ‘
If I put a dollar in a jar for every time I thought of you and for how so, so very sorry I am for hitting you? This is how much I would owe you. Please, please deposit this when we get back, I am good for it. I miss you, and you have my deepest apologies, Halo.
’

The trepidation got the best of her and she stayed seated on the side of the little cot. She had spent these past four days alone and it had given her plenty of time in retrospect. She knew he was not hers to have or even pursue, yet she had done so relentlessly, even when she knew better. She came to the reluctant realization that if she could only have a friendship with him, she would endure the heartache just to have him in her life, for however much time they had.

She had read several of his books on his reader that he left behind. She had listened through all her music on her phone and drained the battery twice. She silently thanked Xander repeatedly for leaving a solar charger. She looked to his phone sitting on her little bamboo table, she had perused through his eclectic and vast amount of music on his phone and had just begun looking through his pictures stored there, after all… he did give her permission she thought in justification.

The pictures of Evie distressed her. She knew for the first time in her life she was truly jealous of someone. Evie never really looked happy in any of the pictures. Sure, she smiled but it seemed forced. It was either that or she did not like her pictures being taken. She felt sad for Xander, who she realized was trying to dance a jig on a tight rope dealing with her and fighting so hard to keep his promise to his wife, the whole time she was making it insanely difficult for him.

Her trepidation finally faded and she quickly got dressed. She stood at the door and took in a deep breath. She opened the door and saw that on the little bamboo table was her breakfast all neatly covered. Her breath caught as she saw the flowers were gone as well as the check. She stepped over and saw that he had left her a prescription bottle. On it was his name and the pills were Xanax. She twisted the cap off and peered inside. Her check was rolled up in there along with a bunch of peach colored pills.

She pulled out the check and saw that he had written on it also: ‘
Thank you for your sentiments and the flowers. Forgot I had these, take a half at a time if you think they will help you sleep. Xander.”

A little smile spread across her face. He was out there watching out for her, he did not leave her alone after all!

Thoughts of actually getting some sleep sounded wonderful, she took out a pill and bit it in half and swallowed it. She had taken Xanax before while on a difficult film shoot up in Washington. She groaned aloud as she remembered it. The director was surly to everyone, especially her. They were over budget and he was a brutal taskmaster and directed by the book. No ad libbing, what the script said, is what the actors said. It was her only film that lost money. Was it Washington? She asked herself.

The smell of her breakfast made her tummy rumble and she sat down and began eating the breakfast he had prepared for her: Fried fish with hot peppers and a mixed fruit bowl consisting of chunks of papaya, pineapple and coconut. She finished her breakfast off with a half a bottle of water and set out to clean up her dishes for him.

Back inside she stared up at the fine bamboo work of the roof supports from her bed. She tried to recall where that difficult film shoot was shot. She remembered lots of green and white topped mountains, she was sure it was Washington. She remembered that one of the mountains was a volcano that had erupted a couple of decades ago. She began to feel drowsy and tired and she soon let her thoughts slip away as sleep found her.

Halo opened her eyes and saw the sunlight had shifted away from its morning position and was now streaming in through the space between the door and its frame, signaling it was early afternoon. She yawned, stretched her arms up towards the ceiling and suddenly realized how much better she felt. She had slept the day away and felt refreshed. Her nap was the best sleep she had since she slept alongside Xander days ago, but still was in no comparison when she slept with him.

Her heartache was still present but it felt slightly muted, she still missed him and longed to see him, if only to apologize in person. She reached out, grabbed his phone once again and looked for a picture of him. She scrolled up and into his pictures, she had not perused yet. She saw a picture of him shaking hands with the lead actor of the TV show ‘Fables’.

She scooted her back up against the wall, her interest piqued by Xander being on a film set. She felt happy for him, as his smile in the picture was a happy one. She kept scrolling up into older pictures and saw pictures of Athena when she was younger. She saw a picture of a plain faced, red haired man flipping the camera off, the next picture was of Xander and the red haired man laughing and flipping each other off. Halo covered her mouth and giggled, thinking that the red haired guy must be Xander’s friend and agent he spoke about.

Scrolling back into Xander’s past, she saw a screen shot of him taken from a TV screen. It showed him standing by a table speaking with a Middle Eastern looking man. Then various shots of the film set then she scrolled to a picture of Tim Hutton and Xander standing together smiling at the camera. She scrolled up and past a picture of a black Mercedes Benz SUV that had a camera crane attached to it. Scrolling past that, she saw a picture of Xander in a silly birthday hat. She expanded the picture and saw that even though he was smiling, his eyes were sad. She knew that look as she had caused him to look that same way at her after she had hit him, suddenly pinpricks began shooting down her back.

She saw the date on the collection, it read June 11, 2011. That is around his birthday, she thought, knowing he was a Gemini. That familiar itch was back and another round of prickles shot down her neck to her arms. She quickly scrolled back to the picture of the Camera car and the date in the collection said, June 12, 2011. She stared hard at the picture, the Camera car was parked behind its trailer, and there was a nice lens flare of the sun shining through the crane assembly. An object in the background caught her eye and she zoomed in.

A tall red brick smoke stack stood in the background. Her hands began to tremble as she stared on at the picture, “Oh my God…” She muttered and her hands shook harder, “I know that smoke stack!” She blurted aloud. Of course she knew it! Her trailer was parked next to it and she saw it for several days! It was not only in Washington where she filmed… she was in Portland too!

She grabbed her phone and speedily opened up her pictures and scrolled to the same date as Xander’s picture. Her mouth dropped open and her phone fell into her lap as her hands covered her mouth, her deep blue eyes as wide as saucers looking at the picture staring back at her, “No, no, no! It—It can’t be…” She muttered into her hands. She slowly glanced over to the wall and saw where she had hung Xander’s jacket.

With shaking hands she picked up her phone and stared at the picture on the screen, the man in the frame was wearing the same jacket as the one right across from her. Tingles shot throughout her body as everything came crashing into her memory like a ton of bricks.

“Oh my God, how could I have forgotten?” She sputtered. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought back to the film set: In the distance, she saw this hot looking guy just standing there in a cool jacket and sunglasses, he was wearing jeans and black cowboy boots. His dark hair was messy and a bit windblown. There was a vibe or something about him that held her attention, she could not bring herself to look away from him—that is when she felt that wondrous thing… and it changed her life forever. She remembered she handed JJ her phone and told her to take pictures of him, as she needed desperately to go talk to him.

Her eyes flew open wide from the shock, “Holy fucking hell!” She yelped, shot to her feet and went to Xander’s jacket. She rapidly patted the pockets of his jacket and found the one she remembered, unbuttoned the pocket and pulled out a box, inside were a pair of sunglasses. She stared at them for a long moment. Grabbing her phone, she expanded the picture. Her hands began to shake as she now knew for sure where she knew Xander from. She involuntarily sucked in a trembling breath and her hand shot up and covered her mouth. She felt her fingers shake against her lips as she stared at Xander’s picture on her phone, “Oh, dear God… it is him.”