Sail (Wake #2) (3 page)

“Well, if I were you I’d wait. I’d get my shit together and wait my fucking ass off,” he said, looking at me as he bent over to touch his toes.

It wasn’t at all what I thought he’d say. I imagined him saying something more like, “Well if she comes back, then cool, but don’t hold your breath.” But he didn’t.

I cocked a confused eyebrow at him, silently asking him to elaborate on his grand master plan, which took him all of two hours to figure out. Was it really that easy?

“The way I see it, if you call it quits here, you’ll be fucked up forever. She said she was going to fix it? Let her. She has one hell of a mess to clean up, but if she says she’s willing to do it, then she’s one tough chick. A girl like that is worth waiting a little while for.” He chuckled a little under his breath, then said to himself, “Fuck. I know all about waiting.”

I didn’t know how long it would take her to come back to me, but he was right. She would. I had to trust her and I had to be worth coming back to.

I owed myself that much. Be a man she
couldn’t
ever leave again. I’d get her and I’d keep her.

Friday, January 1, 2010

I HAD TO COME up with a plan where I got to keep Casey. I needed to think long and hard about how to do it. I owed it to myself to make sure this wasn’t one more thing I messed up. My guilt kept piling up by the second.

It was New Year’s morning and I’d chosen a later flight, having guessed Grant would take the first one available. I hadn’t been far behind him arriving at the airport. I didn’t want to see him just yet. I didn’t want to see anyone. I needed to sit and process everything that had happened, so after I checked in, I hung out awhile to think before going through security.

The rehearsal dinner.

The wedding.

My chat with Aly in the bathroom. She’d freaking slapped me.
Slapped me.

Then the fight. Or was it a fight? Maybe it was just a drunk man and a sober man trying to claim what they each thought was theirs. But I wasn’t Grant’s by any stretch of the imagination. And I wasn’t really Casey’s yet, either. Hearing them go back and forth, Grant yelling and Casey staying reasonably calm, had been an emotional smack that made the bitch slap I’d taken in the ladies’ room look like child’s play.

From my vantage during the quarrel, all I could see was the storm in Casey’s eyes. I was sick of hurting him.

Maybe Aly was right. Maybe I was bad for Casey. Deep down, I think we both knew what we were doing wasn’t good for either of us. So why couldn’t we ever just stop? Why didn’t he ever just say forget it and be with her?

But he
had
been with her.

Was I allowed to be jealous? Was anyone ever entitled to another person? He had every right to be with her and her with him, but the thought of them together gave me a chill. It was very possible I was going to lose him. To her. And she’d been right. Every time I’d left Casey, it made it that much easier for her to be there for him.

I’d made such a fucking mess.

Sitting in the abandoned terminal, I drank coffee after coffee waiting for my connecting flight out of Reno. But it was good. I needed the minutes.

I needed the quiet. It was peaceful.

My life had just exploded. My husband learned about my affair with the man who I’m really meant for, and once again, I’d left him. Left Casey.

I watched the sun rise over the tarmac.

The planes slowly taxied around the runways, almost as if they were on a leisurely Sunday stroll. They made me question my own patience. A question I wasn’t ready to answer, but knew was the root of one of my biggest problems.

They called my flight next and like all the other quiet travelers, I stood in line and waited my turn. Funny how things appear to you all at once.

I sat over the wing on the way to Seattle, watching the low-lying clouds blanket the Earth below me. It was so sunny up there, but the ground couldn’t see it. It was covered with grayness when all along the sun shined just above.

At thirty-thousand feet, I accepted that my patience was a bad thing. I was too persistent. At every turn, it was my endurance, my ability to wait for that right moment—that was never going to happen—that had failed me.

Tolerantly, I had waited to fall in love with Grant. My patience had hovered over our relationship like the thick clouds I watched out the window. It wouldn’t allow the sun to filter through. Perhaps, in that relationship, there had never been any sun waiting to filter through. Perhaps the wait would have been in vain anyway.

I waited for Casey to tell me what I wanted to hear instead of taking a leap of faith and just asking him. I was so stubborn it had resulted in him not telling me until my wedding day. Then I’d set a timeline of a year. A year? Who does that? What was I waiting for and where in the fuck did I get this sense of fortitude? Because it never felt like I got what I was actually waiting for. It never got me him.

It was when I’d been spontaneous that I’d been the happiest.

The night I’d met Casey in Hook, Line and Sinker, I’d said fuck patience. To hell with waiting. I’d wanted him. That night was almost perfect.

He’d told me what he wanted.

I’d wanted it too.

I sipped cold coffee and vowed to fight my patience. To stop waiting. To move. To appreciate the overcast. After all, the sun wasn’t that far away. It was just out of sight for the moment. Not gone all together.

When I landed, it was still very early for New Year’s Day. Most people were sleeping it off after a night of partying and celebrating.

Who knew airports could make one reflect so much? I bought a water—another cup of coffee might have made my skin vibrate straight off my bones—and sat by baggage claim after I retrieved my bags, and continued to reflect. I could only imagine what I looked like to the few lonely people in the airport. I had the good sense to at least open a magazine I’d bought so I wasn’t just staring off into space. They would have called security. There I was in a dress, trench coat, and last night’s makeup and hair. What a hot, pathetic mess.

But my body waited for my head to sort it all out, even though I looked like a single piece of candy in a crystal dish. Forgotten and singular. Regardless, with only the buzz of the suitcase conveyor to hum along with, I could finally hear everything clearly.

I wasn’t going back to the house Grant bought for us.

There was no going back. I was never really there anyway.

I’d talk to Grant later, but it was best I either got a hotel room or went to my parents’ house. Not just for Casey’s and my benefit, but for Grant’s as well. This wasn’t his fault. I owed it to him to tell him the truth—almost more than anyone. He hadn’t deserved his wife cheating on him. No one did. He probably had a major hangover on top of it all.

I reached into my bag for my phone and powered it up for the first time since I’d turned it off before I left the bathroom at the bar. It was late, already early afternoon. I was flooded with messages and missed calls, but the one that stuck out to me was from Casey.

Casey: Happy 2010. Goodbye.

Like hell,
Goodbye.
I wanted to think about my reply thoroughly. I needed to be careful with my words to Casey. How much more could he take?
Would
he take? I had to do better by him. When I’d neglected him, it hurt me worse. That had to stop. There was no mistaking how badly I desired communication with him.

Me: Happy 2010. Don’t say goodbye. We’re just in a fight. Remember?

He didn’t reply right away. I didn’t expect him to. I wasn’t going to stop reaching out to Casey though, dammit. I needed to think more about what to say to him, but not saying anything to him anymore simply wasn’t an option.

I didn’t think twice about looking up the number for the Hotel Max. I needed some sleep, even though my mind was still running at full speed.

I took a cab and checked in. I smiled at the door to the room I’d met Casey in so long ago as I walked down the hall to the room I’d been given today. Was there anywhere he hadn’t left pieces of himself in my life?

Showering and changing into pajamas, I lay down on the comfortable bed and stared at my phone.

I knew what I needed to do and even though it wasn’t going to be easy, it also wasn’t going to be that hard. I was going to be with Casey and nothing else mattered. It was where I belonged.

My fingers slid over the screen as I typed to him and hoped his faith in me was still there.

Me: I won’t give up on us.

That it wasn’t goodbye for us. The light at the end of the tunnel would get brighter and like the sun above the clouds that I couldn’t see from the ground, I had to believe it was there.

It was there.

It was there the whole time. I just had to have faith.

Friday, January 1, 2010

IT WAS HARD TO have faith when I didn’t know how she was or what she was doing.

My phone burned a hole in my pocket all day. I checked the battery. Checked my service. Double-checked I hadn’t missed something, scrolling through my missed calls and messages over and over until it was starting to look like a nervous tick.

Troy saw me do it, but had the good sense to leave me alone. I appreciated more as we got older the kind of friendship we had. No bullshit.

When I returned to my quiet home, I didn’t have to hide my compulsions.

It was then that something switched in my head and I decided not to look at it anymore. I found the last messages between us and read them again.

I was still doing it. Same as always. I was waiting for her. I always had. Allowing it to be
her
move. How long did I expect her to be the only one going forward when all I ever did was let her muddle through the shit on her own?

Real fucking fair, Casey.

I couldn’t hold her responsible time after time, for buckling under the weight of it all, after carrying the burden for both of us. I couldn’t expect her to do it alone.

If I wanted to be the man she needed, the man she deserved, I needed to fight too. Hard. I had to quit fighting
her
and fight
with
her.

The night before I’d felt like a man possessed and possessed I was. Territorial even. Like I had control—for maybe the first time—and it was all because I
did
something. I was part of the change I wanted. There was no mistaking the look on her face when she dialed into my assertive behavior. Even worse, or better for me, Grant made a fucking ass of himself.