“I have something to tell you.” Her voice was choked, tired-sounding, and yet, sure-sounding. “I don’t not know anymore. I do now. I know we want the same things, and I know why I was afraid. Your playboy past freaked me out, and my own past freaked me out, too. There’s so much you still don’t know about me; so much I want you to know about me. So much I want to do with you. So, yeah. I don’t know if this is too late. If I messed up not telling you when I had the chance. But... yeah. I hope I didn’t. I really, really hope I didn’t.”
“I just want you to know that I’ve never felt this way about anyone for an extremely long time. And it terrifies me. And I wish you were here now. But I understand if you’re fed up with me. But yeah, I wish you were here now.”
Grayson listened to the message three times, then saved it.
Talk about the turnaround of the century.
When she’d told him “I don’t know”; her voice wavering, hardly able to even look him in the eye, Grayson had figured that she had said it all. The “no” was in there, albeit in a different spelling. He’d figured that was it for them, for the only woman he’d ever had anything approaching real feelings for.
But then, she’d left him the voicemail message three days ago now, and still he hadn’t responded. Not because he ‘didn’t know’; of course he did. He knew now as much as he had then.
The only difference was now the actual implications of what they were saying was occurring to him. He lived in Vancouver. She lived in Toronto. A 41-hour drive, a 4-hour flight. Not commutable distances and not long-distance dating distances.
Then, there was the simple fact that he’d never had a relationship last more than a month, let alone a functional relationship. Annie had said it herself, too. There still was so much they didn’t know about each other. But he wanted to. Hell, he wanted to know every little sordid detail about her – from what kind of milk she took with her coffee to the dark-sounding past she’d hinted at in her voicemail.
Screwing this up was out of the question, too. In Grayson’s twenty-nine years, he’d never found anyone even remotely close to Annie. Likely, he wouldn’t anytime soon, if ever. He had to do this right.
Even from freaking Costa Rica, Kyle had returned Grayson’s Skype call. “Dude, you sound wrecked.”
“I am wrecked. I have a... problem, of sorts.”
“You and Annie are screwing, and you don’t know if you have feelings for her,” Kyle said, blithely.
Grayson gaped at him, and his friend cracked a grin. “You’re really surprised? Girls tell each other everything.” He shot Grayson a wounded glare, “Unlike shitty so-called ‘best friends.’”
“Listen,” Grayson protested. “I was going to tell you...”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Now, you want advice, right?”
“Just... well, yeah. I mean, how did you know Kyla was the right one for you, and all that?”
Kyle nodded, something about his expression now reminding Grayson of a sage.
“Know, you must,” he said, in a Yoda voice, as Grayson cracked up. “But know, you will not. Until try, you do.”
“I was looking for something a little more...”
“Ok, it’s like this, alright? A bunch of books, TV shows, and articles are gonna tell you a bunch of stuff, and they might not be half bad, ok? But here’s how it is for me. It isn’t pretty butterflies and rainbows, but it’s real. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that when Kyla and I have had a bad fight, I haven’t doubted things, but... it’s all in seeing how I’m my best self with her.” Kyle’s voice changed; he was smiling now. “It’s about actually being able to see myself with her. Not ten minutes down the road, but even ten years, if you make me do one of those visualization thingies. We have our good days and we have our bad, but in the end, that’s what I want with her – more days, our days. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Grayson sighed, “Spoken like a true impossible-to-live-up-to Kyle.”
Kyle snorted, “I just told you that I’ve had doubts and that we fight.”
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks anyway.”
“Good luck, man. You’ll need it.”
Grayson found that he was half-smiling as he reflected. Luck is the least I need.
—
THE NEXT DAY, HE DID it in a whirlwind. Went to work to request the transfer. Rushed to the airport to buy a ticket for the soonest flight to Toronto. Made the plane with five minutes to spare. Then, at 3 am, he was en route to Sunnybrook Hospital. He knew she worked the night shift on Wednesdays.
There, as the male nurse with the glasses leaned in way too close to the woman with the reddish-brown ponytail, Grayson had his answer.
This was Annie’s shift.