From Here to Eternity

 

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.

- Hugh Prather

 

 

RISKE

 

It was dark when I woke up. I hadn’t awoken this early in months. The dawn always had a different life when you woke up to it, a sort of sleepy awakening that sings of vitality and new beginnings.

I walked out of my Memphis hotel door quietly, making sure I shut it silently behind my feet. The sun’s rising glow was muted as I climbed in my rented car, and the further out I traveled, the darker the environment seemed to get. I rolled down the windows and rode for what felt like forever.

My shirt was sticky, my hands dirty within ten minutes by the time I made it to Dayton, the horrific humidity covering me with sweat.

The greenery outside of my windows only got denser and denser. Obfuscating. Thick. And once I hit the city-limits, it was as if I was finding my designated spot with my heart instead of my head, letting it lead me to a place I knew I’d never forget.

The field. Our field.

It was just as beautiful as I remembered, even more so. Staring didn’t do it justice. I had the urge to sit down because I was afraid that I would faint, not from the exhaustion that was plaguing my bones, but the sheer magnitude of such exquisiteness. It was overwhelming. Sweat dripped over my head and down my brow. It landed on my fatigue-burned shoulders, but I barely registered it. I barely registered anything… except for the cool hands that suddenly reached directly over my eyes.

I jumped sideways, grabbing the wrists that hang close, glancing up to see nothing but blue.

Not the sky. So much lighter than the sky.

It was those irises. Misty, water-colored irises, fraught with wintry wet lightning bolts. I could see every dimension in them, every facet. Would they ever not amaze me? I didn’t think it was possible.

“Looks like you’ve run to the right place,” she said.

The sound of her voice made the shock wear off. “You mean… come to the right place…”

“No…” she commented. “I mean run. You’ve run away to here.” She grinned then, one side of her face pulling upwards slightly into a lopsided smirk. She looked as beautiful as ever.

I cleared my throat, looking away. “I needed the inspiration. I’m thinking of writing a story.”

“And what is the place telling you?” she asked. She searched for my eyes, but I wouldn’t meet hers.

“Probably the same thing it told you… only I didn’t listen the last time.” I finally chanced a glance at her face. “What did it tell you?”

She sighed resignedly, running a hand through her brown waves of hair.

“It took a while for me to get it… but now I’m sure I do. Maybe I didn’t get it at first…” She chuckled sadly, but continued. “This story can’t be written. Nothing would do this justice.”

I nodded. “Well said.”

Kat shifted in her shoes, turning even closer to me.

“Look, Brendon, I want to explain a couple of things…”

I headed her off before she can start. “No need to.”

“No,” she stated, clutching my arm. “I want to.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but I had to. I had to man up and take this verbal beating. She started out slowly. “I know you came looking for me back then. And I ran. I ran away from you. I’m not saying that it was the right thing to do, but it was right for me at the time. It was what I needed. I was so terrified and cynical and angry that I can’t believe that I was actually going to pass on something great… even when it was staring me right in the face.” She glanced up at me. “My anger didn’t have anything to do with you. It had to do with myself. I built an enemy in my head that was never really there.”

She inhaled deeply.

“When I left Dayton, everything about that world became vilified. Even you. And I’m so sick of running from something. For the first time in my life, I wanna run towards something. And now I have. I’ve run to you. Karma took her sweet time strolling in, because now I’m the one doing the chasing.”

My eyes swiveled towards her face.  “You followed me here?”

She shrugged, looking downward.

“Less ‘followed’… more like ‘stalked.’” She flashed a shy smile. “I saw Chris and Griff in Tampa. I know what you did with Greg and Laney. Everything.”

“Yeah.”

“Please. Please tell me it’s all true…”

“What’s all true?”

“Please tell me… that you really punched Greg in the face.”

I laughed, loud and long. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s all true.”

“And what about the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“Everything. Everything that Chris and Griff told me…” She glared up at me, hopeful.

I narrowed my eyes at her, waiting until she took a deep breath.

“Please tell me that you haven’t been able to eat. That your sleep is few and far in–between. That your eyes have lost their light and that your smiles haven’t been as bright. That breathing right is a chore and each day is harder than the last. Please tell me that you’ve been completely, utterly and wholly miserable without me… because if you do… then I can tell you that I’ve been feeling exactly the same way without you.”

She stopped speaking, lowering her eyes once again. And at that point, I couldn’t take anymore. I grabbed her shoulders firmly, but not forcefully—just enough to get her to see me. Really see me. I needed her to see Brendon Foxx… and Ethan Riske.

Yes, there were two sides of me… and both sides had absolutely, fucking loved Kat.

They became one the second that I looked into her powder blue eyes. I no longer see ice when I look at them. Not now. Not when they stare at me with a tenderness that she can’t hide.

“Kat. Listen to me,” I swallowed thickly, nearly pressing my nose to hers. “I’ve come a long way from where I was. From a deeply-rooted unhappiness, the feeling of something missing at the core. An empty vessel on auto-pilot. A simple shell just going through the motions. I’d had to recover from a lot. My entire life has been under reconstruction. Trying to build a business from the ground up. And not only that… but trying to build a new me. Twelve weeks.” I emphasized harshly.

“Twelve weeks and ten years without you. Seeing you and having you in one instant, only to have you disappear again. Almost ten years of toughening up. Making it without you. Moving on. And you know what?” I hesitated, tripping terribly over my next words. “I’d gotten nowhere. I’d gone in circles. Circles, Kat. And you are the only one who can set me straight. You were right. I haven’t been able to breathe, sleep or eat… because all I can think to do is sleep with you, eat with you… breathe you. Inhale you like some narcotic.” I licked my lips.

“And if you feel anything like I feel, then the absence has been crippling, debilitating, all-consuming. It eats you from the inside-out, making normal functioning impossible, making each breath unbearable.”

I gripped her shoulders even tighter.

“If it’s even a tenth of that, then you crave me more than air… because that’s how much I yearn for you.”

Her eyes, already watery, glazed over with a shimmering sheen. And then it happened. A tear finally fell from her lashes—one solitary, clear raindrop from her dewy sky-blue eye.

“It’s every bit of that… times infinity,” she says. Her voice was shaky, but determined, and I was in awe of the woman she was revealing herself to be. Her strength and her sensitivity. She was sharing all of it with me. I shook my head at her.

“Then there’s nothing left to say. Let’s face it, kitten…” I drew her into me, speaking against her lips, my mouth brushing against hers as I talked. “You need me. And I know that you already know how much I need you.”

I gazed at her now, through renewed eyes, watching as understanding washed over her. I could see that she knows that I mean more than what is apparent on the surface. I didn’t just mean physical survival. I needed her for the survival of everything that I am, everything that I ever was. I needed her for the survival of my soul.

The soul of Ethan Riske.

I thought he was dead; she revived him. I tried to save her. She saved me in return.

I kissed her... with all the passion of a contained maelstrom, with the intensity of a tornado in a bottle. Her lips gave way in the most supple of manners, and we became nearly intertwined, our lips and tongues and whispers so fully connected that they were almost one.

My hands drifted down to her waist, to her hips, and her movements began to match my own. When her tiny hands reached my hips, they made contact with my back pockets. She withdrew from the kiss.

“What’s this?” she asked, her brow furrowing. I glanced back towards her fingers before looking back at her, holding her steady with a stare.

“You know what it is,” I answered. Reaching down inside of the pocket, I pulled out the beautiful silver bracelet.

It had been folded in half and stuffed in my shorts, been to Tennessee, Tampa and all the way back again.

All to end up here. Right now. At that very moment.

I handed it to Kat, watching her face intently, as she stretched it, skimming her fingers over it as if this were her first time ever seeing it. She didn’t even ask how I came to possess it, but I knew she was seeing what I had seen back in Tennessee, back in Elena’s house, when I picked it up.

Did she remember what she engraved on the clasp I bought? I sure as hell did. My look hardened at her downturned face. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Kat?”

She gazed back up at me, surprised. She placed the bracelet down on her lap, still clutching it. I grasped it carefully from her fingers.

“Still more secrets?” She said nothing in return. “That’s ok… because I have one, too.” My lips slid into a small smile. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll show you mine… if you show me yours.”

Kat looked back down at the silver bracelet. I didn’t need to follow her gaze; I already knew what the bracelet said.

Two words. One phrase. “Tell Ethan.”

The words “Tell Ethan” were inscribed at the bottom of the bracelet, etched into the groove of the very metal. The interesting part? It must have been engraved before I ever left… the first time.

“Kat…” I said, tilting her face to meet mine. “What is there left to say? What do you have to tell me?”

She stared at my finger on her chin. “It’s not a matter of what I have to tell you. It’s a matter of what I haven’t.

I dropped my hand from her jaw. “I don’t understand…”

She sighed, grabbing my slowly descending fingers.

“For being the type of man who helps an embittered lonely girl. The type of man who then saves that bitter girl, puts up with that girl’s shit…” She laughed. “For being the type of man who runs after that stupid girl, looks after and caters to this selfish girl. For being the type of man who changed that lonely girl, who turned that lonely girl into a woman, a woman who wasn’t so lonely anymore… I wanted to say thank you. One thank you was never enough. I should have been thanking you every minute… of every hour… of every day. Thank you… for being the type of man that can look at me the way that you’re looking at me now and still want me, flaws and all. Thank you for being you.” Her eyes glistened with rekindled tears.

I ran my thumb smoothly over her cheekbones, hoping to catch the salty droplets. “You’re welcome, my Katarina,” I responded. My voice was thick, heavy with emotion. I leaned over, kissing the hand that held mine, stroking it slowly. “You still haven’t asked me my secret. Show and tell, Kat. Show and tell…”

She sniffled, wiping a quick hand under her eyes as she laughed.  “No, I guess I didn’t. What is it?”

I pulled her into me. “I love you… and I want to thank you for showing me that you love me, too.”

She lowered her head, digging her tear-streaked face into my neck as she wrapped her arms around me. She kissed above my collarbone, withdrawing gently. Her eyes were crystal-blue pools of sentiment, frosty seas of thawed ice.

I’d done it—melted the icy girl and made her mine. I was so fucked… in the best way.

“I do, Foxx,” she said, using my real name, for the first time, with a watery smile. “I really do.”