Chapter 1
Cara
The trees were a blur as I drove down the highway. Luckily, traffic hadn’t gathered to the fervor I knew it would become on a Friday heading toward the coast. With the windows down, breeze blowing my hair around my face, and my playlist blaring on the radio, my thoughts were everywhere.
What had I done wrong? How can someone that I’d been so happy with just leave without a trace?
The last week had been one of the darkest I had experienced in my life.
LJ.
That was my affectionate nickname for him. It had sprung from the first date we had, when we talked about what he had originally set out to do in life: become a lawyer. Lawyer Joe, I had teased him, and when I finally committed to saving his name in my phone, that was what he was: LJ. Because it always popped up when he texted or called thereafter, that was all I ever called him. Even his friends and family began calling him LJ. Happily (for him), he never finished his law degree, realizing that the life he wanted to live was full of less formality. He had used what was left of his living expenses from student loans and taken over the convenience store that his friend’s family was selling to move west. He’d never looked back. Just like now. He had left me and sold the business, and had not looked back.
A honk of the car beside me jolted me out of my thoughts and to the road, as I swerved back to my side of the dotted line. The sun coming in through my moon roof was becoming unbearably hot on my shoulder and face, but I needed the fresh air. A trip to the beach for the weekend was exactly what I needed. The warmth of the sun, the stickiness of the salt air would take away my feelings of emptiness. Maybe a jog along the beach one morning.
I closed my windows and roof as I began to head into the tunnel. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel system was one of the world's largest, and was called one of the non-ancient “wonders of the world.” Although the bridges were long and beautiful surrounding the tunnel system, the tunnels themselves always made me feel claustrophobic. I had many times used my odometer to monitor the exact mileage of the part of the tunnel I had to go through so that I knew which way to swim if the tunnel were to suddenly crack and flood with water.
In a sense, I was doing the same thing now with my emotions. Gauging if I should continue to swim backward and try to find LJ, or just move forward. Passing the halfway point, I audibly let out a sigh to myself. The decision was made for me. I was moving forward. The fish, Dory, from the movie Nemo, chanted her line in my head, to “just keep swimming.” Laughing out loud, I decided I was going crazy. I had fish talking in my head. Just great. Maybe that was why he left.
Because I made a point of making sure people said my name correctly, “Car - a, as in the vehicle, not Care - a” and I loved to drive around in my Volkswagen Golf R, he had put me in his phone as “car.” Now more than ever, I felt like that: an object that he loved, but one day just set aside.
The sign for Interstate 264 was finally in front of me. I was almost to the sand and warmth I desperately craved. I had booked a room at the Hilton, one of the newest and most expensive hotels on the beach. I may as well be comfortable while I was all alone. Never mind that now I was having to pay both his and my portion of our house payment. I’d bought the house for us in my name alone, as my credit was excellent and his was lower due to the debt he had taken on after purchasing the store. He was diligently working to pull it back up, and was never late giving me his portion of the payments, and he’d even paid all of the utilities for us.
Now, what was I supposed to do with this house that was our dream? I was a certified personal trainer, and a group exercise instructor that had become a fitness center manager. Most of my work, luckily, was now done from home, constantly tweaking schedules, figuring out which classes were working and which ones needed to come off the schedule, looking for certification classes to bring in that would help the current instructors, and, unlike the laidback college students who had worked for LJ, my days were headaches of dealing with “catty” instructors who thought they deserved more classes, or more money, or more recognition than the other instructors at the club.
Pulling up to the Hilton’s valet circle, an old but familiar and sad song started on the radio. “At this moment” by Billy Vera and the Beaters. I put the car in park and sat there, tears starting to blur my vision. This moment. The song asked about sacrifices, and what I would give up if someone would stay. Damn it. Why was it that there was always a song to bring me back to the reason I was leaving? If only LJ had given me that moment. That goodbye. Instead, he became a ghost. It was almost worse than a death, in a way. Nothing happened, and I didn’t get to say goodbye. There had been no reason for his departure. Now I am left here, alone, to always wonder.
LJ had simply taken what few belongings he had brought to our house, and packed them up in his car. His friend, Matt, had been in the car waiting. When I had pulled up in the driveway, and walked upstairs, he was packing his last bag of clothes. I was too in shock to demand an explanation. I’d crumpled to the ground and had simply asked if he was leaving me. His response had been, “For now.” No emotion, nothing of the sweet man I had known all this time. After he left, I finally let myself text him. No answer. Calling him had produced the same result. By the time I had gotten in my car to drive to the beach, I had probably racked up no fewer than forty unanswered phone calls, and 400 unanswered texts. I felt crazy. When I tried to ask his friend, Scott, he had told me coldly that it wasn't his place to talk about it. Scott was taking over the store for a while, and LJ had decided that our relationship wasn't what he had wanted it to be.
The valet trying the door handle pulled me back to the present, and I opened the door to give him the key. Choking out that I did not have any bags with me, I walked inside to check in. The lady at the counter continued to dagger my heart, asking if I needed an extra key, and if she could have the bellboy take my baggage up for me. No to both. Instead of planning out the trip and packing accordingly, I had just started driving, stopping at Starbucks to make the reservation on my phone, and continued on. I had the clothes on my back, my car, my purse, my phone, and my credit card.
After handing my credit card back to me with my room key, she added in a way too happy tone that there were a lot of sales in the clothing stores around the hotel.
“Thank you,” was my only response.
* * * * *
“Room service,” a voice thundered, waking me from my sleep. I wondered how long they had been knocking. My clock said that it was close to nine a.m.—I’d collapsed on the bed fully clothed as soon as I’d checked in. I guessed that not getting sleep for a week in the bed that LJ and I had slept in together had taken its toll on me. I jumped out of bed and opened the door.
“Sorry, ma'am, I didn’t mean to knock so loud, but I did not know if you heard me the first couple of times,” the older man said, holding a vase of roses.
“Oh, it’s okay. I had fallen asleep,” I mumbled, wondering why he had knocked in the first place, but praying that LJ had found me and sent roses as an indication of wanting to return.
“I think these are for you, if you are Felicia Brunt,” he smiled broadly.
“I am Cara Lauren, actually. I think you have the wrong room,” I replied, with my heart breaking in a million pieces all over again.
Shutting the door, I walked over to the sliding glass door, daring to finally open the curtains and look out on the beach. All of the people in their chairs, on their blankets, especially any couples. I dared myself to wonder how happy they were. If any of them thought that the person they were with, happily soaking up the sun, would ever leave.
“Man, Cara, get a hold of yourself,” I scolded as I slid the door open and stepped out on the balcony. The third floor just didn’t seem high enough away from all of the happiness below. I dared to move my eyes away from the beach and look down in to the small courtyard of hotel, and saw someone looking back up at me. Feeling self-conscious, I smiled, a small nod to the fact that I was invading his privacy by staring down. He smiled back. It was the kind of smile that almost made me forget why I had come to the beach in the first place.
“Hello, up there!” he yelled.
Surprised, I almost took a step back before I found my courage. “Um, hi. Having fun down there?”
It was such a public exchange, and I wondered if others were paying attention to us.
“I’d be having more fun if I weren’t alone,” he said. “Come down and join me for a drink at the bar?”
I said the only thing that came to my sleep-deprived mind, “Sure, why not. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”
I’d come to the beach to get some closure on LJ, so what better way than to have a drink with another man? Sadly, in my mind I was still doing it because I wanted LJ to come and catch me and whisk me away in his jealousy. I stepped back inside, took a glance in the mirror and decided to keep my hair in the messy bun I had thrown it in earlier. No need to impress a stranger I was just using to buy me a drink. I rarely wore makeup, but I always kept mascara and lip gloss, and swiped each quickly on.
“Let’s see if you still have it, Cara Lauren.”