Annie hoisted her red, hardback suitcase onto the window seat in her room, flipped open the locks and the lid, and stared at the emptiness.
She might as well have been looking in a mirror.
She didn't do empty anymore, or she did. She was numb … a little.
The sensation in her stomach hadn't gone away. When had it begun? When she’d first said hello to him at the party in June? When she’d first said the three words last night after they’d moved away from the wall, the passion, and the nirvana? Or in the car on the ride home or in the bubbles of the bathtub? How about when she’d tossed and turned through the night in his bed? Or was it when she’d stepped outside his door — unable to look in the man's eyes any longer, to share air, smell him, to imagine things he maybe didn't want or couldn't let in — into the sun after she’d stubbornly refused to wait for the car inside his apartment?
She had broken down earlier outside his front door, sweat mixing with tears, holding nothing back, realizing it would probably be the last time she would be in that space with Cal, realizing it may be the last time she was in Cal’s space.
The memories had flooded her mind like a deluge. A flash of things that were finished, completed, or a dream.
She’d stood outside the door, touching it, running the tips of her fingers over the grain, asking him questions with her palm, asking for him to open it.
Had he been just on the other side doing the same?
Then she’d faced the street, cleared her mind — almost — trying to think of nothing else but the way her body felt on that warm, windy morning, her head against the solid door of the solid house, squinting from the bright of the sun. Her backside slid down against it until her bottom met the concrete. She shut her eyes and didn’t open them again until she heard the honk of the horn from the Uber.
"Peek-a-boo." Maggie popped her head through the crack in Annie's bedroom door. "How's it coming?"
Shaking herself from the morning's memories, Annie sighed and surveyed the empty suitcase as if it held something.
But it didn't.
"That good?" Maggie joined Annie near the window seat and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I'm sure going to miss you."
Annie had probably heard those words at least a hundred times in the last week, but she feigned a smile. The ceiling suddenly looked friendly, so she tilted her head up and stared at it, wishing her lip would stop quivering and her mind would stop the stupid thinking. Her brain refused to give her a reprieve.
Maggie dropped her arm. "What's wrong?"
"I'm fine. It's nothing." Annie went to the dresser and took out some shirts. "I'm tired.” She shrugged.
"Don't give me that. You're not fine.” Maggie sat on Annie's bed, waiting for further explanation.
"I can't get into this with you. I'm not going to listen to you say I told you so."
"I won't judge you." Maggie's legs hung over the edge, and she crossed her ankles. "I love you."
And there they were, the three little words that were so hard for Cal came out of her friend’s mouth with ease.
"Last night"—Annie glanced over her shoulder and stared out at the ocean—"I told Cal that I love him for the first time."
Maggie sat straight up and planted her feet on the floor. "He didn’t say it back?"
Annie shook her head, then began to dart from dresser to suitcase, gathering more clothes.
"Annie, stop. Sit down."
"No." Tears slipped down her face, but she didn't make sounds, only the shuffle of her feet as she perused the room, suitcase to dresser.
"Annie, Cal tries to protect himself."
No shit.
With a stack of jeans in her hands, Annie stopped dead in the middle of the room and looked at them. The insides of her cheeks were raw from being bitten. "I bought too many clothes while I was here."
Maggie took the pants from Annie, set them on the bench, and then she returned to the bed and patted the spot next to her.
Annie obeyed her gentle gesture and sat, then Maggie swept pieces of hair behind Annie's ear. "He's ... difficult."
Annie eyed Maggie and made a sound: a sob mixed with an implied yeah, duh.
"He doesn't say what he feels easily," Maggie continued.
"Yeah … well, he's very open in the way he expresses himself … physically. More than anyone I've ever met. Fuck..." Annie sighed. She dropped her head to Maggie's shoulder. "I love his stupid, annoying difficultness." Annie lay there a moment, only breathing, then she sat up and wiped under her eyes. "Maybe not so much right now." She laughed a little.
"I didn't expect you to fall in love, sweet girl."
"Sometimes I forget how long you've known him. My God, I must look foolish. You told me I would hurt from this. From him."
"Anyone who doesn't love you is the fool."
"I know he loves me." Annie stood. "I'll keep fighting him … even while he's pushing me away. As much as I can stand anyway. He expects people to give up on him."
"When did you get so intuitive?" Maggie asked with her special brand of maternal fondness. Annie gave a sweet roll of her eyes. "No. That's right, you've always had excellent intuition. I suppose I've given him the impression”—Maggie shifted her gaze—“these last few years, that I've given up on him." She glanced at Annie, then away. "He's such a pain in the ass sometimes." A smile spread across her face, and as she shook her auburn curls, her eyes danced with fire.
"Were you ever in love with him?" The words were out before Annie could regret them. And she did not regret them.
"Annie. Jesus."
"What? He's quite a lovable asshole, and he is sexy as fuck."
Maggie laughed and shook those curls again. "No. I've always loved him. Not in love. But there was a time I fancied him. In college. But no. Never with what is in your eyes when you look at him. No."
"Fancied him?" Annie grinned.
"John's influence. His word. Maybe my husband is right," Maggie said, pausing as Annie's eyebrow shot up. "John says Cal needs time. I don't know why, after a million years of brooding, but maybe he still needs it."
"That's what Cal said too. Time. Tiempo," Annie said as Maggie cocked her head to the side. "Yeah, that's Rosa's influence."
"You’ll come back to pack up the rest of your new wardrobe and your photographs?"
Smiling, Annie’s eyes said yes, but her mouth said something else entirely. "I don't regret it, Maggie." Confidence laced her voice.
"The clothes? Honey, I wouldn't regret them either." Maggie smirked.
"No. You know what I mean."
"I know, sweetie."
"You couldn't have warned me enough to stay away from him. I would’ve found him." He would’ve found me. "I don't regret a single minute of the summer."
My summer.
Annie would never regret the summer, being with her friends, the ocean, or the sun or the heat. She would never regret Cal or regret loving Cal the only way she knew how. She’d never regret feeling his love over her, embracing it, and allowing it to heal her wounds rather than infect them, drawing strength in the weakness, in the sadness, and in the opening of her afraid-to-feel heart.