Erika
The week passed in an odd combination of fast-forward and barely crawling, like an empty highway before and after a major accident. The only difference was, she could easily identify when it was going to slow to a crawl, and when it was going to speed by.
Every day, twice a day, without fail, Monday through Thursday, she had talked on the phone with Harden. Not once had he been late, not once had he canceled or forgotten. Her phone rang promptly at the time he’d told her he would call, and she’d been there to answer, usually having sat down ten to fifteen minutes ahead of time in excited anxiousness.
Then they would talk. Ten minutes. Twenty, an hour would go by. Rarely did they talk for more than an hour. It kept things so that they would always have more to discuss the next time. She liked that; he wanted to keep things exciting, interesting even. She learned more about Kronum, about what it had been like before the Institute destroyed it. He made her laugh with descriptions of the slowness of life there, and how it had been something he really enjoyed, though he wasn’t interested in living the farmer life. She’d laughed for five minutes straight when he’d told her about how his attempt at herding sheep had gone terribly until he’d shifted into his wolf form.
Then, oddly enough, it had gone quite smoothly. They’d both shared a laugh over that one.
She’d told him about her life growing up. Being the only child of two teachers, both of whom had passed away before her twenty-first birthday, her mother by weeks. It hadn’t been a cause for celebration, as she’d hoped, but she had taken advantage of being of a legal age. So much, in fact, that she’d lost all memory of the entire weekend. That had been her first, and only experience with binge drinking. Since then she’d learned to restrain herself, but the memory of her experience loomed overhead constantly.
They’d mostly tiptoed around the subject of how to fix things with him and Cadia, but so far, they weren’t finding any loopholes, any ways around it. She could tell that it was driving him mad. He spoke of it only quietly, in fervent tones, about how he was going to fix it. How he was going to make it right. She was growing to doubt him.
At the same time, Erika found she was having a harder and harder time telling herself that she could do without him, that life sans Harden would be tough, but doable. Each time they spoke, she felt relaxed, and happier than she had been in quite a while. It burned her not to be able to see his face, to stare into his pale-green eyes and to feel the strength in his hands as he held her. She craved it.
On Wednesday she thought about telling him to come over.
On Thursday she’d started speaking the words, and then stopped in her tracks.
Now it was Friday afternoon, and they were talking earlier than normal, in anticipation of the evening being busy with plans. Not that she’d made any, and she doubted he had either. But they’d acted as if they were both going to be up to something, keeping up the charade of a normal life.
“So, you’re finally coming back to Cloud Lake,” she said into the phone, lying on her side on the couch, the little device on speakerphone on the soft blue material in front of her.
“What? No,” he said. “I’ve been here all along…” he trailed off.
“What?!” she yelped, sitting bolt upright. You’ve been here all week?”
“Yes. I-I thought you knew that. I never went back. I had to try and figure something out, work out a solution. So I went to the ambassador, and I told him. He helped, Erika. He said I could stay here.”
She wanted to wring his neck! Why couldn’t he have told her this earlier? At the start of the week! Then perhaps they could have arranged to see each other. She could have laid her head on his chest and listened to his heart beat as he held her. It would have been bliss.
“When are you here until?” she asked instead, keeping her tone as calm as possible.
“Sunday at eight,” he said immediately, but the dead air on the phone told her that he was holding something back.
“Unless?” she prompted, wondering if he had to leave early.
“Unless a resident of Cloud Lake takes responsibility for me, and says that I can stay with them.”
Oh.
Oh.
Erika knew who that “resident” would have to be. It was unlikely that someone else would sponsor him, so to speak, to remain within Cloud Lake. She certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone else to shoulder that danger. No, if he was going to stay, one Erika Rey was going to be the only person who could vouch for him.
And she wasn’t’ ready to commit to that yet.
“I see,” she said carefully, trying not to give anything away.
“Yeah.”
“They would know immediately if I did that.”
“I know.”
Erika sank back into the couch, arms at her sides, eyes closed. “Dammit. I wish this could be easier.”
“Me too. This would be so much easier if I didn’t live in Cadia.”
“If that were the case, you’d never have met me,” she said. “But I understand what you mean.” She thought that over for a minute. “Is there a way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there a way for you to live elsewhere? To remove yourself from Cadia, so that you aren’t part of their responsibility? So that these others wouldn’t hate you so much.”
He snorted. “Oh, they’d probably still hate me, but for another reason.”
She almost asked him what that was, but decided against it.
“But where would I live? I can’t live with you,” he said.
“What about Cloud Lake itself?” she asked. “Is that possible?”
He was silent.
“Harden?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. Just thinking. I don’t know. Maybe there is. Perhaps I could take out a loan or something. I’m not sure.” He fell silent again. “I’m going to go. I have some questions to ask, and unfortunately you can’t give me the answers.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later?”
“Count on it,” he said. “I’ll call you once I’m done.”
They said their goodbyes and she hung up, a smile spreading across her face. For the first time all week, she’d heard something in his voice, something that had been lacking since she’d told him he couldn’t come back into her house.
Hope.