“I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You.” Colin Hay
I can still see the outline of my lipstick on my hand. The color itself is gone but the shadow that seared into my brain when I kissed it and offered it to AJ won’t disappear. Every time I close my eyes, that’s what I see. And mostly because I won’t let myself see him and Crosby standing there, waiting for me to round the partition and come home with them.
My mind won’t stop repeating one particular question, could I have?
Could I have stayed? Could I have made a life with him? Could I have had happiness? The question has replaced my heartbeat, which petered out the second they locked that airplane door.
“Hey boss lady, coming down to inspect the new batch of barrels?” My assistant peeks her head in, letting her smile fill my dreary office, hoping to entice me out of the gloom.
“They’re here?” I ask even though I feel like one of the oak beauties has landed on my chest. “I…”
I can’t go down there.
“They…” I stutter again.
They remind me of him.
“Can you double check them and sign for the shipment. I…” definitely can’t find the words for this… “I just can’t.”
They will be the gorgeous rich wood I’ve come to know and love. Each one is hand-hewn and treated beautifully. The bands of steel around the tops and bottoms are all individually forged, showing both their maker and their wear at once. Until this Christmas, until seeing AJ’s work, they represented the birth of my dream, the step I’d taken to make something real, something that mattered. But now…
Now I’m missing AJ’s woodwork as much as I’m missing him.
“Is everything okay, Camilla? These past few days, you just seem…different.” My assistant takes a step inside forgetting about the barrels, now fully focused on me.
There are no words to help me explain. No way to tell someone that my heart hadn’t been whole for a very long time and this Christmas, I lost the very last piece I’d been clinging to. Each day it wasn’t the Pacific Northwest sky that wept, but me, my very soul.
“Trips home take it out of me, but I’m fine.” I manage a small smile for her but it’s just because I force the corners of my mouth to do something—anything—to reassure her. Maybe even to help convince myself.
“Okay,” she drags the last syllable out, and I’m quite sure it’s the sadness swirling behind my eyes that keeps her from really believing me. It’s certainly what keeps me from seeing the sunshine if it dares peek out through the cloud cover here in Seattle.
The moment the door clicks behind her, I lay my cheek on my desk, making sure not to think about how the barrel wood beneath me reminds me of AJ too. I fold my hands over top of my head and focus on deep breaths. Deep, cleansing breaths.
I refuse to focus on him.
On us.
On the way it felt to wake up fitting perfectly into the crook of his shoulder. On the way his arms wrapped around me. The way his lips electrified my skin. And particularly on the way it felt laying under the Christmas tree, complete with Crosby, like a family.
The tears are pooling in the corner of my eyes, and balling up like a softball in my throat. This time I’m tempted to let them fall. Maybe crying him out will work this time. Now that we actually have closure…
Closure.
Closed.
Gone.
Forever.
Wet, warm tracks start down my cheeks whether I like it or not. Even when my office door creaks on its hinges and two footsteps send the ancient warehouse floorboards creaking, I can’t pull the waterworks back in.
“I mean it’s a nice place and all…” the jarringly familiar voice starts and my head automatically snaps up, “…but may I ask what the fuck you’re still doing here?”
Somehow, someway—probably the miracle of American Airlines—Trigg is leaning against my doorframe with her hands crossed sternly across her chest. She looks exactly like she did the last time I saw her, long bouncy blonde ponytail, North Face jacket, Levis and lace-up boots. Even the same wickedly arched eyebrow.
“What are you doing here?” I can’t keep the warble out of my voice.
“I didn’t speak up last time.” She sighs as she pushes off the doorframe and helps herself to the cushy leather seat in front of my desk. “I didn’t tell you that you’re a dumbass for leaving him behind. I didn’t tell you that despite everything, he picked you.” Her gaze is unwavering and I’m trapped firmly in its hold. “He picks you,” she corrects.
My heart twists like someone is wringing out like a washcloth. I can’t stop my hand from flying to my chest and pressing down.
“Trigg, I can’t,” I manage.
“See, this bullshit has to stop.” She leans forward and plants her hands on my desk. “You can. We’re not talking about cross-breeding a cow and a duck. We’re talking about where you age those beautiful barrels.” She rises up, leaning over to shove her face in mine. “You think he shouldn’t leave? Fine. Move there. Can’t give this up? Fine. Expand.”
I gulp and her eyes flit to where my throat wavers.
“Cam, I’ve known you a long time. You’re too smart for this. And you love him too much. You can have it all, it just looks a little bit different than you originally thought.”
She’s sucker punched me. So, so hard I can’t breathe. If my heart was still beating, her words would have stopped it all over again. But my mind is racing, replaying her words, adding in a million questions, and…coming up with flavors?
Campfire and sage and pine. Coffee notes. Something metallic even. All mixed with bourbon.
It would taste like Willow Creek. Like AJ.
My mouth falls open and my eyes start darting side to side, searching for a pen. Scratch paper. My phone. Anything to get this down.
“Now that your ass is in gear, I’m going to treat myself to a tasting and a tour downstairs. Well, you’re going to treat me. I carry your products after all.”
She turns on her heel but stops at the door and looks over her shoulder at me.
“And when you’re done, you’re going to treat me to dinner to pay me back in part for the plane ticket with your name on it. We leave tomorrow.”
“New Year’s Eve with AJ?” My words are barely more than a gasp.
I’m clenching and unclenching my fists as we board the tiny plane that takes us from Denver to Willow Creek. Somehow nerves haven’t hit until this very moment.
“He hates me,” I blurt out of absolutely nowhere.
Trigg just backhands my shoulder. “He hates you the way he hates breathing.”
“I left.”
“Twice, actually.” She makes a face that has me returning the favor to her shoulder. She just rolls her eyes and adds, “You’re his penguin, he’ll get over it.”
“His penguin?”
“Didn’t you watch the penguin documentary? They’re completely monogamous and mate for life. They travel great distances to present their mates with the perfect rock, the foundation on which to build their nests together. They even sing to each other.” Her voice gets warm and rich like fresh pie. “His penguin.”
“And here I forgot a rock,” I say with a bit of snark.
“You’re humans, he gets the rock.” She winks at me and my knees go weak, sending me stumbling toward the gate. “There’s the Cam I know and love.” She chuckles. “Tell me you didn’t think about it last night? About a future with him?” She looks over shyly.
“I thought about how to make this work. How it has to this time.” As soon as I say it I start chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“How’s that?”
“Thirty-eight,” I say without explanation and for a second Trigg looks at me with a crinkled and skeptical face, but then the lightbulb flashes on.
“Colorado is the thirty-eighth state in the union,” she says, barely able to conceal her smile.
She’s barely able because she knows what the number really means every bit as much as I do. Her eyes twinkle just like mine when I turn toward her. “Thirty-eight because it was his hockey jersey in high school.”