Page 98 of Holding On

“What do you want to do?”

“We could make out,” he says. I laugh, but it doesn’t come from deep inside me. It’s a nervous laugh because we do need to talk. And we do need to figure out what’s happening.

I love him. I love him with everything that I am and everything that I want to be and everything that I can be. My life could certainly go on without him, but it wouldn’t be the life I’d want to live. It wouldn’t be a life shared.

And isn’t that what we all want?

***

Travis Russo

Five days on Rock Island is the perfect gift Bryce and Chloe could have given us. We have privacy in a beautiful little spot. Even flowers on the porch. So fucking sweet. Bryce just finished working on a new metal roof, and the inside was painted bright and cheery in butter-yellow and eggshell.

The best part? We have it all to ourselves.

Everything is clean and bright. The kitchen is just immaculate, homey, well stocked. Lots to eat. Chloe even made us three dinners. Honestly, things couldn’t be better.

Except it’s five days before Maya leaves.

Maya will be flying back out in early fall, when the trial commences. But there isn’t a court date yet, and she can only afford a few days. That return trip seems like a nonstarter.

It’s evening. I can’t help but notice she picks at her dinner. Then she sits on the porch in the little rocking chair, the blue one I painted for Chloe for her birthday. Maya tips back and forth, smiling, sipping a margarita.

But her smile seems forced. I know she wants to talk, but I think my heart will break.

Later, in bed, we don’t make love. Instead, she kisses me and talks about her mother, her sister—who she worries about—the cases she had to pass off, and what she wants to do with her future.

She doesn’t mention me or us. Though she eventually sleeps in the crook of my arm, I lie in bed, awake and staring at the stars through the skylight, looking at my mother’s crocheted blanket hanging on the wall.

Maya’s right. We have to talk tomorrow.

***

I stretch, yawn, and roll over and see her staring at me. Shadows are short, so it must be near noon.

“What are you doing?”

“Good morning to you too,” she says. “Geez, Mr. Sensitive. Can’t a girl watch her boy sleeping? Sleeping is sexy,” she says.

Sliding a hand up her back, I pull her sharply to me and kiss her. She lies warm and soft in my arms. Then the angst of last night, my list of to-dos, starts in my skull. I need a distraction.

“Let’s go to the quarry right now,” I say.

“Before coffee?”

“Before coffee.”

“Nope,” she chirps, and then she’s out of bed with nothing but a T-shirt on, making for the coffeepot.

She fills a thermos and screws a cap on by the time I’ve wrapped two scones up to go. On the way there, she finds some of Chloe’s old fairy houses.

“I don’t remember these,” she says, bending down and shifting sea glass and shells around.

Constructed of wood, rocks, lichens, moss, and sea glass years ago, they’re mostly in shambles. But one made of adobe still stands nearly two feet tall. Someone has put fresh flowers across the roof.

“This one’s adorable.”

“We may not have shown you, and I was probably too embarrassed. You know, trying to impress the girl.” I dig my hands into my pockets.