Page 128 of Jump on Three

“What do you think of Florida?”

Rhys looked up from his sclarf, the project that seemed to have no end. “Florida? I don’t know her.”

“Some projections say it will be underwater in a hundred years.”

And Rhys would probably still be knitting his sclarf. Though he never missed our weekly lessons, I wasn’t really teaching him anymore. I had begun to suspect this awkward hour was some sort of bonding ritual. I supposed it was working since I had added him to the list of people I’d miss terribly if I moved. Considering there were only two on the list, that meant something.

“Hmmm.” He was watching me, a crease between his brows. “Are you planning a trip to Disney World? I wouldn’t have thought theme parks would be your cup of tea.”

“No. I’d rather die than go there. I’ve watched enough YouTube videos to be well aware it's not my scene.”

Although I loved children, swarming masses of them were just as bad as swarming masses of…well, anything. Add the noise, lines, close proximity to others, and unpredictable weather, and the mouse park was a shutdown waiting to happen.

Rhys cocked his head. “What about when your kids want to go there one day? Then what?”

My needles clacked together as I continued knitting. “They can go with a nanny or your and Delilah’s family. Going to a theme park with a large mouse isn’t an official rite of passage a mother must attend, you know.”

“You have me there.” His squint seemed assessing. “Why the sudden interest in Florida?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

That wasn’t a lie. If Ivan had been moving to Montana or Georgia or Maine, I would have been watching videos and reading blogs about them. No, it didn’t matter that the state he was moving to in four weeks was Florida. What mattered was he was moving, and though I wanted to be with him more than anything, I could not figure out how this could possibly work.

He was giving me time and being patient, but it had been three days with no answer from me. It wasn’t fair to make him wait, but I simply couldn’t force myself to come to a decision.

There was no way I could go that would not end with me breaking my own heart. Ivan was more sympathetic than most, but I didn’t think he could understand what this choice really meant.

Ivan and I were watching a movie on my laptop together. Snuggled on my bed, there was no space between our bodies, yet we were miles apart. Bleak silence had slipped into the crevices. Talking about anything other than the inevitable seemed pointless, so we just…didn’t.

We held on tight and watched each other like it was our last day on earth. The suffocation portion of this apocalypse had commenced. Not even Party Girl could lighten the hundred pounds of indecision weighing on me.

I mouthed the lines, but only because it was involuntary at this point. I did not feel any of it in my soul.

When the credits rolled, he gently moved me off him and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His head fell forward, and he cupped his face in his hands. He looked like he was carrying the same hundred pounds I was, and it was my fault.

By not answering, I was doing this to him.

Scrambling to my knees, I moved behind him to lay my head on his shoulder and circle my arms around his middle.

I’m sorry.

This isn’t fair.

Why can’t you stay?

I couldn’t force those words out, but Ivan managed to break the silence with words of his own.

“Jump with me, Evelyn.”

“What?” I whispered.

“Jump with me. I will catch you. You know I will.”

“What do you mean?”

He shifted sideways, bringing us face to face. Now, I was kneeling beside him but no longer touching him. Out there on my own, unmoored from his stability, I swayed side to side.

“Take a chance with me, angel. We can make a good life together. You just have to take a chance on me.”

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