Page 41 of Misadventures With My Fake Fiancé

We were in Jubal's truck headed back to Anchorage and for once, all alone. Since Jubal was taking the return trip on the train, we got his ride.

Alaskan weather was unpredictable. The clear skies of the morning were gone. It was now overcast, the clouds thick enough to hide the sun from view, making it impossible to gauge the time of day. Without the dashboard clock, it could have been ten in the morning or ten at night.

I was back in my turquoise hoodie as the temperatures had dipped.

Mike, on the other hand, still only wore his T-shirt. Clearly the hundred pounds he had on me kept him warm. He sighed and kept his eyes on the road. “I went away to camp every summer from the time I was nine.”

I remembered. Remembered how excited he was to go every year, talked about packing his trunk and then...he was gone. Some place in Idaho. “Camp Kid-be-gone or something.”

He chuckled. “Weehawken. There was this one kid, Jake, who I met my first summer. He was from California. We were together every year after that for those two, awesome weeks when we were young, then four when we turned twelve, and then the whole summer once we were junior counselors.”

Mike glanced in the rearview mirror, then back out the windshield.

“He was allergic to nuts. All kinds. We were sixteen and off in the woods for an overnight. Backpacking as a group. Somehow, peanut butter came in contact with the food I was carrying in my pack. He went into anaphylactic shock.”

I sucked in some air, knowing this was going to be bad.

“Even though he had an EpiPen with him, which we used, he died. Right there on the mountain. We were too remote to get him to help. He didn't have a chance.”

“Oh, my God.” I reached out and ran my hand down Mike's arm, ached for the boy he'd been. “It wasn't your fault. You know that, right?” I murmured.

Mike nodded. “Yeah. I think we all felt responsible though. The counselors, especially, who couldn't do anything to save him. The staff at the camp. Everyone.”

I could only imagine the guilt he had, that he'd carried around with him all this time. He’d been just a kid. Just a kid watching a good friend die, with no way to help him. No wonder he was so driven.

Glancing at me, he continued. “That's when I knew I wanted to become a doctor. Right there on the side of a mountain in Idaho. I had to help people. To prevent something like that from happening to someone else I cared about.”

Mike put on the blinker and moved into a left turn lane.

“Now you're a successful podiatrist with his own practice in rural America.”

“For now.”

“For now?”

“There's this group in New York who've hinted they want me to join them.”

“New York City?” I felt like a salsa commercial. My heart squeezed uncomfortably.

Stupid. I was so stupid. How could I have thought we had any kind of future? That the kisses meant something, anything to Mike. Nothing had changed. Nothing.

He nodded. “This group is the epitome of what I trained for. They sent me an email this morning saying I made the short list.”

I didn't know what to say. I didn't really know that much about him as a man, but I was starting to. This week was, or least I had thought it was, a turning point for us. But if New York was a real possibility, none of it really mattered. He was putting medicine above everything. Again.

“Wow. That's great, Mike. I know you've worked so hard.” I meant the words, but I couldn't put much feeling behind them. It was hard to be happy for him to leave when I really wanted him to stay.

“It's not a sure thing. I'm hoping to hear something more while I'm here.”

“So you'd close your practice and move away?”

He shrugged as if it didn't matter, but I could tell this was something he really wanted. He wouldn't go through the process if it wasn't the perfect next step for him. For his career. “Maybe. We'll see.”

There wasn't really anything else to ask about it. If I poked and prodded, he'd probably get his hackles raised, and we currently weren't mad at each other, and I wanted to keep it thatway. Besides, I couldn't keep him from leaving. It had happened once before, so I knew, this time with my eyes wide open, that I wasn't enough. I couldn't compete with the ghost of a dead friend. So I picked a benign question. “Why podiatry?”

We turned onto a side road, not in the direction of Anchorage. Mike shrugged again. “You've got to pick a specialty. Foot injuries fascinated me.”

I smiled. “Oh, you have a foot fetish or something?”

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