Page 12 of Entwined Hearts

By the time I get to the kitchen, my fingers aren’t shaking anymore. I can’t find a glass. Instead, I dip my face to the faucet, tilting my head until the water runs over my lips. Closing my eyes, I slurp, not caring I sound like a five-year-old. I let the water run a little longer, savoring the coolness on my cheeks.

I shut the water off. After I wipe my face with the back of my hand, I open my eyes to see Jake hovering at the threshold of the kitchen.

“What happened?” he asks.

I exhale a deep breath. Behind him, a group of guys joke loudly. The sharpness of their voices makes me flinch, but I try to let go of my anxiety.I’m at Kabir’s house. I’m fine.

I answer Jake’s question with a shrug. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with how Colby and Jake were fighting, but I’m not about to blame him. We’ve been down that road too many times. On the Morocco trip, we extended our stay in that valley by a day, even though we’d seen a column of black smoke on the horizon that felt ominous.

He scrubs his face with his hands. “Fuck, this is intense.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He sighs as he rubs the back of his neck, staring at the ceiling. “This. Us. Norway. Morocco.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, briefly glancing over.

I get a strange feeling in my gut.

“When that…happens to you, I feel like shit,” he says.

“It’s not like I’m trying to make it happen.”

“I know.” Jake stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I just thought…”

When he pauses, the about-to-get-bad-news flutter winds my insides even tighter.

“Maybe we should be apart for a while,” he says in a quiet voice.

“We just were apart,” I say, though the instant the words leave my mouth, I want them back. They sounded whiny and needy, and I’m not that girl.

“That was three weeks,” he says.

A roller-coaster hiccup takes my stomach on a loop around my spleen. “Oh,” I say. I worry the bracelet on my wrist. The stones feel so solid. Dependable.

“I’m sure having me around isn’t helping you get over what happened. Maybe time apart is what you need.”

He’s so wrong, but I hold it in.

“I’ll pack up my van. Give you some space, okay?” he says.

I picture him zipping up his duffel bag in our bedroom, and the sound is so final. My chest knits together tightly, but I resist. I’m not going to cry.

“Okay,” I say, realizing he’s been planning this. I let my arms drop to my sides.

He steps closer. “I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes tight. “I…thought about it a lot in Patagonia. I thought about Morocco, and how lucky we are to have made it out.”

I grit my teeth, determined to hold everything in until he leaves.

“We got a second chance, Anya,” Jake says, his voice soft, pleading. He wants this. He wants me to let him go.

“So, what was this for?” I ask, fingering the bracelet again. “Some kind of goodbye gift?” I can’t help myself. It’s starting to hurt too much.

His face tightens. “I bought that for you because I love you, Anya. I always will.”

I taste salt inside my cheeks.

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