Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
“Hello?” He answers his phone. Quickly his face sobers. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
Sir? It must be someone in the military. Cy calls no one sir.
He talks for a couple more minutes, and I have no idea who he’s talking to or what they’re saying, but I can imagine there are very few people Cy calls sir. His boss, maybe? It’s all so weird.
“Gotta debrief my boss,” he says. “God, it’s hard adjusting.”
I nod. Makes sense. “They’ll give us time,” I tell him. “They’ll have to.”
He clears his throat. “They want to give me a choice.”
My heartbeat quickens. It seems like we’ve had a dozen choices thrust upon us one after another. “Oh?”
“They’re removing my M.I.A. status.”
I snort. “As well they should. Here you are, alive and well.”
He smiles. “Yeah. And they’re giving me a chance to either return to active duty or retire. I could take a leave of absence, too, and that’s what he suggested I do.”
“When do you need to have an answer for them?”
“They told me to take my time.”
I nod. “So many things to think about,” I say softly. “What do you want?”
He turns to me, the wide expanse of highway stretching out for miles in front of us. “Just you, Harper. Only you.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I swallow them back.
“I want that, too,” I whisper. “Let’s go back to my place?”
I tell him about my home, the pretty house with the porch. “It’s near Daniel, and I can work remotely. And maybe you’ll like it there?”
“Baby, you don’t hear what I’m saying,” he says. “None of that matters to me. I don’t care where we are. I don’t care what we’re doing. I just want to be with you. No matter where that takes us.”
“You might not want that, though,” I say thoughtfully. “Once things… settle down.”
“I will,” he says with conviction. “Always.”
“How far are we away from Daniel?” I ask, looking at the GPS. I want to be with him so badly, I fear that just like on the island, everything will be taken away from us too soon. Too quickly. I sigh. There’s definitely some residual trauma there. But we’ll deal with it.
“Thirty minutes,” he says. “But we have one stop to make, still.”
“Do we?” I ask curiously. We’ve already eaten and stopped at a rest area. We have cash and phones, water and snacks, and backpacks filled with folded clothes, all given to us by both the police and my media contacts.
He turns to me and grins. “Isn’t it Daniel’s birthday?”
And somehow, right then, it all clicks into place. Hearing him say Daniel. The fact that he remembered it was Daniel’s birthday… or Daniel thinks it is, anyway. All of it.
I’m a different person, I think. No, that isn’t it. I’ve become who I’ve always been more fully. And now, we’re no longer alone. He doesn’t have to live his life anymore, wondering who he is or what his purpose is. I don’t have to do that either. The two of us were meant to be together. We forged a love that can withstand anything that comes our way. Together.
“It is, and hell if I don’t love you to pieces for remembering that. I mean, it isn’t. But he thinks it is,” I say with a laugh.
“So we need to make a stop,” he says. “We need to get some… cake or something. Balloons?”
“Oh, he loves balloons.”
“A present?”
“That he doesn’t care about. It’s mostly the balloons and cake.”
Cy laughs. “He has his priorities in check.”
We find a local super grocery store with a florist and bakery. We pick out a chocolate cake and several silvery mylar balloons with bold Happy Birthday lettering on the front. It feels odd, walking into a store and buying things. It was something I took for granted before I went to the island. Now it’s foreign. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this again. I have to admit, I don’t like it.
I bring it up with Cy when we get back to the car. He clicks the unlock button.
“I don’t like it,” I say to him, shaking my head. “All I could think about on that island was getting off of it, but now that I have, it’s almost like all I want—” No. I stop myself. I do not want to go back. I don’t want this, either, this sort of nomadic existence and full immersion straight back into culture and civilization.
“Hey!” Someone interrupts us. “Hey, you’re those people!”
It isn’t the first time we’ve been recognized. The video interview we did the day before aired, and the clips of it apparently have gone viral all over the internet. I was known by a few before because of my columns, so they’re using that to their advantage.
“Yep,” Cy says. “We’re those people.” He doesn’t make eye contact, but opens the door for me, and gestures for me to get in. I’m glad he’s with me. I can’t stand one more probing question.