I see Jake’s eyes searching mine. “Why?”
“I feel like I missed the chance, maybe? I waited too long? Everyone I know who is on a stratospheric trajectory identified the steps a long time ago.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Jake says. “You hear all the time about people getting their first acting job at fifty, directing their first movie at sixty, going back to medical school in their forties.”
“When was the last time you heard about someone going to medical school in their forties?”
Jake sips, swallows. “I read about it. My point is it happens, all the time. There isn’t just one way to achieve things. You can always be the exception.”
I am the exception. I am the exception in so many ways—the anomaly, the point at which the sequencing blinked. I have something no one else does. Or, at least, to my knowledge no one else does. It feels selfish, maybe, to think I could be extraordinary in other areas, too. Maybe even dangerous—tempting fate just a little too far.
“You have to really want it,” I say.
Jake looks at me, and I see it, what he means. Depth. The willingness to journey down, right to the center.
“Do you?” he asks.
His face is open, his shirt is unbuttoned at the collar. He looks like a door I could walk right through. And I want to. I want to let myself in. I want to tell him, this new place, all the things he does not yet know.
But it isn’t time. We are just beginning. The big, deep questions I cannot get into. They are locked in a box under my bed. Sheets and sheets of paper.
Chapter Nineteen
I woke up in Big Sur and rolled over, reaching for Hugo. All I was met with was blank space. I sat up and looked outside—it was barely light out, the room was still half in shadow, the sun making a lazy debut. “Hugo?”
No answer.
I was naked underneath the covers, and I closed my eyes, replaying the images of the previous night—Hugo’s mouth on my neck, his hands beside me, at my hips. The thick, heady sound of his voice.
There was a bathrobe slung over the chair by the bed, discarded from the night before, and I looped it around me, threading my hands through the arms and tying the knot.
Where was he?
I swung my feet over the bed, slid into slippers, and walked out onto our terrace.
The forest surrounding us was still sleeping. No sounds oftraffic or voices or electronics—there was even a visual silence. I could not see a single light or building, with the exception of the two bungalows in eyesight. Everything was pristine, untouched by all the color and sound of modern life. Below me, the ocean inhaled and exhaled in long, languid breaths.
When I was young, my parents would take me to Manhattan Beach. We’d park our car high up, to avoid parking lot fees, and then walk down the steep streets to the beach boardwalk. Sometimes we’d bring bikes, but mostly we set up shop in the sand: towels, a big umbrella, and a cooler full of food. My mother would always let me help her pack, so I knew in addition to rye bread and cheese there would be Goldfish and chocolate chip cookies. My father would go for a run in the sand, my mother always brought a book, and I’d haul back and forth between the ocean and her, screaming, running—salty and free.
The ocean was alive, then. I remember thinking if I just swam out far enough I could reach the crease where the water meets the sky. I could touch the horizon, run my hand along it’s smooth edge.
Looking down at the ocean in Big Sur I wondered when that belief faded. Was it in a classroom, learning the world is round? But I have no memory of an aha moment, no recollection of any specific revelation. When do we stop believing in the things we do? And why does it happen so slowly instead of all at once?
It was cold out on the balcony. Probably close to forty degrees. I pulled the robe tighter around me and stuffed my hands down in the pockets. I could feel myself waking up, coming to life with every hazy, visual breath. One month. That was all it took. Four weeks to know that I wasn’t going to listen. That no matter whatthat paper said, it wouldn’t matter. I wanted him. I wanted to wake up with him and go to sleep with him. I wanted to stand behind him in the bathroom mirror in the morning, my face pressed against his wet back, as he got ready for work. I wanted his feet to find mine in the middle of the night. I wanted to be his first phone call, the place he rested from the chaos of the rest of the world, the constant friction of the pace of his life. I wanted to beitfor him. I wanted so much more than ninety days. I wanted everything.
“Good morning.”
I turned to see Hugo making his way toward me. He was wearing his running clothes and carrying two coffees. He sipped from one, and then set them down on the side table and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned my head into his chest. He was damp from his workout, and he smelled like our surroundings—sweaty and earthen.
I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair. His eyes looked into mine.
“Hey,” he said. “How did you sleep?”
But I just shook my head. I moved my hands to his face and then reached up, balancing on tiptoes, and kissed him.
His mouth tasted like coffee, and I pulled him down—wanting him closer, tighter in.
Hugo’s hands found the tie of my robe, and then they were untangling me, letting the terry cloth fall open. When his fingers landed on my body, they were cold, and I reacted back, but it took no more than a split second for my skin to adjust to his temperature. His fingers drew strokes against my abdomen—up and down.
