It wasn’t as awkward as it might have been. I doorstepped him whileCallie was at work, and we sat together in the kitchen. I mumbled something vague about having had a bad dream, not wanting to worry Callie. Then, just like that, he gave me the information I needed. (Not that it helped. Squeaky-clean bill of health, the whole Cooper family.)
He assured me our conversation would go no further, which was pretty generous of him. I knew if Callie found out, she might think I’d betrayed her, given her parents a heads-up. And there’d be a good chance then she’d never trust me again.
Anyway. “Nothing.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, so that didn’t work out.”
A pause, cut through with the coarse cry of seagulls. I wonder if I should tell Warren about my dream of Callie on the beach in Florida. I’ve not been able to shake it from my mind.
But the thought of sharing it with Warren riles me for some reason. Maybe because I don’t want to prove right his theory about me no longer being the guy to make Callie happy.
I walk a few more paces, picture Callie at home. Still warm from the shower, drawing a comb through her hair, skin damp and glistening. I feel a throb of longing for the nape of her neck, the low lamp of her voice.
And yet. “You think I should give up, don’t you? Let Callie go and live her life, find someone who can make her happy. That’s what they say, isn’t it? If you love someone, let them go.”
The seconds lengthen. “That is what they say.”
“So that’s it, then.”
“Not yet. Not necessarily. Don’t do anything hasty.”
“Time isn’t on my side, remember?”
“Yes. But, look, if it does come to that, you’ll know when the moment’s right.”
“Well, cheers for your help.”
“I’m so sorry I can’t fix this for you, Joel.”
“You had a chance to fix this thirty-seven years ago.”
“What are you—”
I can’t help what I’m about to say. It’s pure frustration. “You could have fixed it before it started, by not having a meaningless fling with my mum.”
“It wasn’t meaningless.”
“You swapped her for a surfboard. How much more meaningless could it get?”
•••
That night I dream about Callie again, just under a year from now. She’s wrapped up against the cold somewhere, I’m not exactly sure where. But it’s remote and expansive, exactly the kind of epic landscape she loves. She looks fervent and alive in a way I’ve not seen for a long time. Has binoculars around her neck, and a camera in her hand. I can hear the wind whistling, see a soaring-blue sky. And from the horizon a volcano rises, imposing as a cathedral.
•••
I’m shaking when I wake. I climb out of bed and grab my notebook, turn in the doorway to look back at her as I always do. She’s curled up on the mattress like a comma, face pressed against my pillow.
A comma. Somewhere to pause for breath. A chance to make sense of things.
“You deserve more,” I whisper from the doorway. “I don’t want you to miss out on a single thing.”
I think back again to what Warren said.Maybe you’re no longer the guy to make her happy.
Back at the start I should have gone with my head, not my heart. I know it now as I knew it then. It was on me to hit the brakes, as soon as I sensed my head was losing the battle. I could have been smart. Ishouldhave been. Saved us both the agony of this. Because now that I’ve had apreview of the good things destiny has in store for her, I’m not sure I can bring myself to deprive her of them.
Callie’s got time to move on. Make a life for herself, do all the stuff she’s always wanted to. She can be the person, I realize, she can only ever half be with me.
