I sigh again, “I’m working on that but the doc says the pattern will continue until I can figure out how to quote ‘just be.’”
“Just be? A Vanderwell could never.”
“That’s what I told him.”
Ben nods, “And what did the shrink say to that?”
“He said I should add a few more ten-thousand-dollar-an-hour sessions.”
My old friend laughs his huge, hearty, carefree cackle and I smile. I smile wider when he adds, “Guess he’s achievinghisgoals then, yeah?”
“Precisely,” I say into my drink.
We talk for a while about our twat fathers, our work here in the city, this posh men’s club we’re sitting in, and finally we get around to what really matters.
“So, have you called her then?”
I shake my head.
“Has she called you?”
I shake my head, this time with an additional sigh.
“Well, damn. I saw you two together, or you with her at least, and I thought you really loved her.”
“I do,” I say, rubbing at my chest. Ben freezes with his drink halfway to his mouth. I go on, “I do and it’s bloody awful. How do you live with it?”
“But Janie said you left, just like everyone else.”
“Absolutelynotjust like everyone else. I left because I do love her and I see her and I want the world for her and I know her well enough to know she doesn’t know if she even wants to be there or if she wants to be abroad with me and the brutal truth of it is that I only want to be where she wants to be and she doesn’t know where that is!”
“…what?”
“Damn it, man, I don’t know. She needs to go find herself? Figure out what she wants.”
He scratches at the five o’clock shadow on his chin, “So she doesn’t want you, then? You asked her to go with you and she said no?”
“I didn’t ask her to go with me because she would have said yes.”
“Because she loves you.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose, “Because she feels like she owes me.” He hums but I keep thinking aloud, “Or because she just wants to get out of there...or because she just wants someone to choose her after a life of not being chosen.”
“Uh, yeah, mate, wasn’t that your window of opportunity? She wants to be chosen, ergo, you choose her and stay in Juniper Falls for her. What am I missing?”
“You’re missing the part where she doesn’t actually want to stay in Juniper Falls. I don’t want to give her an excuse to stay there. I wanted her to just…be free, finally. Of everyone and everything. Even the dog, who misses her too. And...even me.”
He stares at me for a beat, “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Aiden Vanderwell. Security!” He jokes, loudly.
I shush him, “You’re like a child, truly.”
“And you are like a man in love. It’s bloody touching. I might start crying.”
I stare up at the many gaudy chandeliers and ask whatever God is up past the ceiling to grant me patience. The server comes back to relieve me—a possible immediate answer to prayer that gives me the chills—and we order some steaks.
“So, loverboy, what if she stays in California forever and never looks back?”
I drop my drink the last inch between my hand and the table, “She’s in California?”
