Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.
-Erma Bombeck
Monday morning, Mark stood on his balcony, drinking coffee, gazing at the red sunrise. Red skies in the morning, sailor take warning.
Karma was supposed to go fishing with her dad today. Hopefully, they would have good weather.
Mark took out his phone and tapped out a message. What are you doing?
A minute later, his phone chimed. He smiled as he opened the message. Good timing. I was just sitting here thinking about you. She had attached a picture of a lake.
Another message chimed in from her. What are YOU doing? :-)
He smiled, lifted his phone, and took a picture of Lake Michigan and the sunrise. Funny. I was just thinking about you, too, he typed, attaching the picture.
Her next message warmed his heart. Jinx. Buy me a Coke. We’re both looking at water and thinking about the other. Why do I suddenly have to pee?
LOL. Clever girl. Good to see you’re comfortable enough to discuss bodily functions with me, though.
Ew. LOL.
You started it.
I know, and now I’m ending it.
Are you enjoying your day off with your dad?
Yes, but I miss my “teacher.” I had a good time with him this weekend.
Mark’s brow quirked, and he grinned. Your teacher? Maybe I can meet him sometime.
I’ll ask him, but don’t get your hopes up. He’s kind of private. Likes to keep me to himself.
Smart man.
Eh, he’s a’ight.
He laughed. Just a’ight? he typed.
LOL. Okay, so maybe I lied. But I don’t want to bruise your ego.
No. Please. Bruise me. Tell me about him. He was having too much fun with this conversation. As he always did when he and Karma texted.
You’re incorrigible.
And you’re stalling.
Guilty.
Are you not going to answer my question, Miss Mason?
Oooo…you’re using your teaching voice.
If that’s what it takes to get you to spill, then yes I am.
He waited for what felt like an hour but was only a couple of minutes, and then his phone chimed again.
Fine. Be that way. It’s your ego. If you must know, my teacher is to other men like a warm, chocolate chunk brownie swimming in hot fudge, with marshmallows, and drizzled with warm caramel is to a bite of milk chocolate. Both are nice, but one makes me moan and gives me goose bumps when he enters a room, while the other just makes me smile. And sometimes the other doesn’t even do that. My teacher makes me feel beautiful, and he has shown me things I’ve only imagined, and for however long I have with him, I will be eternally grateful for all he has given me.
Speechless. She had rendered him speechless. For at least a minute, he could only stare at his phone and re-read her message, until finally he lifted his face against the wind and rubbed his palm and fingers over his pursed mouth as he stared out over the lake. Another crack formed in the wall around his heart, and he took a deep, shaking breath.
After a long moment when his emotions churned and threatened to overwhelm him, he typed out his reply.
I’m sure I can speak for him when I say that you are truly a remarkable, stunning, and glorious woman. Be assured, you bring out the best in him, as well. And wherever he is right now, I bet he’s wishing he was with you instead, so he could thank you for your kind words in person.
He leaned against his banister and gazed out at the blue expanse of the lake, at the red sunlight reflecting off the waves that rolled and rippled toward the shore.
When his phone chimed, he eagerly read her message.
I hear he’s standing on a balcony, somewhere in Chicago, looking at Lake Michigan.
And there came another crack in his armor, and his heart melted a little bit more. What was happening to him?
I miss you. His thumb hovered over the send button, but when he re-read what he had written, he frowned. He couldn’t send that. Not that message. It was all wrong. But felt so damn right. But if he went down that road, it would lead him away from the control he coveted and longed to retain, putting it right back in her hands.
This relationship wasn’t about love and emotion, or commitment, or missing her, or of anything permanent. To tell her he missed her would only set them both up for inevitable pain. Well, more pain than what they would both already feel when he said good-bye.
He backspaced the message and started over.
And I hear he is very much looking forward to seeing you again.
That was much better. The personal component was gone, and he was still telling the truth. He hit the send button.
Me, too, came her reply.
His breath caught, and suddenly, all he wanted was for her to be there, with him as she had been this weekend, both of them looking out at the lake, his arms around her waist and his nose buried in her hair.
I’ll see you soon. I have to run. Some of us have to work today. Enjoy the rest of your day off. He set the phone on the small patio table and sat in his lounge chair in his sweats and T-shirt, one arm crossed over his torso, his other hand pressed to his chin.
When his phone chimed, he glanced over and read the message.
Work hard. Talk to you soon.
He closed his eyes and leaned back. His apartment already felt desolate without her. After just a couple of days, she had completely invaded his space. He couldn’t look around his apartment and see one place that didn’t remind him of her. He didn’t even want to wash the shirt she had worn, which still held a touch of her scent.
This assignment needed to end. And soon. Because he was becoming emotionally compromised with this one. From a rational perspective, he needed to pull back, but every time he tried, he found himself drawn further in.
And he had no idea how to stop the train from careening off the tracks.
Karma tucked her phone into her hip bag.
“What are you smiling about?” her dad asked, coming back from his truck and dropping their tackle boxes beside her on the bank.
“Nothing.” But she couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off her face. If anything, it got bigger. And for the cherry on top, her face heated.
“I saw you over here on your phone.” He frowned. “Were you talking to that boy? Mike or Mark or whatever his name is?”
“Mark,” she said. “And yes. I was.” She busied herself with her tackle box.
“Is that where you were this weekend?” He began loading the boat. “Why you didn’t come over?”
She sighed and stood, fishing pole in hand. “Yes, Dad. I went up to Chicago to see him.”
He shook his head but didn’t say anything as he checked the truck, locked it, and waited for her to climb into the boat. He got in, used one of the oars to push them away from the bank, and started rowing through the water. She wiped perspiration from her forehead. A humid mist clung to the water’s surface.
“I don’t like you with that boy,” Dad said.
Tell me something I don’t know.
“He’s not a boy, Dad. He’s a man.”
“He’s a boy to me.” He continued rowing them to their favorite spot. “A man wouldn’t behave the way he is. And don’t tell me you think he’s going to stick around when his job here is done.”
“I don’t think that.” She stared ahead, refusing to meet her dad’s eye. Knowing that Mark would leave soon was bad enough. She didn’t need her dad rubbing salt in the wound.
“What you need is some smart fella who’ll treat you right and not skip out when he’s done using you.”
“Dad!” She spun around and scowled at him. “Mark is not using me, and he’s not going to skip out on me, either. He’s good to me, and I like him, okay?” She turned back around, her good mood of a few minutes ago spoiled like month-old milk.
“Honey, if he was really good to you, he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.” The oars dipped into the water and gurgled as he rowed. “Nice boys don’t mess around with the girls they work with.”
Were they still having this conversation?
“Maybe when you were younger that was how things were done, Dad, but that’s not how it is, anymore. More and more people meet their spouses at work now. It’s a proven fact.” She crossed her arms and kept her gaze straight ahead on the misty water.
“Yeah, and look at how many people end up getting divorced.” Dad harrumphed. “I’ll stick with the old ways.”
“Are we really going to spend the day talking about this?” She shot him a glare. “I thought we were going to spend a nice day together.”
“We are.” Dad shrugged innocently. “I’m just looking out for my little girl is all.”
“Well, stop it. I’ve got this, Dad. Trust me.”
And she wasn’t a little girl, anymore, either. She needed her dad to get on board with that idea immediately. Mark was her problem, not her dad’s, and she could handle him without her dad’s help.
The thing was after this past weekend, Mark was an even bigger complication than before, because she had finally realized she was, in fact, in love. Hopelessly, unbelievably, and irrevocably in love. But, like it or not, Mark was going to leave.
And therein lay the biggest problem of all.