— it was always there, carving out a hollow in the pit of his gut.
Cal lay stretched out on her green couch, barefoot, his head in Sam’s lap. She’d been stroking his dirty-blond hair for what seemed like hours.
“Do you want to have kids?” The question sounded as relaxed as he felt.
“Together?” Cal lifted his head, barely.
“No.” She laughed under her breath. “I mean, do you? Do you ever want to have them?”
Cal’s head dropped. He clasped his hands together. “What brought this on?”
“I don’t know. After spending a few days with my sister’s little brats … I guess I started thinking...”
“I would’ve thought quality time with your nieces would’ve had you deciding against it.”
Samantha jabbed his stomach, then smiled, but the gesture looked forced. As she touched the tops of his fingers, Cal took her palms and swallowed them with his own, making a hand sandwich.
“How did we get here?” Samantha sighed.
“You want to have children, and you’re not sure how we got here?” He grinned.
“I didn’t say I wanted to have children.” She ribbed him again, this time causing him to buckle and laugh, but Sam only exhaled. Then she began to brush her fingers across his forehead. Perhaps she was sketching a picture. A portrait. The family Cal thought he never wanted. “We’re so different.”
“You’re the one who emailed me.”
“Hey”—she gently tapped her palm against his face, and he opened his eyes and smiled—“you’re the one who left your stupid, vague business card on my coffee table.”
Sam leaned closer and kissed him while Cal’s mind drifted to the emails. The first one hit his inbox less than a week after he’d left her on the couch, foot in a boot, wanting more. Five months ago…
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 16, 2003
Subject: flowers
You can’t keep sending me flowers. I already told him the first bouquet was from my sister. Stop it! And thank you.
– Sam
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 16, 2003
Subject: RE: flowers
Him? Does he have a name? Or shall we always refer to him as him? I didn’t ask you to lie, Sam. I sent the second bouquet because you didn’t acknowledge the first and I thought perhaps you didn’t receive it.
How’s your ankle? What has the doctor said?
– Cal
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 17, 2003
Subject: wobble … wobble
The doctor said it should heal completely without surgery. I’m managing to work with clients now, if you can imagine that. I wobble while they train.
And his name is Ashley, by the way.
– Sam
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 18, 2003
Subject: proposal
I can see why you didn’t want to tell me his name.
I would pay good money to watch you wobble. What do you charge?
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 18, 2003
Subject: keep dreaming
Dear Calvin,
Funny, but you don’t have enough money for what I would charge you to watch me.
I told my sister about you. She kept asking about the flowers too. She thinks I’m nuts, falling for some guy I hardly know. I still don’t know what you do. Besides marathons, reading, drinking wine … and helping injured women.
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 18, 2003
Subject: did you forget?
I fuck, remember? I live alone, but I fuck. That’s what I do. Weren’t those your words?
I know how a person makes a living isn’t important to you. You can take care of yourself. Do you want a man to take care of you?
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 19, 2003
Subject: Nice, Cal
I can take care of myself, and I do. Thank you very much.
You’re right. I don’t care what you do. Not for those reasons anyway. I asked because I wanted to get to know you. And honestly, I wanted to make sure that what you do for work is above board, Mr. Vague Business Card.
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 20, 2003
Subject: hmm
Above board? You lied to your boyfriend about who sent you flowers. You lie to yourself about what you really want.
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 23, 2003
Subject: fuck you
Subject says all.
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 23, 2003
Subject: please do
Name the time and place.
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: June 24, 2003
Subject: unbelievable
Is this really all you can give me? A promise of what??? Sex?
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: June 24, 2003
Subject: cards on the table
I’m an investor. I work for a lawyer but am in the process of branching out on my own. I manage several properties. I buy and sell commercial real estate.
Life is a crapshoot, Sam. All I know is that I want you. Email me again when and if it’s ever over. I don’t want to be in the middle anymore. And while you’re at it, stop involving your sister in your fucking love life. This is about you.
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: I must be nuts
I broke up with him over three weeks ago. I told him I wanted to be by myself. That feeling lasted about a day or two… I realize I don’t know you, but I fell that day … in the grass. You should know what you’re getting yourself into. Chasing a girl who hardly knows you but thinks she’s…
Well, whatever.
And I waited. I waited the extra time to actually email because I thought that maybe after I slept on it a little longer, I would stop thinking about you.
Apparently, you’re like a dream I can’t shake or don’t want to. Is it a bad dream or a good one, Cal?
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: a good one
When can I see you? Tonight?
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: no
No.
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: decide
What do you want, Samantha?
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: a date
You. Take me out. I want to go on a date.
* * *
From: Cal Prescott
To: Samantha Hughes
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: disparatada
You are nuts.
* * *
From: Samantha Hughes
To: Cal Prescott
Date: July 25, 2003
Subject: loco
Meet me at Sushi Ota tomorrow night at seven.
* * *
“So, do you, Cal?” Samantha asked, breaking into his memories. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I never answer your questions.”
“I’m serious. Do you ever want to have children?”
“No,” he said, glancing up at her face, waiting for her reaction. Every time he thought about having kids, the thoughts ended badly. The abortion had made him realize he lied to himself. But sometimes lies were easier than acknowledging the truth.
“No?”
“That’s right. No.” His voice had never sounded more mellow, more certain.
“How can you be so definitive about something so inherently part of our nature?”
“It’s not part of mine.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Both of them were quiet a moment, but Cal could feel her heartbeat, its thumping increasing with each second that passed.
“Okay, Mr. Serious.” She combed her fingers through his hair. “I suppose you were always Mr. Careful too.”
“Would you stop it with this bullshit?” He sat up quickly but made sure to keep his back to her face.
“Hmm … I hit a nerve with you.” She touched his thigh. But Sam was always hitting his nerves. His buttons. Her mess tangling itself through his orderly life. “You do have feelings beneath this cool exterior?” Samantha bumped Cal’s shoulder, but he didn’t respond. “Do you... Do you have a secret love child I don’t know about?”
Cal stared straight ahead. Blankly. The past climbed into his throat, and a fresh wave of pain washed over him. No, he didn’t have a love child. And he hadn’t always been careful. He’d been careless. And that selfishness had resulted in a baby. Not one made from love but hate. It was a secret child, one who no longer existed, a baby he maybe had wanted — or would’ve liked to have seen adopted.
“I had one,” Sam began, speaking barely above a whisper. “I had an abortion.”
Cal’s upper body grew stiff, the arm she held — stiff. Ally’s decision from years ago gnawed its way through his guts as he wondered how Samantha could’ve possibly made the same choice as Allison.
“I was seventeen.” Breath shaky, Sam pressed her body into his from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist. Cal placed his fingers over hers, absorbing her sincerity and strength, loving the feel of her heart beating against him.
“You don’t have to share this with me...” He swallowed. “If you’re not ready.”
“I’m ready. I’ve never told anyone.”
Turning his head to the side, he planted his lips against her cheek and kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears.
“It’s such a paradox, isn’t it? Getting pregnant when you’re not ready and unbelievably frightened. No matter how much you think it will never happen — it happens.” She wiped tears from her face. “I wasn’t ready.”
Cal turned his head, and their eyes locked.
“I didn’t think I wanted it … not … not then… It was the most heart-wrenching choice I ever had to make.”
“I didn’t…” He exhaled, looking forward again. “I had no choice.”
Sam nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck, then she ran her cheek along his jawline. “It hurts, doesn’t it? In the pit of your stomach?” She sniffled. “The wondering? The what-ifs? The guilt? No matter how strong I think I am, that unknown pulls on me, trying to suck me back into the darkness.”
Cal shifted his entire body, pulled Sam’s chest against his, and buried his face in her hair. The messy locks, the fresh-cut roses. They held one another tighter, deeper, longer than ever before.
Moments later, he began wetting her skin, her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids with his lips. Each kiss absolving sorrow. Pain. The peace her admission provided was already helping him forget his shame.
“Don’t, Cal.”
But he continued, his movements intensified by what he wanted to erase, ignited by the need to take it all away.
“You can’t turn your back on this conversation,” she moaned.
“This conversation is over.” One hand slid between her legs while the other tugged on the hair at her nape.
“I can’t.” Inching back, she met his gaze.
Cal cradled her face. “You’re allowed to feel something other than this fucking pain right now. You’ve punished yourself enough. We’ve both—”
“Not like this,” she uttered, eyes downcast, shaking her head.
What does she mean? Not like this?
Did she know him at all?
This. Was. It.
This was love.
And this was the way he showed it.
This was how he blocked out hurt. Forgot pain. Sex was one of the few things in life that temporarily relieved him of his need to think. And Sam had made him face something he’d never wanted to think of again — yet there had rarely been a time when Cal was without the thought. And now she wanted to deny him access to the cure.
She’d been right.
The child, the unknown, the secret — it was always there, carving out a hollow in the pit of his gut.
Sam kissed his lower lip and cradled his jaw. “I love you, Cal.”
Stifling a breath or a goddamn sob, Cal shifted his face to the side, trying to suffocate the emotions, trying, always trying, never succeeding.
“Love me,” she pleaded.
“I was trying to.”
“No, love me here.” She placed his hand over her heart.
“I do.”
Samantha stared into Cal’s eyes.
Never had he been more aware of her need to hear those three somber words than right now. After months of knowing her, of being together as a couple, he’d taught her they didn’t come easily.
“I love you, Samantha.”
Cal reclined on the couch, pulling her body next to his as he went, holding her, caressing her, feeling her heart beating against his chest, fighting for the will to belong to this moment without The Lonely. To know his place. To be strong.
To continue looking for the something he felt evaded him, the peace Jocelyn had once told him was inside him all along.