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The next morning, we tidied the room, made the bed, and packed our bags. I checked my face, and the swelling under my eye had gone down some, but the apple of my cheek bore a nice purplish-blue bruise. I sighed, knowing it would upset my mom.
Ollie’s parents had booked the first flight into Sacramento arriving the next morning, anxious to see their son. Ollie brushed his teeth while I played with Zeke. I hopped on and off the bed while he chased me, barking happily. He clamped down on my pants leg, trying to pull me off the bed by tugging and growling like the dangerous animal he was not. I was lying on the bed, laughing and telling Zeke he wasn’t so tough, when I noticed Ollie watching us with his toothbrush hanging out of the side of his mouth. I couldn’t read his expression.
“Hi,” I said tentatively. He was looking at me so seriously that I was instantly worried. “What is it?” I rolled onto my stomach to get a better look at him.
He stared at me. “I love you.”
And there they were, the words I’d waited my whole life to hear from a man I loved. “I love you too.”
We both smiled, and he walked toward me while I jumped up. On my knees, I met him halfway. He pulled the toothbrush from his mouth and kissed me quickly.
I was a firm believer that whenever one saw something beautiful or felt something strongly, the first time was always the best. One could see it or feel it over and over again, but it would never fully live up to that first time. I kept expecting a diminished feeling for Ollie to hit me, but it hadn’t. My love for Ollie was instinct. It was something I felt but also something I knew—I felt a natural pull every time I was near him.
At ten o’clock sharp, a man who introduced himself simply as Shane came in a military Jeep to take us to the airport. A second Jeep pulled up behind Shane, and Debbie hopped out. She was smiling and out of breath as she walked toward us. “I’m glad I caught you before you left.”
“Is everything all right?” Ollie asked.
“Yes. Everything is great. I have some exciting news that I wanted to share with you. We’ve been working throughout the night. After we understood the placental properties of the virus, we began attacking the problem from an entirely different angle. The results we’ve produced in this short amount of time are really promising. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I think we are on our way to creating a vaccine. It would not be a cure, so we can’t treat already-infected patients, but if our theories prove correct, we might be able to vaccinate the uninfected and stop the spread.”
“Oh my god, that’s so great! Thanks for letting us know. How long until you know for sure?” I asked.
“At least a few months. Once we have a working vaccine, it’ll need to be tested more thoroughly before it can be distributed to the masses. We’re still in the very early stages, but we’re optimistic.”
Shane cleared his throat and looked at his watch.
“I’ll let you guys get going. Have a safe flight, and I’ll try to keep you updated.”
We waved as she ran back to her Jeep. Ollie and I hugged each other. We’d both seen firsthand what the virus could do, but I had mixed emotions. I was overjoyed that we were on the way to beating the virus, but my thoughts also turned to all the people the vaccine would be too late to help.
We piled our bags into the back of the Jeep and hopped in. I held Lily’s carrier on my lap. Zeke must have sensed that Ollie was there to stay because he camped out on Ollie’s lap for a change. At the deserted airport, we were escorted to the terminal then led down the jetway onto a mid-sized plane. At the entrance, Shane said, “Goodbye and good luck.”
There were only three other people on the plane, so we could sit anywhere we wanted. We chose first class, but I wasn’t used to the huge comfy seats with more legroom than I would ever need. Ollie groaned as he stretched out. He was accustomed to it, I assumed. Zeke lounged in the seat beside us, and I put Lily’s carrier on the ground near my feet.
The minute the engines started, Zeke sat up and whined at me, and Lily began meowing loudly. I grabbed Zeke’s calming drops and forced both him and Lily to take a few. After a few minutes, he lay back down and rested his chin on his paws. I sat back and dozed for a while. An hour later, a flight attendant brought us drinks and snacks.
While we munched, I brought up the pregnancy. “Do you want to wait until your parents arrive so we can tell them together?”
Ollie thought for a moment. “Yeah, we’d better. If my mom thought she was second to know, she’d throw a fit.” He smirked.
“We’ll wait, then.”
“They’re going to want to know what our plan is, where we’ll live, where we’ll work, all that. What do you think?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I honestly hadn’t even considered this as a possibility at this point in my life.”
“Look, I know all this came out of nowhere for us.” He paused. “Do you not want to have the baby?”
Stunned, I looked back at him then realized he was worried about making the same mistake he’d made with Dana. “No! Of course I want to have the baby. I just don’t have any kind of plan for a baby in my head. I stopped thinking about this area of my life a while ago. I feel... unprepared.”
“So let’s take this one step at a time. Where do you want to live?”
I looked at my lap and paused. Up until recently, I’d thought I would live in New York for the foreseeable future. Since that isn’t an option right now, where do I want to live? With the baby coming, California or London would be ideal, so we could be close to family. I came to a decision. “I want to have the baby in California, near my family. My parents aren’t going to have any other grandkids. I know they are going to want to be a part of it. What do you want?”
He nodded. “Well, I’m sure my parents want to be around for it too. But I understand what you’re saying. My parents can come and visit as much as they want. And once the baby is old enough, we can take trips to London to see the rest of my family. I want to be with you, wherever that is.”
“Are you sure? Is your mom going to be mad about that?”
“I don’t think my mom can be mad about anything right now. She’s just happy I’m alive, and once she hears the news, she’ll be overjoyed. Don’t worry about it. They have enough money and time on their hands to visit often. My dad and I can work from anywhere. I’ll convince him to go forward with my charity proposal. We can start by setting up one location in California, and we’ll go from there. The only part of working there that I disliked was going into an office dressed in a suit every day. This solves both those problems.”
“If you say so.” I smirked. “I’ll let you tell them, then.”
“Oh great, thanks,” he replied. “Well, that was the biggest decision we had to make. Is there anything else we need to figure out now?”
I’d been concerned that he would want to live in London. Without that worry, I felt a huge relief and figured everything else could be worked out along the way. “No. I think that’s enough for today.” I leaned over to kiss him.
I took out my digital camera and started scrolling through the images. Stopping at the photos of the girls, I ran my fingers over their tiny smiling faces. I felt a beautiful sadness tug at my heart as a tear slid down my cheek.
Ollie squeezed my hand, and I looked up at him. “What if the vaccine works and they stop the virus?” he asked quietly. “At some point, they’ll get the rest of the country up and running again. Would you want to go back to New York?”
I furrowed my brow and glanced down. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s the right place for me anymore.”
Do I want to go back? It was a hard question to ask myself because that apartment and that city had both given and taken so much. I’d learned who I was in that place, but it had also broken me, turning me into someone I never wanted to be again. I’d allowed all the things that kept darting from my grasp to define me. That apartment was a shrine to the person I used to be. It was both a prison and a sanctuary.
I thought back on my time with the girls and with Ollie and Zeke in that apartment. It was riddled with both good times and bad. I’d been waiting for my life to begin there, and it did even as the world crumbled around me.
I kept coming back to my conversations with Julia, the ones where we bared our souls and admitted our insecurities and fears. I knew she would have been happy for what I had gained and who I’d become. I’d learned to trust my instincts and go after what I wanted without hesitating. Most importantly, I wasn’t afraid to be honest with myself anymore. It had taken a horrible catastrophe to get me there, but I had become who I’d always hoped to be, never wishing, never wanting, and never waiting.