I can feel her pulling away, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Arden, I’ve come to realize, is like the wind. It’s why she’s amazing at what she does, and now it’s pulling her back into its grip. Nothing I can offer her can match the world outside the one she left behind twenty years ago, the same one she’s in right now. The adventure, the danger, the recognition that places her as one of the world’s best photojournalists of our time even though she’s taken herself away from it for a few months. Nothing, not even life on the beach, can hold a candle to all that. Not even me.
For the next two days, Arden stays mostly at the Maystroms’. Whenever I stop by after work, she’s either making calls or packing. It’s interesting to see her armor come up every time she talks about work, even if she can’t tell me too much. What little she tells me is enough for me to know that with every passing minute, she’s drifting away from me. From us. There’s also excitement in her eyes, a sparkle that leaves me with a knot in my stomach every time.
“It’s not the end of the world, Hudson,” she says. “I’ll be back.”
“You promise?” We’re in her bed, and tomorrow, she flies out. I weave my fingers with hers, never imagining this moment would come, when it feels as if my world is crumbling down. I don’t know if that’s how love is supposed to feel, but it brings back the last night she spent at our house that summer twenty years ago. I was only eight, but I already knew then that I’d never forget her.
There’s only one problem: twenty years later, the feeling’s the same, if not worse, because this time, I believe I’ve fallen in love. Sure, it’s rushed, but how else can I explain a feeling I’ve never felt before?
“I promise,” Arden whispers as she traces my jaw with her fingers. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“And the next time… and the next time after that.” I push back a lock of hair that falls on her cheek. “I thought you weren’t sure if you still wanted to do it.”
She takes a deep breath and sighs. “I guess this trip is about making sure. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got a job to do. I mean, I never really officially retired.”
“Maybe it’s time you do and finally do the things you’ve always wanted to do.”
She smiles. “And what are those things exactly?”
“Everything you ever dreamed of.” I breathe her in, needing to stamp the scent of her hair, her skin in my brain. “Ride into the sunset with me and live happily ever after.”
“That sounds like a fairy tale.” She smiles. “Do those things really happen?”
“With us, it just might.”
“They say you can never go back home again, but they were wrong. I was able to do just that, thanks to you.”
“You know where to find me.”
She kisses me on the lips before snuggling against my chest and yawns. “That I do.”
As I pull her to me, the sound of the surf outside offers me no relief; all I can think about is the moment she steps outside my world in the morning when a service car will whisk her to the airport.
And with everything that awaits her outside my world, why would she ever want to come back?