“I’m wide awake,” I said, eyeing the collection of books stacked on the TV stand. “If you won’t teach me anything, how about we start a book club?”
“What do you read?”
“Everything. Lots of historical romance lately.”
“Really?” His demeanor changed and his shoulders relaxed. He was no longer on the defensive.
“Yes, historical romance. What’s wrong with that? You learn something and the boy gets the girl, but not before the wide-spread panic, famine, cannibalism, cholera, the Nazis, and of course, the hurdled forty or fifty life-threatening situations.”
Ian tilted his head back again. The rumble of his laughter my new driving force.
“So, will you teach me how to sign?”
“Maybe,” he said as he playfully squared his shoulders, “it depends, Mrs. Vaughn…”
“Miss.” I pressed my lips together wondering if he remembered his remark the day we met.
Ian’s lips twitched. He did. But he had enough tact not to stare at my miss tits.
We shared another smile, this one was far more intimate. Awareness of the unwanted distance between us began to creep into my thoughts.
Was I crushing on Ian Kemp? If so, I was developing a crush on the mid-life professor. And that wasn’t healthy for either of us.
“I should go. Thank you for the lesson.”
“I taught you nothing.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Professor Kemp.”
“Koti.” His voice was glum, to say the least. I paused my feet at the door and glanced his way. “If we are going to engage in any sort of conversation, for future reference, I want honesty over everything. That’s important to me, all right?”
I stared at my toes. “All right.” A beat passed before I could brave another a look at him. I’d become acutely aware of my body’s response to his smile, his laugh, his voice. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” He took a step forward closing the space between us and my breathing picked up. I studied the sprinkle of hair on his navel that trailed down past the button on his shorts while I savored his smell—new leather and soap—and wished for a few moments we were back in that hammock so I would be surrounded in it, in him. I blinked the thought away and cleared my throat.
Ian seemed eager as he studied my face. “What do you want to ask me?”
“Are you okay?”
I braved a look and what I saw wasn’t the scorn or the ever-present bitterness he carried, it was genuine curiosity. And for the first time since Ian landed on my island, I felt like I had his undivided attention.
“Why are you concerned about me?”
I could have told him I was paid to be worried about him. But that really wasn’t the truth. I was paid to keep an eye on him, but that was the extent of it. My concern stemmed from somewhere else. A place I recognized, a place I felt like Ian was drowning in.
The lump I tried to speak around kept me quiet for a few moments. And then I gave him exactly what he asked for—honesty.
“Before I came here, I had a really shitty thing happen, the kind of thing that breaks people. I think you’re familiar with that.” He slowly nodded. “Well, I was alone—alone in a way no human should ever be—and I needed just one person to ask me that question. I was surrounded by thousands of people, but I just needed one. And I decided I wanted to be that person for you. Because I do want to know. Because I am worried for you and about you. Because you deserve to have that question asked. So, Ian, are you okay?”
He didn’t hesitate a second. “No.”
Tense moments passed as we stared at each other. “And what will you do with that answer, Koti?”
“I’ll keep it in confidence. I’ll respect your need for privacy and I’ll ask you until you say you are, or you could be, or you might be someday.”
Lost in his eyes, in the hurt they held, in the clench of his jaw, and the answer to his pain on his un-telling lips, he whispered to me. “I can’t say those things.”
“Then I won’t stop asking you.”
He hung his head and let out an audible breath. “It’s not your job to care about me.”
“See, this is where I disagree.” I reached over and gripped his hand and gently squeezed it. He tensed slightly. “What made you lay next to me in that hammock?”
“I don’t know.” He bit his lip as he browsed through his thoughts. “You were in pain. You were crying. It was the most agonizing sound I’d ever heard.”
“Okay, well what I saw in those eyes of yours the day you got here is the worst pain I’ve ever witnessed, Ian Kemp. And it’s everybody’s job, isn’t it?”
I slid my thumb over the top of his hand. “I mean, we are all just extras sipping coffee in the background of someone else’s life. But that could change at any second. If I wanted to, I could put my coffee down and become responsible for you. We are all responsible. We could all choose to take responsibility, couldn’t we? Human compassion. What the hell happened to that?”
Ian pressed his brows together while I got lost in my thoughts.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I finally snapped out of it and slowly pulled my hand away. Ian’s twisted face was a thing of beauty. I felt the blush creep through my cheeks at my rant and then even more so by his close scrutiny.
“Never mind, I’m talking nonsense to you. Goodnight.”
He opened his mouth to speak, maybe to address one of the hundred questions I saw in his eyes but kept them to himself and instead responded with a curt, “Goodnight.”
Great, Koti, way to go. You sounded like a philosophical moron.
Taking my leave, I walked across the sand and back to solitude where I felt safer with my own ramblings. I felt his watchful eyes on me from where he stood on his porch. Maybe I should have been more embarrassed and a little more careful with the words I spoke. But in the last year of my life, I’d recognized my flaws and the depth of my narcissism while I licked my own wounds. After a hard look, I didn’t like a tenth of what I’d become. I saw my flaws, my differences and discovered a few of my strengths too. I was done with certain parts of myself that were a product of expectation. And what was left was a woman who embraced vulnerability, her idiosyncrasies, her ticking clock, and treacherous body.
In a way, I was proud for speaking up, especially to a man who was afraid to show his own defeat and weakness. If I had to write the story of my life post-apocalyptic Koti Vaughn, it would be of a story of hope.
It would be human. And that’s all I wanted to be. Striving for perfection had cost me enough sanity.
THERE’S A NAME FOR HUMAN awareness and it’s called Sonder.
The definition: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground. It’s a pocket in time, where you may redefine life by the idea of the struggle of others.
My time in my own purgatory, battling my anxiety and the crumble of my planned future had taught me to reflect not only on my own mess but on the life of my parents and their triumphs and failures. And after that in-depth analysis where I had to forgive them and myself, I paid close attention to everyone I came in contact with. It changed me in a way I couldn’t ignore. It was a deep, emotional cleansing and one that I could never take lightly.
Everyone, at some point in their life, gets lost in their own head, whether it be a low or high point where they are looking down at the path they’d chosen. This type of reflection led me to the train of thought that brought me to revisit my first substantial memory.