“—my Mom. It looks great back there. Thanks for taking such good care of the place.” Callan’s talking, but there’s an absent note to his voice. He’s not really thinking about the words coming out of his mouth. Not really thinking about Sam, or the fact that his mother’s grave has been well tended to. He’s leaning into me, the way I’m leaning into him, like our souls are goddamn magnets, unable to resist the forceful draw of the other.
I shake my head, not ready to turn around and face this ghost playing havoc with my heart. “Thanks, Sam. I really do have to get going. I’ll come by after I’ve spoken to the people at the funeral home.” I rush past him, wringing the straps of my purse in both hands, eyes on the floor, too scared to look up. At least I now have my keys in my hand. The rental beeps as I unlock it. I reach to open the driver’s door, but another hand gets there before mine, pulling up the lever.
“Southern manners aren’t dead, y’know?” I look up, and Callan’s face is so painfully close to mine. His dark brown eyes are just as I remember them—deep, like the unending darkness you see when you look into the bottom of a well. That may sound romantic, but it’s not. It’s unnerving. Like you’re peering into eternity, and if you venture too close to the edge, you might just tumble and fall. Fall forever. When I last looked at his facebook page, hating myself every second of the way, he had a full beard. It has suited him, but he must have shaved it off recently. Now dark stubble marks his jaw, instead, barely a few millimeters long.
The dimples that always marked his cheeks are still there, and have, in fact, grown deeper since high school. And those lips, lips I remember with a startling intensity as they kissed me for the first time, are still full and blushed and biteable. They curve into a wicked smile as Callan’s eyes scan over my features, no doubt recalling the contours, dips and rises of my own face. “Hey, bluebird,” he whispers. “I’ve been dreaming about you.”
God, I can’t be this close to him. It takes such effort to lean away from him. Ironically, the way I tilt my shoulders means that I’m facing him, though, and my back automatically arches, pressing my chest closer to his. I can’t help it. No matter what I do, I’ve always had the hardest time denying the way my body reacts whenever I’m around this man.
He’s the same as he always used to be, and yet he’s very different, too. God, I had no idea I would remember or feel so much when I looked at him like this. I’m not ready, not prepared. It’s all too hard.
“Hi, Callan,” I whisper. “I have to go.”
He shakes his head. “You really don’t.”
“I do. I have to be somewhere.”
He shakes his head again, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I have to be on my way, too,” Sam says, completely oblivious to the tension that’s about to blow a nuclear sized hole in the St. Regis parking lot. Neither Callan nor I look at Sam as he says his goodbyes and leaves, climbing into one of the parked cars and driving away. We just stand very, very still, staring at one another.
“You planning on saying anything any time soon, bluebird?” he whispers.
My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth, refusing to function. I have to wrestle words out of my mouth, when every part of me wants to remain silent forever. The last words I said to Callan Cross were these:
Don’t follow me. I’m sorry. Goodbye.
If I say something else, my last words to him will be changed. I’ve born the weight of the command I gave as I fled his house for so long now, stumbling under the pain of it time and time again, when I’ve felt weak and lost and I hated myself for telling him not to come and find me. But now that I’m in a position to change that, I don’t know that I should. The years since I left Port Royal have been hard, but I’ve survived, haven’t I? I’ve made it through. If I even utter one word to Callan now, I’m going to end up hurt again. It’s almost guaranteed. And I can’t withstand that kind of heartbreak ever again. I just can’t. I swallow, looking down at his hand, which is still on the car door handle. My stomach turns when I see the black lines of scribble marked on his skin.
Familiar. So familiar. A tiny bird in flight, quickly drawn lines barely bisecting in places, mapped out quickly and with little thought. I used to draw those birds everywhere. Without thinking, I reach out and take hold of his arm so I can turn it and get a better look. Sure enough, it’s one of the last things I ever drew on him. “What…what the hell is this?” I ask.
Callan jerks his arm away from me, hastily rolling down his sleeve. He looks away, squinting into the distance. There are fine lines between his eyebrows now—lines that weren’t there before. I wonder whether stress put them there, or if it was just the amount of time that’s slipped between our fingers.