“Katie, you know me. You know me. Better than probably anyone in my life, you know me. Please just trust me. One more time. I promise you I’m not like them. If there was anything I could do, any other way . . .”
I reach up to wind my fingers around his wrists and tug them away from my face. “There’s always another way. You just have to want to find it.”
Rogan drops his hands and leans back before running his fingers through his short hair, sending it shooting out in twenty different directions. “Katie, please! You have to believe me. Can’t you just . . . Rrrrah!” With that growl of frustration, Rogan straightens and turns away from me, lacing his fingers behind his neck as he paces. When he swivels back to me, he just looks . . . beaten. “I know you want me to fix this, but I can’t. I wish there was something I could do, but there’s not. This is beyond my control. Please, just give me the benefit of the doubt. At least give me some time to figure something out. Please.”
I take a deep breath and bolster myself against the desire to crawl into a corner and die. I gave my heart away and this is what it’s come to.
I’m resigned. The least I can do at this point is try to retain some amount of dignity. I stand to my feet, legs shaky, knees wobbly, and I pray for strength before I speak. “It won’t matter, Rogan. We’re just too different. We were kidding ourselves to think otherwise. Go back to your people. And I’ll go back to mine. All I ask is that you stay away from me. If you respect me or ever cared anything about me, you’ll do this one thing for me. Please.”
I’m glad my voice stayed strong through the end. I’m glad I was finished speaking, too, because, as I shoulder my purse and walk past Rogan, I’m overcome with the feeling that I can’t breathe, much less speak. Yet I walk on. I walk to another seat at the farthest end of my gate and I take it. I slip into it, my only thoughts of the door that will lead to the airplane that will take me away from here, away from Rogan. I just have to make it home in one piece and then I can fall apart.
And I will. But this time, I’m not sure the pieces will be big enough to put back together again.
Thankfully, they board the plane within minutes of me walking away from Rogan. I don’t look back until I’m seated in coach, staring out across the tarmac, waiting for takeoff. Only then do I give in, albeit reluctantly, to the urge to sneak one last glance behind me, at where I’ve been. I don’t expect to find Rogan. I figured he’d have already left. But he hasn’t. And I have no trouble spotting him.
There, standing tall and strong in front of the enormous wall of windows that faces me, is the love of my life. The betrayer of my last bit of trust.
Although his eyes are fixed in my general direction, I know he can’t see me. Maybe he never did. If he had, he’d know why we can never be together. Not after this.
Tiny droplets begin to pepper the thick, oval glass between us. For a few seconds, I can’t tell the difference between the water in my eyes and the water falling from the sky. But then it starts to rain harder. According to the forecast, there was no chance of rain, but they were as deluded as I’ve been. There’s always a chance of rain, no matter how small.
After a few minutes, my window is nothing more than a highway of rivulets that turn Rogan from real and solid into a wavy hallucination. Soon I can barely see the terminal at all.
Kiefer “The Rain” Rogan. Yes, he brought the rain. And if I’m not careful, I might well drown in it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Rogan