For the rest of the evening, he distracted himself, reading, then Netflix. At 11:15 PM he went to bed and texted:

 

Another layer of tan today, you? I bet your evening was a lot of fun. Dancing with you will be great. Thank you for being open with me about how you feel. I had a wonderful day with you in many ways. Have a good sleep. G’night. 😘

 

He woke at 5 AM. She was waiting there in his thoughts, their love in the afternoon, their walk in the sun, Jeff Wilson, Diet Coke. A meeting with Martin, oh, that was today, what would that bring? On the one hand, it had nothing to do with him, but on the other, everything? She and Martin were still connected by their love for June. He slipped into the memory of her tears under a furrowed brow. He cursed himself but also bemoaned having to walk on eggshells around her. But that’s what a good partner does. He would show her how he honoured, even appreciated, her sensitivity. After all, the scene she’d read was pretty fucking cool. He liked the concept of how it’s what you don’t know keeps you sane, the mystery gives your mind something to do, to guess, and without it, it unravels into madness. Don’t tell me anything, that’s how we can stay connected. Is that what she’s saying?

He sat on his couch in his sweat pants, sipping coffee and suddenly jolted at the thought of touching down in Sedona in less than 24 hours. Preflight jitters raked over him. Why had he booked the trip in the first place? To get away, do something different, break up the winter months, go somewhere new. Distraction from guilt, to feel good. Oh, yeah, remember? Spending time with Eva had him feeling better and leaving felt like the wrong thing now. He resumed packing and did his best to ignore the onslaught of dissenting voices scolding him for being a jerk at the gallery, reading his silly bit and making her cry, and booking the trip, which was obviously just a touristic romantic idea that he’d been sucked into with the help of his devious over-active imagination and that the reality would be dreary, arduous, and boring and that he was a fool.

He stopped packing to have a snack, hummus and rice crackers, healthy choices. Always make the healthy choice: good food, sleep, and exercise. It would keep him going. He sat at the window desk, looking out, the bittersweet feelings of imminent travel upon him, but couldn’t shake his obsession, how he wished he’d responded correctly to her play reading, after all, he’d actually liked it! He’d done a good job apologizing and expressing how right she was, and how off and insensitive and stupid and everything else he must be for being so oblivious and blind. And now she’d seen what a fool he was! The cat out of the bag!

Her teary disappointment snaked through him, she surely doubted his feelings for her. A seismic blunder. She had thanked him for not being defensive and this, it seemed, calmed things, but now he felt there was so much he needed to do to make it right, which had nothing to do with apologizing, he’d done that well. Rather, the task was to instill in her mind the truth of his reverence for her work – for her – not just that it was worthy of respect, but on the level she had dreamed. It was brilliant! But something felt missing, what? What was he not seeing? It was like something poking his back, but he couldn’t turn to see what it was.

At about 8 AM she replied to his text from the night before:

 

Good morning ☀️Yes, a tan/burn. Time to find my sunscreen 🙂 Hope you slept well. We got home around 1 am. Very fun. Dancing for four hours seems to have energized me. New prescription? Although it could also be how happy my body is after the afternoon with you 😊Thanks for our open conversation and for listening. Means a lot to me. Let’s try meet up later?

 

He felt like he’d dodged a bullet. It was great to be alive! He restrained himself for thirty minutes, then texted:

 

Yes, for sure, let me know what works. We didn’t get the chance to talk about it but to put it bluntly but truthfully, the scene you read me was f’n cool. The whole concept behind it – I can’t stop thinking about it. The relationship of knowing someone vs. sanity. It’s brilliant. You’re taking me places I’ve never been. In your work I feel a strong sense of journey, exploration and a fearless desire to explore. I had hoped to meet someone like you in my life.

 

An hour later she texted:

 

I just read your thoughtful reply. Thank you. wow, so nice. I’m going to be home around 2 PM. I’m running on less sleep and lots of activity yesterday! If it works better for you, as you get ready for tomorrow, I can come to you as well.

 

Him: 😊No, it’s ok, I’m happy to ride over, it’s nice out.

 

He sighed with relief, but still felt cut despite attempts to will himself to let it go for fuck sake, he’d done all he could, but his memory, his imagination, his past blunders, all the people he’d disappointed were brought back to life like zombies roaming the corners of his body, taking bites, breaking him down. If he could just stop making stupid mistakes, the past could be laid to rest.

He locked his bike to the rack in her backyard and went up. She pulled him in for a lingering kiss. When they parted, her eyes smiled, but under the weight of something. She had had a rest and wanted to be outside, so they walked to the park, which was busy with a pop-up market, baseball, families, and couples. They looped the scene, chatting about nothing, then sat on half-shaded grass underneath a large oak. He could feel something coming.

“So?” he said.

“Yeah. Some things I want to talk about.”

“I can tell,” bemused, but sincere.

She smiled quickly and then beseeched him with her expression that he make an effort to understand her plight. She wasn’t aware that his compassion for her was effortless. “Tell me what happened,” he said in a trusting tone.

She was hurt by Martin’s insensitivity during their conversation, lack of empathy, or care, confirming once again that leaving him had been the right thing, but simultaneously, she was caught in a reactive fight to not accept his behaviour, as if they were still together. Martin’s defence was that he had always loved her, and why couldn’t she see that? She left, and therefore, she was to blame for everything. He wasn’t going to apologize for anything and resented any notion otherwise. He was quickly fed up with her and in no mood to be cooperative to work out anything amicable, even for June’s sake.

“He’s a brick wall,” said Eva. She shook her head and looked away. Her back was straight with her shoulders back, but her lips quivered. She said this chapter of her life had ended, and there wouldn’t be any way to create a bridge between her and Martin. It made Spencer’s blunder the previous day seem frivolous to him, but the objective of this conversation wasn’t clear, something was rising to the surface. He listened closely and asked clarifying and supportive questions, which also showed how deeply he understood her, unlike Martin, he hoped. His mind flashed on the text he had sent earlier, complimenting her work, and he felt shewd – that text was perhaps the very thing she had always wanted from Martin. A true valuing of her, yes, but he had stretched the size of what he felt to win her favour and didn’t feel good about it. Nothing is perfect, relax!

Yes, it was true, he had always wanted to be with someone like Eva, someone creative and passionate who wanted to spend time with him, but the larger truth was it didn’t matter to him if she was an artist and he wondered if Martin had felt the same. He, and perhaps Martin, simply liked her, loved her, not for what she put down on paper, just the ineffable Eva.

She remained cross-legged, he lay back on his elbows facing her, the soft grass slightly gave way under him. “Yeah,” he nodded and looked away, pensive. “It’s really hard when your partner doesn’t see you.”

“You can all him an asshole,” she said wryly, her smile pulling hard to the left. He lifted his eyebrows, he wouldn’t dare. One wrong move and it could all be over.

She ripped the grass absently and tossed it. “There are things I need.” A sigh fluttered past her lips.

“I know,” he reassured.

“I know I have a responsibility to make the person I’m with understand what that is, but…they have to do their part too, you know? It can’t all be up to me. I tried so hard with Martin and today, when I brought it up – it’s been some time now, some water under the bridge and I put out there the things I did, the things I could have done better, things I messed up and…that was it.”

He waited for her to continue but nothing came. “That was what? What you do you mean?”

“He didn’t cop to anything, in fact he made it…” She sighed again, her eyes were grey. “He made it clear he wasn’t going to give anything and there was no chance we could come to any sort of…amicable anything. He just rejected the whole idea that he’d done anything wrong, even in the slightest.”

“Holy shit,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “It sucks, Eva. I know how hard that must be.”

She rubbed her face with both hands and after removing them, looked twice as tired. With effort she took a breath and looked him in the eyes with a creased brow. “And there’s you and me. What happened yesterday, it was…” She took another breath, he braced. “I want you to know how I appreciate your reaction. You weren’t defensive.”

He nodded calmly, but inside, he’d won the lottery.

She continued with the same conviction. “It’s actually scary to think how good it could be.”

Spencer sat up, took her hand and held her gaze. “It’s something special.”

“Yeah,” she said, pushing her lower lip into the upper one as she looked away, stifling a tear. “You’re different.”

His heart was solid gold and light as a feather. If all the wrongs and blunders in his life had led here, they were worth it.