Jess is finally going! That New Zealand holiday is at its dawn, and all she can think of is landscapes, walks and adventures. But what she does not expect to find, is what is waiting around the corner - someone.
Someone who will turn her holiday up...
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The door clicked shut.
She should have heaved a huge sigh of relief, but Jess found herself still unable to breathe. She stood leaning against the cool wood of the front door, holding it in; her breath, her tears.
No one came into the hall to ask her what she had been doing in there for so long, and she was utterly relieved. She could not think up any excuses then.
It did not strike her as odd - or as anything, really - when she eventually walked into the living room, and none of them said a word to question her dejected posture, or even the late hour. She did not have the capacity that evening to be surprised.
They played Monopoly, and Jess allowed herself to get completely swallowed by the rhythm; throw the dice, move the piece, watch everyone else, pay, throw the dice, move the piece, watch everyone else, pay, throw the dice...
Soon it came as fluidly as breathing - or as breathing should be - and Jess began to enjoy the sound of the chatter of her family. She could relish the feeling of sitting among them, in the country she had longed to be in for so long. She revelled in laughing with them; the signature of that sound printed on the air was something she wanted to get as much of as she could.
She even enjoyed the game, to an extent. She was successful because she was not playing to win. She was playing to lose herself somewhere other than in her mind.
When they all finally went to bed, just past midnight, Jess felt the pang of knowing they would not be having another game night like that. She had no idea when they would all be able to meet again, to go on adventures, share a meal - a laugh, to play board games and watch TV together late into the night.
But she shrugged off the clammy grip of pining. That was tomorrow's struggle. Today - tonight - was denial. Loss, longing, coming and going in sharp, slowly ebbing jabs of pain.
They came and went and mingled until Jess had been lying awake for three hours, unable to escape into the shadows of sleep.
The day had been perfect.
She could not have expected it, but up until the moment she realised she was late to meet James, it really had been perfect. Like the pancakes, and how much of everything she had eaten, even when she wasn't even close to hungry. It was the sort of unplanned mayhem that she told herself she partook in, but that day seemed so much more like the real stuff; the chaos she had always wanted.
She remembered the quiet in the forest, and realised they had hardly spoken a word in there. Usually she would be the first to disrupt the quiet, because unnecessary silences are meant to be broken. But it occurred to her that some of her best memories were of silence. The clarity, and peace of that walk had to be one of them - even if not for the silence, simply the ability to just be in that moment - live without trying.
But then, come their meal, the clouds had rolled in. The dread and the panic had begun to set in with undeniable force. Rushing home, outside again, and down the sidewalks-
No... It hadn't started in the cafe - not really. There had been moments - a long moment - when she had managed to stay calm. To enjoy the meal.Most of her memories of that country were, in fact, still as rose-tinted and loved as her first impressions of it.
Going over the day, Jess could only wish to have more of those joyful moments, untainted as they were with regret. But her mind kept drawing her back to the recollections that stood out, in stark contrast with those regretless moments - the ones where she wanted their hug to go on for longer. Where she wanted to simply stand beside him longer, as if it was them against the world.
She wanted to hold on to James and them and their moments together, and engrave it all into her brain. She had tried to say something to him, but she hadn't known what to say that could make him know all that she felt. She had wanted to do so many things that had now been left undone.
There was nothing more she could do now - she had ridden the wave. The hope - the building of the wall of water; the excitement - as the swell rose tall enough to see land; the promise, hope and longing, right at the peak of the crest. Before it all came crashing down, gradually at first, with doubt and dread and second-guesses, and then rapidly - surging toward and breaking on the shore. Until only the white foam of regret lingered upon the sand that could have been so many things - of hope, promise, joy, of closure, of walking off into the sunset.
And it shot through her head. Yesterday, when he had told her he would always be reminded of her, she had never told him that she could never forget him either.
Now he would never know.
***
Jess was still slipping in and out of sleep as the Sun was preparing to rise again, hovering beneath the horizon like an actor about to step onto the stage.
And a beat was being thrummed in her head, like crashing booms off a massive drum, the sound waves travelling a well worn path - a familiar one, after all the events of the past night.
