Flight Risk

40 - The Arctic Hare Room Part 3

After chatting with Claire and Vince, I dozed off in the cozy bed, only to be awakened by someone slipping beneath the thin covers beside me.

"Caleb?" I whispered, hoping he'd locked the door when he left and this wasn't a creepy stranger. I rolled over and let out a breath of relief at his dark hair, more tousled than usual and the familiar chin dimple. It was my boyfriend.

"Did you not hear me when I came in?"

I shook my head.

"You must have needed that rest. How are you doing?" he asked.

"Better."

Sleep eased some of the stranglehold of my negative thoughts. Opening up to Claire had reassured me, and it was nice to be unburdened of one of my lies. I wasn't sure if she planned on telling the group or would let me untangle that net, but it didn't seem like as big a deal anymore. Once it was out, I could be myself, and we could laugh about it, assuming I wasn't a sobbing mess after talking to Caleb.

I opted for a safe question. "How was the tour?"

"Interesting and the dogs were wonderful, but it was not the same without you."

Did that statement apply to other parts of his life too? Despite lying with me, he hadn't reached out to hold my hand or stroke my face. I had to stop reading into his words and actions and ask, but Caleb spoke first.

"Are you well enough for the polar bears? I'd hate for you to miss them."

With my mind and heart more settled, my stomach should follow.

"I think so."

Even if our conversation imploded, I'd get out of this room. Heartbreak would not keep me from those majestic arctic creatures.

He bit his lip as he studied me, sending faint frown lines across his tanned face. "I'm sorry I was rude to you before. When I sent that photo, I panicked, but that was no excuse to dismiss you like that."

I nodded slowly.

"Was that part of why you didn't come?"

I could lie, but it wouldn't get us anywhere. "Yeah. We did meet a week ago, but I hoped I meant more to you than that."

"You do in so many ways." His gentle voice soothed me like aloe on a sunburn. "It was an idiotic thing to say. I was imagining how my family would perceive it, and... I never should have said it. That's not how I feel about you at all."

I could have left it at that, but the same cycle kept hurting us. Our honeyed words skirted around the worms burrowing into our hearts.

"Then why do you freeze when I bring up a future between us?" I asked.

His eyes grew sombre, and wrinkles dug deeper trenches in his brow. "Because as much as I adore you and us, I can't give you the future you want. After what happened to Lily, I can't see myself moving from Australia. And I don't want you to look back on your life and regret having a partner who ruined your big dreams of exploring the world together. You deserve a real version of the person I pretended to be at the wedding who will whisk you off on adventures and live in new countries with you every year."

"I can't even afford to fly back to Indonesia without support from my family, so those dreams are not a reality."

"Someday you will, but I'll still be reluctant to leave. Everything with Lily is uncertain, and I need to be there for my family, especially since I haven't been. You deserve more than a partner who can't promise you what you want."

He was so wrapped up in his guilt and pain that he couldn't see past that cocoon. But it wouldn't be like that forever, and even if it was shorter trips or local adventures, I needed him more than some extravagant international life. And if we were 'trapped' in Australia, I'd still have easy access to the coast to work in my chosen profession, unlike in Manitoba. Our current location, Hudson's Bay, was my province's only saltwater coast, and the recreational dive community was far from thriving here. Australia was a huge and exciting country to explore. More than all of that, it would be alongside him. That mattered more than anything else he worried about.