He follows me to the kitchen and he lets out a low whistle when he sees my view. I grin and toss him a corkscrew for the wine. He opens the cork, while I go to the cabinet for two glasses. I start carrying everything to the table, but he points to my balcony. It faces the ocean and the only way to get there is by walking through my bedroom.
We carry everything outside and sit at the wrought iron table that has never been used. He brought sushi. We prop our feet up and eat in silence, watching the waves lick at the sand. There is a heaviness between us, but isn’t there always? After tomorrow there will be no more excuse to see each other and though we have not said much on a personal level, there have been looks exchanged, small words…
I am so tired of this cycle, this constant struggle to breathe the same air as him. I look over and see that he is watching me.
“What?”
“Don’t marry Turner.”
“Pfffff,” I say. “Why do you hate him so much?”
Caleb shrugs and looks away. “He’s not your type.”
“Really,” I mock. “What do you know anyway? You have terrible taste.”
We sit in silence for another few minutes, and then he says, “If you’ve never trusted me on anything, trust me on this.”
I sigh, and change the subject.
“Remember our tree?”
“Yea, I remember,” he says softly.
“They cut it down.”
His head snaps over to look at me.
“I’m just kidding,” I giggle.
He smiles and shakes his head.
“What difference would it have made? Our whole relationship was cut down,” he grins, but it is a bitter grin.
“Put through the grinder,” I remark.
“Pulverized,” he adds.
He leaves after that. Hours after he’s gone, I can still smell him in my halls. My condo feels cold and empty without him. I would give it all up, the money, the fancy job, the condo….I could live in squalor with him and be happy. I think. Why didn’t I realize that before? Before, I screwed it all up. I can’t sleep, so I sit on the couch and stare at the ocean. I am still sitting there when the sun rises. I get ready for court, make myself some coffee, and walk out my door. Today is the last day.
We win the case.
Leah is found not guilty of falsifying documents, not guilty of clinical trial fraud, and guilty of ethical misconduct of responsibilities. She pays a fine of one million dollars for the latter and is sentenced to two hundred hours of community service. I am not celebratory. I could have put that bitch in prison and stolen her husband.
The victory dinner is held at a posh restaurant in South Beach. I am extricating myself from a handful of well-wishers when I spot her sashaying over to me. I eye her sexy black dress with distaste. She is so polished and coiffed, she looks like a magazine cutout. I am wearing a simple, cream sheath dress. She is the Devil tonight and I am the Angel.
“Olivia,” she purrs, sauntering up with a glass of wine in her hand, “cheers to our win. It was all very well done.” She clinks her glass with mine and I smile tightly.
“Thank you?”
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever understand why you did it. You saved me. Unless, it’s because he asked you to.”
As if on cue, we both look over at Caleb, who is laughing and chatting with a group of friends.
“It must have been very hard for you to be around him.” She is watching him, possessively. I am struck by how much I miss hearing his laughter. It rips me to my core, that he belongs in her life and not mine.
“He’s not the kind of man a woman can easily forget,” she continues sweetly, and if I wasn’t the type of girl that played her game, I would have thought her sincere.
“No, he’s not,” I admit freely.
“You watch him all the time—I see you do it, Olivia.”
I look at her bored. She is playing games with someone who knows how to play them better.
“Does he look at you, the way I look at him?” I ask casually. Ahh, there it is—the ill-disguised anger.
And, by the look on her face, I know I’ve struck a nerve. She opens her mouth to say something but I hold up a hand.
“Leah, go be with your husband,” I say, “before he realizes that he’s still in love with me.”
And as if right on cue, Caleb turns to look at me, not at his wife—at me. Our eyes lock for the briefest of seconds, Caleb’s and mine, amber and blue. Leah witnesses our exchange and though she remains the epitome of decorum and class, I see a whiteness appear around her lips. Her anger rolls toward me, though what I feel coming from him pushes it away. He is longing, as am I. I garner what remains of my self-control and tell myself the truth: Not mine, not ever.
I set my wine down on the nearest table and walk quickly out of their lives. Some things were better left alone.
The following morning I turn on the TV only to see a familiar mug shot. I squint at the picture and groan when I hear the name.
“Dobson Scott Orchard was detained by police at the Miami airport last night trying to board a plane to Toronto. Police have taken him into custody where accused ra**st is being questioned. Among his victims are seven women whose ages range from seventeen to thirty. Five of them have come forward and positively identified him as the man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted them. Police are urging anyone else victimized to step forward at this time…”
The camera then shifts to a picture of Laura Hidleson, naming her as Dobson’s first victim. I wave at her picture and shut off the TV. Life is all about choices, I decide—good ones, bad ones, selfish ones. But, it seems the safest one I ever made was not walking underneath his umbrella, the day I ran into Caleb.