Catch & Release
Departures
Boy Loses Girl
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Boy Loses Girl

Departures: Episode 31

“Departures” is a supernatural thriller and love story published as a serial novel with new episodes dropping every Tuesday morning. Anyone can read or listen for free. Paid subscribers gain early access to new episodes. Watch the trailer or visit the table of contents to browse all the published episodes.

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Previously…

In the last episode, the weight of Wild’s secret had taken its toll on his relationship with June and after another horrific fight, he feared she might leave him. By chance he ran into Eileen at his father’s office and over lunch he told her he knew June only had a year to live. Eileen convinced him he must tell her. When Wild returned home, there was an emotional message from June waiting on the answering machine. She needed to talk and was headed home early.

June sat in her car in their driveway trying to muster the courage to go inside. She had been parked for almost ten minutes and hadn’t let go of the steering wheel. It was as though she had stepped out of time, and everything was moving around her, but she was fixed in place, unable to move.

She had been dreading her follow-up visit to the gynecologist for the past week because she feared she would be told there was something wrong with her, something that was preventing her from getting pregnant. That news would have been horrible, but she would have recovered. This news, she wouldn’t survive.

When the nurse had led June to the doctor’s private office to wait, her heart had begun to race. Her gynecologist came in with another doctor, a man with the stooped shoulders and watery eyes of someone who had spent a career apologizing. After he introduced himself as an oncologist, June started to cry. Her doctor sat in the chair beside her, took both of June’s hands and soberly explained that she had an aggressive form of ovarian cancer. The oncologist, still standing by the door, explained that it was at an advanced stage and while they would take immediate action, the prognosis was clear. Given that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, the chances of her beating it were nearly impossible. June had barely listened to the rest. Her hands had accepted the stack of pamphlets and papers. Her mouth had produced words of acknowledgement and professional courtesy to the doctors. Her foot had pressed the gas and brake pedals in the appropriate combination to drive her home. But her mind was blown into a trillion tiny particles that floated in superpositions across a trillion other universes where she didn’t have terminal cancer.

This morning, aside from being furious at Wild, she had felt fine. Aside from some painful cramps that came and went, she had been in perfect health. Now she was going to die because the organ in her body that was meant to give her a new life would instead take hers. But how was that possible? It wasn’t her time. She had an assurance that no one else had. The doctor was wrong. She would beat it. But the closer she had gotten to home, the more she came to understand everything that had been happening in her relationship with Wild.

She didn’t want to go into the house to face him. Everything was at war inside her. When she released her grip on the steering wheel and looked up, she saw him standing in the open front door. The expression on his face was a mirror of her torment. She turned off the engine and got out of the car. When she stood, her legs felt rubbery. She stumbled and dropped her purse. She picked it up and started toward the house. He met her halfway up the walk in their front yard. When she reached him, her knees buckled, and he caught her. He scooped her up, pressed his lips to the top of her head and carried her into the house. She began to cry, and the sobs came from a place so deep they racked her whole body. Wild sat on the couch in their front room and cradled her in his lap.

When she finally stopped sobbing, her body went slack. She felt empty and cold and moved away to sit in the chair directly across from him. She pulled tissues from the box on the coffee table, wiped the mascara from her cheeks, and blew her nose.

“How come you’re not asking me what’s wrong?” she said.

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “What is it? What did the doctor say?”

“I’ve got cancer, Wild. I thought I was going to find out my ovaries weren’t producing viable eggs. Turns out they were too busy making cancer instead.”

He closed his eyes and held his head in his hands. “Jesus.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “I’m sorry, June…”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me I’m going to beat this, are you? What is it you said before, I’m going to be one hot ninety-year-old?” He shook his head slowly and she clenched her teeth. “How could you not tell me?” she said, trying her best to keep her voice even.

She stared at him with such intensity that he had to look away. He was pinching the skin on his arm so fiercely that the flesh was turning dark red. He took a shuddering breath.

“I didn’t want you to suffer… I thought it would be better for you not to know…”

“Better? You thought it would be better to let this cancer grow in me undetected for five years?”

He didn’t answer but he did look up. His cheeks were wet with tears and the agony in his expression was like nothing she had ever seen before. She flashed back to the moment when they touched for the first time, and she imagined him knowing this truth she knew now. Then she imagined him having to go to sleep and wake up with it every day for five years. It was almost enough to make her pity him even though she was the one dying.

“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe with you, I’m wrong. There must be some way to stop this. There’s got to be something I can do. I’ve been waiting to see what it would be and I…”

He wasn’t making any sense and the clinical side of her understood he was running a compressed and distorted cycle through the five stages of grief because he had been grieving underground all this time. But she couldn’t be his therapist right now. She couldn’t endure his bargaining.

“How much time do I have?” she asked, unable to avoid the chill in her voice. “The doctor said one to two years.” He was about to answer but she interrupted before he could. “Never mind. I don’t want to know exactly. And besides, I don’t trust you to tell me the truth anymore.”

“June, that’s not fair…”

“I can’t be here. I can’t be with you. You lied to me. After everything we’ve been through. I believed you when no one else would. And you… you lied to me, Wild, about something so…”

She was too angry to keep speaking. She didn’t want to fight anymore. There had been enough of that. She wanted to be far away from him and everything that reminded her of him. She wanted to be in her childhood bed, and she wanted her mom and dad. She rose from the chair, went into the hallway, and pulled a suitcase from the closet. Then she went into their bedroom and began to pack. She expected him to follow her, to try to stop her, but he didn’t.

Wild hadn’t moved from the couch. He stared unblinking at a spot on the rug. It was a small burgundy stain from a spill that happened on an evening when he knew they had so many evenings left to spend together, cuddling on the couch watching a show, reading, or just having one of the thousands of little conversations that make up a life with someone. He heard June packing in their room down the hall, the echoing footfalls of her trips from the closet to the bed to the dresser and back to the bed. Then he heard the sound of zippers and drawers and doors being closed. A moment later, he felt her standing behind him. Without turning around, he could see the heavy suitcase she would not set down. He wanted to get up and go to her, to plead with her to forgive him and stay, but he didn’t have the spirit for that. How could he ask her to forgive something he would never forgive himself for doing?

“Goodbye, Wild.”

The two words shot through him like a professional hit where the first one is the kill shot and the second one is insurance. He didn’t move or blink until her car had left the driveway and then he was filled with a surge of pain so sharp he cried out and ran to the door. He flung it open and ran out onto the lawn with no plan. Her car paused for a few seconds in front of the house before she stepped on the gas and accelerated to the end of the street where she made a left at the three-way stop without stopping. He had been losing her since his hand first caressed her cheek that day on the blanket in the field on top of a mountain. So why was the pain so sharp now? Hadn’t five years of the dull, rusty blade twisting inside of him already done its work? How much more could he hurt?

He turned and walked back into the house. When he closed the door behind him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep there. All he wanted was oblivion– to not have to think or feel or even be, but there was only one way to achieve that and no matter how much he wanted to die, he understood how selfish that was. He shuffled into the kitchen, took a tea glass from the dish drainer, walked over to the cabinet where he reached to the top shelf and pulled down a half-empty bottle of Maker’s Mark. The whisky bottle was covered in a fine layer of dust. He unscrewed the cap and filled the glass more than halfway. He took a long drink and winced as the liquid fire burned a lava trail down his throat and into his belly. He walked over to the French doors that opened to the backyard.

Outside, he sat in one of the Adirondack chairs and drank until the sun dropped behind the roofline of the neighbor’s house and tiny bats began to dart around in the hazy twilight. Floating somewhere just above the sadness and guilt, he felt a sense of relief, like a leaden vest that had been constricting his breathing for years was suddenly gone. Love hurt enough without the added bonus of knowing exactly when it was going to end.

From inside the house, the phone began to ring. When he stood, everything tilted sideways, and he had to steady himself on the arm of the chair. When he did, he knocked over the glass and it shattered on the flagstones. He cursed and stumbled into the house where he picked up the phone just before the answering machine got a chance. When he spoke into the receiver, his tongue was thick and slow.

“Wild? Are you okay?”

“Who is this?” he managed.

“It’s Eileen. Are you okay? Did you tell her?”

Wild swayed a bit and grabbed hold of the countertop to keep from falling. He tried to swallow. His mouth was dry.

“Eileen? Why are you calling?”

“I was worried about you after our conversation. You don’t sound okay.”

“I’m fine, don’t you worry about me.”

“You don’t sound fine. Is June there with you?”

“Nope. June has left.”

“What do you mean left? You told her?”

“It’s a long story and I’m tired. Thanks for calling.”

“Wild, wait…”

He pushed the ‘end call’ button on the wireless receiver and set the phone on the counter. He had hoped it would be June calling. But she wouldn’t call. She was never going to talk to him again. He drifted over to the large couch in the den and fell into it. After a moment, he struggled with his shoes and finally got them off before falling back into the cushions. Then everything blissfully dipped to black.

When he came to after some indeterminate period of time, the house was dark, and someone was pounding on the front door. After he sat up and cleared his head a bit, he could hear Eileen’s voice shouting through the door. He nearly knocked over the lamp beside the couch as he reached to switch it on. He cursed at the brightness, rose to his feet, and somehow managed to make it to the door without falling on his face.

“I’ve been pounding on this door for five minutes, Wild. I could see you through the window and you weren’t moving. I almost called the police.”

He sighed heavily and swayed a bit. She moved into the room, put her arm around his middle and after closing the door behind them, walked him over to the couch.

“I’m gonna get you some water.”

She returned with a tall glass and insisted he drink it down before she sat beside him. He fell back onto the couch and rubbed his eyes.

“So, what happened?” she asked.

Haltingly, Wild told her what had transpired that afternoon. By the time he reached the end, he was beginning to sober up and the ache in his chest returned. He began to cry, miserably, pitifully. After a moment of sitting awkwardly on her hands, Eileen pulled him to her. In the warmth and softness of her, his cries gave way to shuddering sobs that rivaled June’s when he had held her in this same spot only hours before. He felt lost, adrift without any bearing on who or what he was. There was only an endless horizon of pain.

His face was buried in Eileen’s neck, and she stroked his hair. He wondered if she was thinking of Marvin. She understood the kind of loss he was facing and there was comfort in this. The emotion receded and he was able to breathe normally but he didn’t want her to let go of him. She smelled faintly of citrus and the new plastic smell of corporate office spaces. But there was another scent intermingled. It was the lingering smell of cooking, of something warm, of some comfort food. There was a solace in being held like a child. It was a foreign sensation. In the handful of times he had been consoled as a boy it was the nanny who had held him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled in her neck. “I’m a fucking mess.”

“You are. For sure, you are. But there ain’t no way out of this, only through.”

The words were harsh, but her delivery was tender. He turned his head, and she laid her hand gently on his cheek. He looked up into her eyes and something shifted. He saw something he wasn’t supposed to see. Her lips parted slightly as if she might try to kiss him, and he suddenly wanted that which made him pull away and straighten up a little too abruptly.

“Thank you– for coming to check on me. That was very kind.”

Eileen sat up too, cleared her throat, and tugged her blouse to straighten it. “Yeah, of course,” she said. Whatever he had seen in her expression seconds before was replaced with a close-lipped smile. “I should go. Boots will be back home tomorrow for a couple of days before he goes out again…”

She paused when she looked up and saw something in his expression. “But I can stay a little while longer if you need me to.”

“No, no. I’m fine now.”

She bent and kissed him softly on the cheek and then she was gone.

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If you’re enjoying “Departures,” chances are you will also like my two previously published novels. I’ve made the first two episodes of each free for you to preview. If you prefer reading the old fashioned way, you’re in luck because “The Memory of My Shadow” is now available in print, ebook, and audiobook anywhere you purchase books. I give you all the details in this announcement post.

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