Izmir was crazy busy, especially when there were two cruise ships in port. Luke led me to the hotel he’d found that charged for internet and hooked me up. I half expected to hear a dial-up tone.
My email booted up, and I answered a note from Mom with a few, quick lines, then a joint one to Sam and Paisley, letting them know I’d call when I could. I answered two questions from the wedding coordinator in Breckenridge like nothing had changed.
Then I opened a blank email and addressed it to Josh. What the hell was I going to say? I love you? Why did you do that to me? Are you safe? Should I lie, hide everything about my feelings until we saw each other again? The last thing I wanted to do was stress him out during a deployment. He had enough on his mind already, and God knew how he was flying missions.
Were his nightmares back?
I hated not knowing the answers.
HEY, JOSH,
I’VE SETTLED IN HERE. IT’S GORGEOUS AND SURPASSING EVERY EXPECTATION I’VE EVER HAD. SO FAR I’VE HELPED UNCOVER ONE ROOM, AND CATALOGUE ITS CONTENTS, AND NOW I’VE MOVED ON TO UNCOVERING AND PRESERVING A BEAUTIFUL MOSAIC.
Holy shit, you’ll bore him to death if you continue like this.
ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU’RE DOING WELL, STAYING SAFE WHEN YOU CAN. EVERYTHING HERE REMINDS ME OF YOU.
Delete that.
I took out the last sentence with slightly aggressive keystrokes. Since when had I started censoring myself with Josh? Since he decided to give you a couple of months.
I MISS YOU.
Yeah, that’s safer.
ALL MY LOVE,
DECEMBER
I hit send before I could talk myself out of it, and for that tiny second, felt connected to him. It was like the second you accidentally touched scalding water, how there was always the tiniest breath before it hurt like hell.
I stared at the screen for a couple of minutes and hit refresh, hoping that maybe he was online right now. That I’d hear back. Then I opened my Facebook and uploaded a few more pictures for Mom.
“Hey, van’s leaving,” Luke said, tapping me on the shoulder.
“Yeah.” I nodded. I closed out my email, a pang of longing sucking the breath from my chest. The first three months of the deployment had hurt, no doubt, but this disconnect was excruciating. What if it became permanent? If he didn’t pull his head out of his ass?
God, is this how he’d felt those months after Dad died? When I hadn’t known what to do with myself?
It would take a hell of a lot more than his idiocy last month to stop me from loving him, but if he didn’t love me anymore, what was I supposed to do with that?
“We can come back in a few days,” Luke offered.
“It’s a forty-five-minute drive,” I muttered.
“Yeah, well, we’ll grab some supplies while we’re here. Make it a legitimate run.” He leaned against the computer table.
“I miss him,” I whispered, like those three words could even slightly define the gut-wrenching sensation of having my heart ripped from my body.
He stood and looped his arm around my shoulders. “I know. What you guys have is the real thing, the legendary stuff they write songs about. Just hold on to that.”
Right, but what kinds of songs? The ones with the happy endings and sappy melodies? Or the morose country ones that ended with sobbing into a bottle of liquor? I held myself together as we filed into the van, Luke and I taking the back row when four other dig students grabbed the middle ones.
My mind wandered as we left the city limits and headed back to the ruins.
I loved Josh. That was never going to change.
What we had couldn’t be diminished by a couple of months apart. We’d made it through just about everything, and we’d come through this, even if I had to pull him kicking and screaming. I wasn’t giving up, wasn’t backing down.
He’d waited months for me to get my shit together when Dad died. He hadn’t given up; he hadn’t lost faith. And even when all hope had been stripped from him, from both of us, he’d held on to the love we could never deny, no matter what the consequences.
It was simply my turn to grit my teeth and hold on tight.
I’d never taken pleasure in soaping up a floor before. Then again, I’d never been uncovering something as beautiful or unique. Each inch I uncovered revealed something new yet ancient, the faces in the mosaic knowing secrets I could only guess at. It was incredible to think I was the first person to see it since the city had been evacuated thousands of years ago.
I’d spent the last four weeks discovering the floor of this room, and I’d never felt so in awe of something.
Except the first time Josh kissed you.
And every kiss after that, if I was being honest.
“Knock knock,” Luke said from the top of the ladder. “Feel like a break? You’ve been down here for hours.”
I pulled a sweaty strand of hair from my face and tucked it back under my bandana. “Sounds good. Ilyas, break time?”
“Absolutely. I’ll take one, too, and see you in a bit.”
Ilyas had been fun to be around, and he taught me bits and pieces of Turkish while we’d uncovered the mosaic.
Luke took the bucket of dirty water I handed to him, and then I ascended the ladder onto the walkway. “We’re tourist heavy at the front. Do you want to sneak out the back?”
“Heck yes.”
We dumped the water, left the bucket at the filling station, and then walked out at the top of the enclosure to sit on the hill where we’d stashed a couple of lawn chairs.