Julian's Pursuit (16 page)

“It’s okay,” I said, waving his words aside. “How come you’re
still
here?”

He just shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know…” I stared at him blankly. My thoughts were still frayed and I could hardly think straight.

The first time they took Evan into surgery—six years ago—I cried. I just lost it completely and sobbed uncontrollably.

Right now, even though I appeared calm on the outside, I felt like that on the inside… like I was losing my fucking mind.

As much as the doctor had assured me that this was a simple procedure, surgery was still the
practice
of medicine. It wasn’t perfect. And right now, I was thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong.

“Do you want to go down to the cafeteria?” Julian spoke into the silence. “Get some coffee? Something to eat?”

“No.” I shook my head slowly. “I promised Evan I’d stay close by.”

“I’ll wait with you.”

I managed a nod.

“Listen,” he added, trying to draw me out of my head, out of my worries. “I need to run a quick errand. But I’ll be right back, okay?”

I nodded again.

“Will you be right here when I get back?”

“No,” I said a little too forcefully. “I promised Evan I’d wait for him outside the cath lab.”

“Sadie…” He spoke my name softly and waited until I met his gaze. His eyes were narrowed with concern and worry. “I’ll meet you there, okay? At the waiting area outside the cath lab.”

I stared mutely at him, then nodded.

As I sat alone in the waiting area, I went into my survival mode by trying to think of anything—
anything at all
—but the surgery.

In time, my thoughts drifted to what Evan had said.
Burn your boats, Mom
. Those were his orders.

How long was it since I’d allowed myself to be vulnerable around another person, to feel the combination of friendship, attraction, and support?

I’d always told myself I didn’t need any of that. Because I had Evan.

It had always been just Evan and me. It’s what always made sense for the past six years of my life.

I’d had Evan since I was eighteen, and he’d been my safety net, the one consistent thing in my life. He’d always loved me no matter what, and he brought joy into my life that no relationship ever could.

But now Evan was telling me I didn’t need that safety net anymore.

Perhaps he was right. There were times when I felt a lifetime of isolation stretching out before me, as endless as the sea.

Maybe I needed to burn my boats, jump into the water, and see where it would take me.

But was it too late?

At the sound of footsteps approaching, I looked up.

“I’ve come bearing gifts.” Julian smiled, appearing with coffee, croissants, and donuts.

“Thank you.” I accepted the coffee gratefully, along with a buttery croissant.

“You bet.” He sank into the seat beside me.

For a little while, we sat in companionable silence, sipping our piping-hot coffee.

After a time, Julian said, “You holding up all right?”

“No.” Maybe. “Yes,” I murmured, even though I wasn’t. The loss of control was unnerving. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. Not now. I had to be as strong as I could until I knew Evan was better. “I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

“It will be,” he assured me.

I sighed. “I just want this to be over in a New York minute, but it’ll probably be a New York year.”

“Talk to me,” he said lightly. “It’ll help take your mind off things… make time go by a little faster.”

“Okay.” I sighed again. “Ask me anything.”

There was a brief silence before he spoke again. “Is it tough? Raising Evan all by yourself?”

I wanted to say, “Tough doesn’t even begin to describe it, and not just because of the financial insecurity, the late-night trips to the ER alone, and the absence of someone to share the joy with, someone who loves my son the way I do and revels in his accomplishments. The tough part is there are no breaks. There is never enough time in a day and no matter how much I love my son, I get tired and I get sick and I want time to myself. But there is never any time for me. And sometimes I just feel like yelling out loud that maybe I’m not as strong as I think I am. The toughest part is working tirelessly to keep him happy, secure, and healthy, and at the end of the day feeling like that was not enough… that
really
hurts, especially right now when I don’t even know if his health will improve after the procedure.”

Instead, I said, “It is. But it gets easier. If it’s one thing, I’ve learned that I can rely on myself and my own judgment.”

“Has Evan’s dad ever come back into the picture?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Never.” I no longer felt like talking about Evan’s dad, so I turned the tables back on Julian. “Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

“Sure,” he said easily. “What would you like to know?”

Chewing on my bottom lip, I was quiet for a heartbeat before I said, “At the Christmas party, you told me a little about your time in the army. I’m curious to know more.” I hesitated before adding, “Only if you’re willing to share.”

He was slow to answer, and when he did, his voice was decidedly quiet. “I’m okay talking about it as long as you’re okay with listening to my stories. Some of them may be hard for you to stomach.”

“I’m sure I can handle it,” I told him, but as soon as the words had slipped from my mouth, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled. “I’m not gonna take you anywhere I can’t go myself.”

When I looked into his eyes and nodded with understanding, he drew a long, deep breath and exhaled.

In time, he began to talk. He told me about his platoon, Bravo Company, and the friends he’d served with. The jokes they shared, the laughs they had during their downtime. He talked about his combat missions in Iraq, how he’d lived every day with the reality that he might be killed, or that he might kill others. He spoke about how he’d felt—that painful moment of awareness—when he filled out the form listing his next of kin. He told me about a pretty girl he’d met at a ROTC ball before he shipped out, then moments later he talked about a young Iraqi girl he saw dead on the roadside who reminded him of her. He told me about the friends he’d lost, how cold their transfer cases felt as he loaded them onto the waiting airplanes. And he told me about how good it felt to come home to see his family.

When he finished, I just stared at him, at a loss for words. Listening to all his stories—both the good and the bad—was hard. I tried to listen without judgment, without trying to fix anything. I didn’t discount his feelings. I let him feel what he felt.

In the end, I got to see a different side to Julian. A side I had a feeling he rarely ever shared. It made me look at him with fresh eyes. And I felt touched, honored even, that he trusted me enough to share his stories and his burdens with me.

In the next breath, he said, “I can only speak for myself, though. Everyone’s experience is different. I was a different person when I joined the army, and I’m a different person now that I’m home. Yeah, the war was enough to make anyone crazy, but that does not mean all of us who served come back home likely to flip out and hurt ourselves or hurt others at any moment.”

“I know that,” I said quietly. “You just seem so… so normal.”

He laughed—a harsh, humorless sound. “Trust me, I used to be one miserable fuck.”

“Like me?”

His reply was a soft chuckle through the silence.

“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you keep on going?”

He gave a short shrug. “I just do, I guess. All you can do is keep going until you can’t anymore, right?”

I found myself nodding even though he wasn’t expecting an answer. “So what changed you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I don’t let others decide who I am, who I’ve become. I’m not a hero, and neither am I a villain. I take full responsibility for what I’ve done, for what I did over there… things I’m not proud of. I don’t need the media or the politicians or people telling me what the ‘meaning’ of my experience was. I decide what my military experience means for myself.”

A question hovered on my lips, but before I could ask it, Julian said, “Some days it means something, it feels like it mattered, and others days it means nothing at all… like none of it even mattered. All I know is that I want to give meaning to my life now. And I want to be present for the people around me—my sister, my niece, people I care about.”

“Your parents?”

“They… uh.” He paused. “They’re not around anymore. They passed twelve years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked down, staring at the Styrofoam cup in his hands. “You know, I aspire to be like my dad. He wasn’t perfect, but he was always present for those around him. He was always there for me, for my sis.” Another pause. “I want to live my life like that.”

I thought about what he’d said. He seemed so sure about what he wanted, where he was going. He even seemed so certain of the choices he’d made. And I found myself wanting to know more. “Why did you decide to go into advertising? That’s a huge leap, to go from the Army to Advertising.”

His mouth lifted in a half smile, making him look so charismatic, so charming. “Who wouldn’t want to go into Advertising? It’s a sexy industry.” His cynical tone was not lost on me.

These days, the advertising world was far from sexy. It was a far cry from the heyday of Madison Avenue, when Don Draper and his company came up with ad campaigns over three martini lunches.

“But really, why did you?” I asked. “That’s quite a big change.”

His gaze turned inward as he pondered. “Remember what Evan said earlier? About burning your boats?” I nodded, and he went on, “Well, I did. I left the army after five years of active duty. I’d joined the service straight out of high school at seventeen because I wasn’t ready for college and I was at a place in my life where I just wanted to get the fuck out of here. So I did. And when I left the service, the army was all I’d known. But I knew I didn’t want to go back.” He paused. “I could
not
go back.”

“So you burned your boats.”

“Yep.” He gave a single nod. “I put myself in a situation that scared the shit out of me. And I guess it kind of worked out. It surprises me, you know… the things I’ll do, the confidence I suddenly pull out of nowhere, the challenges I’ll face when failure isn’t an option and everyone is expecting the best from me. And,” he added with a wry grin, “my sister, Vivian, expected nothing but the best from me.”

“So you started out as a copywriter?”

“Uh-huh. But it wasn’t a conscious decision. I just knew I wanted to do funny, edgy work. Before that, I co-wrote a book with a friend of mine. That didn’t pan out too well, but I learned that I enjoyed writing copy and telling stories. And I like operating on adrenaline. New ideas excite me, and advertising—be it design, production, promotion, packaging—it’s all about telling stories.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“So…” he continued. “I learned to tell stories people could relate to. I learned to write toward a deadline, to let the adrenaline pick me up and carry me through a campaign. I know it’s fast-paced, but it’s fresh and I love every minute of it. Every day is different; every project is different. I’m kind of a knowledge junkie, so getting to immerse myself in say… baby diapers one day, and the next day looking at the inner workings of mayonnaise culture is pretty awesome if you ask me. And I like to stay busy, I like to stay focused, I like to stay creative, and there is always so much to do, so much to create, and I get the freedom to think as big and as outrageous as I want. I’m not limited by medium or platform. The canvas of possibilities is vast.”

“Whoa.” I blinked. “I can tell you really—
really
—love your job.”

“Hey.” He rubbed the back of his neck and flashed a self-deprecating grin. “It’s the greatest shot of adrenaline.”

As I watched how his face had lit up when he talked about his work, a sort of realization dawned on me… how close he could have come to actually losing his job—all because of me.

While I’d never filed an official complaint against Julian, and had no intention of ever doing so, the fact that I even accused him of sexual harassment was so grave and so severe that it could have cost him his job.

A job he was so passionate about.

Now I felt awful. I felt like an ass.

“Julian,” I said softly. “I’m really sorry for what I said.” My temples flushed hot and I prayed he wouldn’t notice. “You know, about—”

“I know.” After a drawn-out pause, he quickly put me out of my misery. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all water under the bridge now.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. And I appreciate you being here for me.”

“Anytime, Sadie.” His answer was swift and sure. “I’m always here for you.”

“Really?” The note of hope and longing in my voice surprised me.

“Really.”

A beat passed.

Then another.

There was a lull in our conversation, and I didn’t know how to fill it.

It seemed as if he didn’t know how to fill it either.

In the lingering silence, Julian sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

He looked first at his hands in front of him, clasped together, and then gradually his eyes rose to meet mine.

The directness of his gaze made my knees weak, forcing me to look down at my own hands. It had been years since I’d had to flirt.

I found myself wondering what to do, how to act, what to say.

“I don’t mean to be difficult.” My words were awkward and stilted. “Really, I don’t.”

“Of course you do,” he said in a playful voice. “It’s one of your charms.”

When I lifted my gaze, I caught him staring at me with such hunger in his eyes, such gentleness in his smile, that I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

Burn your boats, Mom.
I heard Evan’s commanding voice in my heart.

I thought it might have been too late.

But maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

Chapter Sixteen