The Lost Hearts (30 page)

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on Alexis?” he fumed, his nostrils flaring.  “I come all the way across the ocean to be with you, and you...” Philip snapped his head in shock, his words catching in his throat.  “You take
up with that backwoods goon?”

“Get out,” Alexis said, her back to him.

“What?” Philip sputtered in disbelief.

“You heard me,”
Alexis said, folding her arms.  “I didn’t ask you to come here.  I didn’t ask you for anything.  It’s over Philip, and I want you to go now.  Please.”  She did not look at him. 

“But I love you, Alexis.” 

Alexis sighed loudly.  “Philip, please.”  She buried her hands in her face.  “I’m sorry if I’m being callous.  I just don’t have it in me to do this right now.”  She went to the door and held it open.  “Please.  We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“No, we talk about it now.  You owe me that,” he rasped, his eyes wide and desperate.  Philip pushed past her, shutting the door.  She heard it click and he spun and grabbed her arms,
jerking her to him in a forceful embrace.

“Alexis,” he murmured against her head.  “
You’re upset.  You don’t mean this.  And I...I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long now.  To hold you again.”

Alexis sagged like a rag doll in his arms. 

“When your father told me about your telegram...when I thought I could have lost you forever.”  He could barely finish the thought.  “I couldn’t stand to be apart from you for another moment.”  Philip pulled back, taking her in.  His voice broke with delirious laughter.  “God, don’t you see?”

Alexis shook her head, shoving a hand against his chest.  “No…I mean…Philip…”

“Don’t you see that I love you, Alexis?  I came here to show you that I love you.  I need you.  I want you to come home with me.  Be my wife and let me take care of you.  ”

Alexis stammered unintelligibly, trying to find the words.  But there were no other words to justify the resolute “no” that all her body, mind and heart compelled her to say.  It was no longer a debate, a question, a whisper of doubt that teased her into sleepless nights.  “Philip,” she said, pulling free from his grasp.  She crossed the room to the window.  “I don’t love you.  Not like that.” 

Philip balked at her.  “What?”

“I don’t want to be your wife, Philip.”

“But Alexis.  You’re here.  In New Guinea.  You did what you wanted.  I supported you.  I support you now.  I’m here because I love you and want you.  I thought that’s what you needed to see.  What about our engagement for Christ’s sake?”

Alexis leaned against the wall and w
atched Philip as he sank down on the mattress.  “I thought that’s what I wanted, too,” she said softly.  “Things have changed.”

Philip leaned his elbows against his thighs and buried his face in his hands.  “Okay, okay, Alexis.  I understand.  You’ve been through a lot here.  You almost…you almost died.  But once you get back to Boston, you will feel differently.  I know it.”

“No, Philip.”

“I don’t understand, Alexis.  Is it him?”

Alexis looked down at the floor.  “It doesn’t matter.  Take my word.  I don’t want the life we’d lead in Boston.”

Philip sprung from the bed and charged the space between them.  He took her shoulders in his hands.  “Alexis,” he croaked.  “Answer my question.  Is it him?”

Alexis rolled her eyes.  She felt cold and hard in his hands, his eyes desperately searching hers for answers.  “Please Philip.  I said it doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

Alexis’ brows lifted in acquiescence.  She did owe him the truth.  However totally detached from this man who’d abated the enormous loneliness of her previous life, she owed him an explanation.  “Yes, Philip.  It is him.  I love him.”

Philip reeled back.  “I don’t understand.”  He shook his head.  “Alexis…how could you choose him over me?”  He whipped her with his scornful green eyes.  “What kind of future could you possibly have with that man?  I love you, Alexis.  Haven’t I shown you that?  Haven’t I proven that I accept everything about you?  That I support you?  That I would move mountains to make you happy?”  He looked positively wild now, pacing the room like an antagonized lion.  “And I can take care of you.  Your home is in Boston, and I can live by your side, and grow old with you.  Can he do any of that?  Did you ask him?”

Alexis winced.  Trevor had already answered that unspoken question.  He wasn’t strong enough, he’d said.  He couldn’t risk it.  She frowned at the idea that Philip had keyed in on the material point.  Even if she wouldn’t let him sacrifice his happiness to be with her, Trevor hadn’t made the move to do it. 

“Well?” Philip jabbed her.  “What did he say?”

Alexis stared at the floor.  Not this place again.  Not this familiar fear of losing everything.  She teetered at its precipice, looked beyond its gaping black mouth.  She would not give in.  She moved to Philip who stood rigid along the wall.  She gripped his hand in hers.  “Please Philip.  Understand me.  I’m not choosing him over you.  Even if Trevor had never happened, I wouldn’t have come back to you.  I see now that we both deserve so much more than what we’d get if we married.”  She caressed his cheek.  “Thank you for loving me so much,” she said, her voice tender.

Philip folded inward, pul
ling his face from her.  He collapsed into a dark silence, his eyes fixed on the floor.  Alexis stepped out of his way as he shuffled to the door.  His hand reached to the door knob, turned it slowly, the shadows from the hallway already beginning to pull him away.  “You’ll regret this one day, Alexis,” he said.  “He will break your heart, and you’ll regret this.”             

Chapter T
wenty-Seven

The first rooster called and Alexis’ lids pulled heavily over her eyes.  It had been the loneliest night she’d ever tossed and turned to.  She had never known the body could ache so badly from missing the touch of a lover.  It was the emptiness of death.  Alexis sat up in bed and drew her knees beneath her chin.  She would find him, she decided.  It couldn’t be over.  They would find a way. 

Alexis slithered into an ivy green dress and weaved her hair in to a thick braid.  She opened the door and jumped back when she saw the inn keeper with one hand poised to knock.  “Oh my God,” Alexis exclaimed, patting her chest. 

The inn keeper squeezed her arm, her bright white smile fading as she pulled at the waist line of her wrap skirt.  Alexis glimpsed a folded paper emerge.  Her heart stilled.  The inn keeper pursed her lips in an empathetic pleat and patted Alexis, then disappeared down the hallway, humming as she shuffled along. 

The door slammed behind her and she collapsed on her bed.  No good could come from a letter from Trevor. 
Please let it be Philip
, she pleaded.  She paused in a catatonic silence.  Finally, Alexis opened it, the signature gripping her eyes. 

Dear Red,

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  Leaving you feels like plucking out my heart and living some cruel, empty half-life.  But I have known enough of life to see that it is cruel and empty at best. 

I love you, Red.  It fills me up.  But I cannot ask you to stay here with me, nor can I go with you.  You don’t belong here, and I certainly don’t belong in Boston.  So I’m doing us this favor.  It is the path of a coward, but I give myself to it so as not to pull you down with me.  I am already gone now.

Get on that boat, Red.  Go far away from me.  You have my heart.

Trevor

***

Alexis stood on the pier.  Her face was pink and moist, her mouth slightly open as she tried to catch her breath.  It had been two days since she received the letter.  Her father had watched her with worried eyes as his daughter fell deeper an
d deeper into an unreachable gloom.  Nothing animated her, not even his enthusiastic review of her research.  She seemed to be waiting.

She was.  Not a moment had passed in which the muscles of her body relaxed.  All at once she was totally sapped and yet totally incapable of succumbing to rest.  She snapped at every noise, craning her head, hoping that her eyes would catch him.  Now the ship’s crew was loading her luggage, only minutes standing between her and a chance to find him.  There would be no going back.

“Alexis, dear,” Lawrence squeezed her arm.  Alexis winced, her glassy eyes widening.  “It’s time to go, love.”  She stood on her tip toes, bracing herself against her father as she scanned the crowd.  Nothing.  She felt her chest heave and threaten to explode. 

“I can’t,” she practically whimpered.

Lawrence wilted inside.  He had never seen her like this before and his heart swelled with sympathy.  He knew firsthand what it was like to lose love.  He pulled at his mustache and cleared his throat.  “I can’t tell you what to do, Alexis.  But you have to decide soon.  The boat is leaving.” 

Alexis chewed ferociously at her lip.  Suddenly she remembered Philip the night before he disappeared.  His argument to marry him might not have carried her, but she couldn’t deny that he’d been spot on about Trevor.  No matter what Trevor offered by way of words, he had left her.  He could have found her at any moment, even now on the pier.  He was a
coward after all, just as his letter said.  Alexis cursed him.

“Okay.  Let’s go.” Even as she said it, she didn’t quite believe the finality of it.  Surely she would turn to board the boat and hear her name.  Surely she would see him cutting a path through the fisherman, the women and the children.  Her hands gripped the rail as she climbed the
ramp, her father gently prodding her from behind.  She scurried to the side, her eyes ravaging the crowd.  Lawrence stood patiently beside her.

The horn blared and the ship’s crew pulled up the ropes, hopping onto the bow as they pushed away
from the dock.  He was nowhere to be seen.  Alexis felt her face inflame, tears exploding over her cheeks.  The Highlands were growing hazy, the lines of the hills less defined.  Was he up there, she wondered.  Watching her?  Alexis clenched her fists.  If he felt half as much as she did, how could he dream of letting her go?  Her sapphire eyes roiled beneath the shadow of her brow.  She could never forgive him for this, she thought. 
You won’t have to
, the cruel voice of her subconscious taunted her. 
He’s not yours to forgive.

***

“Oh dear,” Tabitha offered finally.  The two were seated beside the fireplace, sipping on warm cocoa that Marion had brought in.  Even when Tabitha draped her arm protectively around her new friend, Alexis could not wrench her eyes from their unresponsive gaze. 

It had been two weeks since her return to Boston.  The city was in a deep freeze, the sky sealing the landscape in a lifeless gray.  Alexis appreciated nature’s gesture of solidarity to match the state of her spirit.  At the gentle persuasion of her father, Alexis had finally found the energy to investigate Tabitha’s whereabouts.  Alexis remembered the flash of worry when Tabitha caught sight of her.  Her wide blue eyes travelled o
ver the shadows of bruises over her cheek bone, around her neck and along her arms.  But she had let out a muffled cry when she saw the vacancy in those eyes. 

Tabitha had spent every day at her side in the last week, patient as she listened to Alexis volunteer the details of her gruesome experience.  Alexis told her everything.  Everything but Trevor.  She had saved him for last.  She hadn’t been ready to tell the story, afraid that once she committed it to words it would become history.  Until today.   

“What did he say in his letter?” she asked, stroking the crimson curls of her friend. 

Alexis turned.  Her face was ashen.  And those eyes.  Extinguished.  “He said he was doing me a favor.  That he didn’t want to prolong something he didn’t think would work out.” 

Tabitha let out a soulful breath.  “I don’t know what I would have done, Alexis.”  She shook her head.  “I’d have gone mad.”  Instantly she regretted her words.  Alexis had, in fact, gone a little mad.  Quickly she added, “He doesn’t deserve you if he wasn’t willing to fight for you.” 

Alexis frowned.  She heard herself say, “No.”  She bit her nail.  “No, that’s not true.  He…he understood me.  And I understood him.  From the outside I’m sure people might say it would never work out.  We spent so much time hating each other.  But we were right for each other.  It’s like nothing ever made sense before him, and nothing has made sense since.”  Alexis stood and moved toward the window.  She hardly noticed that her breathing had grown shallow.  “With Philip, it was different.  In the moment that he asked me to marry him, it felt so right.  But almost as soon as I left America, he left me, too.  I never thought about him.”

Alexis nodded her head emphatically as if she’d just happened upon some lost truth.  She was waving her hands.  “What I mean is, I thought I really loved Philip.  But it became so patently obvious that he was never right for me.  But Trevor.  He got underneath my skin the moment we even occupied the same room.  And I just can’t imagine a world without him.”

Alexis’ head sunk, and Tabitha rose to comfort her.  But the fiery red mane snapped and Alexis’ face was bright for the first time in a month.  Tabitha cocked her head, unsure of what to make of this sudden spark.  Mania, she considered, her eyes widening with apprehension.

“I have to go,” Alexis cried wildly. 

“What?” Tabitha choked.

“I said I have to go.  I don’t have a choice.”  Alexis started to pace the room at a near dash. 

Marion poked her head through the doorway.  “Everything okay in here?” 

Alexis was already making her way to the staircase, her body light and quick with purpose.  Tabitha shot a look at Marion and the pair followed in pursuit. 

“Oh dear, what’s going on?”
Marion whispered sideways as they climbed the stairs. 

Tabitha shrugged her shoulders.  “I’m not sure.  One minute she was telling me what happened in New Guinea, and the next she’s up on her feet saying she has to go back.” 

When they turned the corner they saw a mess of a woman, hair tumbling around her shoulders, her face shining.  She had opened a suitcase on the bed, tossing in the articles of clothing she pulled indiscriminately from a drawer.  “Marion, call father at the Museum.  I need to go to the bank, I need to pull out my savings, and I need to get on a boat.” 

Marion winced and tugged nervously at her apron strings.  Lawrence had warned her to expect some uncharacteristic behavior.  The psychological trauma of her experience would exact its toll as
Alexis tried to reconfigure her life.  But this was beyond the scope of her expectations, and she stood helpless.

“Please, Alexis,” she pleaded.  “Let’s just talk about this a moment.”

“It’s simple, Marion.  I need to get back to New Guinea.  I need to find him.”  Alexis suddenly felt the weighted silence at her back and spun around.  The slightly terrified faces registered.  They thought she was crazy.  She turned and glimpsed herself in the mirror.  She did look like she’d lost her mind.  Alexis took an enormous breath and faced them.

“I realize this must seem a little strange.”  Alexis sat down at the edge of her bed and noticed the women immediately relaxed.  “It’s just that I’ve spent the last month in a complete daze, I mean, practically comatose.  And just now…well, I snapped out of it.  I can’t explain it, or even justify it.  But I have to get back to the island.  I have to see Trevor. Even if he sends me away, even if I leave him behind, I need that closure.  I love him, and he loves me, and we both need to see how the story ends.  And this isn’t it!”  Alexis clasped her hands together.  “Please believe me that I’m okay, and that this is what I want.”

She saw Marion swallow hard, shifting nervously by the doorway, almost as if to block her exit.  “Alexis,” she said haltingly.  “We need to talk this through.  This isn’t a trip to New York or Paris.  You’re talking about a two-week journey to a place where…”  Her voice broke, and she almost dissolved in tears.  Alexis knew those she loved feared the worst, and that the worst was possible.

“Why not try to get in touch with him by telegram?” Tabitha suggested cautiously.  She moved to the bed, and squeezed her friend’s shoulder.  “At the least, take some time to plan the details.  We can help you.”  Alexis appreciated their concern, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was being talked off a ledge. 

“I love you both,” Alexis said.  She stood slowly and pulled Tabitha into an embrace.  “But I’m leaving, and I’m leaving as soon as I can.”  She closed the suitcase shut and grabbed her leather satchel with her travel documents.  “I promise I’ll be okay.”

Brushing past Marion, Alexis flew down the stairs.  It was
déjà vu.  In a flash she remembered the moment Trevor had left her in the village.  How she had climbed her horse and the world had closed itself into a tunnel that pulled her toward him.  It was involuntary, and so was this.  She was attached to some invisible cord, and it was snapping her back to the other end.  To Trevor.  Alexis flung open the door, almost falling down the stone steps.  The clouds had thinned and the sunlight dazed her.  She cupped a hand over her brow and shot for the willow tree where she had left her bike, half frozen into the ground. 

She heard nothing now.  Not the cries of Tabitha and Marion behind her.  She felt nothing, not even as the winter freeze began to drain the warmth from her cheeks.  Nor did she see anything but a few steps before her as she charged the cobblestone path.  All her mind could see was Trevor.  An in an instant she was on the ground.  She had tripped, her suitcase splitting open and the contents flying in the air.  A shadow moved before the glare of the sun.

“Red?”

I’ve really lost it now
, she thought.  She narrowed her eyes to slits and the shadow came into focus.  The deepest of black eyes shone bright over a tense, square jaw.  She gasped and her brain pounded white into her vision.

He was reaching for her, picking her up from the ground.  They stood completely still.  Trevor brushed the earth from her dress and took her arm, tracing his fingers over the rawness on her elbow.  “Are you okay?” he asked.

Alexis was speechless, unsure if she was in the midst of some severe mental collapse.  The expressions of utter astonishment on both Marion’s and Tabitha’s face did little to clarify the situation.  She faced him, nodding her head uncertainly.

“Where were you going?” he inquired, his hands now cupping her face. 

“I…”  Alexis shook her head, fighting for words.  “I was coming to find you.” 

Trevor pulled back.  The softest smile she had ever seen swept across the black stubble of his cheeks.  “That’s funny, because I came here to find you.”  He lowered his face to her, his nose brushing against hers. 

“Are you really here?” she squeaked. 

A velvet rumble of laughter spi
lled from his mouth.  “Yes, Red.  I’m really here.”

Alexis took a step back.  He was here.  She felt as senseless as if pummeled by a train.  And then she was clasped to him, tight and breathless.  And she felt his heart pounding against hers.  It was home.  He pressed her viciously against him, afraid to let go.  Her heart opened so wide that she remembered her anger.