Coming Back To You (11 page)

There was no reason why she shouldn’t go out
with Brad. Maybe her heart still felt loyal to Mark, but in time,
it would come around.

“I’ll say yes.”

Jan smiled. “Glad to hear it. I’ll see you
next week.”

From Jan’s office, Karma drove directly to
Single Servings.

Brad was already there and greeted her as she
entered. “Hi there. How you feeling after Sunday’s run?”

The weather had been nice enough that he’d
persuaded her into jogging with him. His pace had been fast, but
she’d managed to keep up…just barely.

“I felt great Sunday, but last night? Let’s
put it this way.” She hung up her jacket. “I was in bed by eight.
Must have been delayed exhaustion. That run really took it out of
me.”

She’d slept a full nine hours, too, but when
she awoke this morning, she’d felt great. She was living proof that
there was something to the exercise endorphins theory. The more she
exercised, the less depressed she felt. The post-Mark funk
dissipated a little more every day, even if he still haunted her
heart.

For the next three hours, she and Brad
laughed and chattered their way through boning and roasting a duck
inside a layer of pastry dough. By the time they sampled their
efforts—delicious!—and boxed up the leftovers, which Karma planned
for lunch the next day, it was after nine.

The evening was unseasonably warm.

As usual, Brad walked her to her car.

“I was thinking,” he said as she set her
take-home bag in the passenger seat and walked around to the
driver’s side.

She turned and noticed the pink color in his
cheeks. His smile was the same one he’d worn when he’d tracked her
down in nonfiction at the bookstore last summer.

“Yes?” She hesitated beside her door. He was
going to ask her out. She could just tell.

“Well…” He glanced toward the windows of
Single Servings as the lights shut off. “Maybe next week instead of
coming here and making dinner we could go out. Just you and me.
What do you say?”

Karma felt Mark’s specter fade a little
further, even though her heart still beat for him.
He’s not
coming back. He’s moved on.
Brad was a nice man. He really was.
Any woman would be honored to go out with him.

“Are you asking me out on a date, Brad?” She
palmed her keys but made no move to get in her car.

He smoothed his lips together then nodded as
a warm smile broke over his face. Such a lovely smile. “Yes, I am.
I’m asking you out on a date. A real, bona fide date.” He gestured
toward the Single Servings building. “I mean, heck, I already feel
like we’ve been dating every Tuesday night anyway. Why not break
away from the herd and see how we do on our own?”

The ache in her heart beckoned her to say no,
but the voice in her head demanded she say yes. Logic over emotion.
As much as she still loved Mark, he was her past. Brad was right
here, right now, wanting to be her future. In the way she knew
winter would turn to spring, she knew Brad was looking for more
than just dinner. A lot more. He was a man who clearly wanted to
get married again. She’d learned as much from their talks over the
past several weeks. He was willing to try for forever one more time
despite his first marriage falling apart. He was prepared to risk
his heart in the pursuit of love and happiness. Mark wasn’t capable
of that. Didn’t she want someone to pursue her? Didn’t she want a
man to give her his heart?

In a way, she felt as though she’d passed
some kind of romantic audition for Brad to ask her out on a real
date…as if the past month and a half had been a way for him to feel
her out to make sure she would fit into his world.

She met Brad’s gentle brown eyes and smiled.
“I think I’d like to strike out on our own next week for a
change.”

His chin rose a little higher, and his skin
appeared more radiant as he held her gaze. It looked like he was
breathing a silent sigh of relief. “Well, uh…” He nodded, his smile
widening. “I’ll call you.”

“And I’ll look forward to it.” She climbed
behind the wheel and glanced at him as he waved and took a couple
steps backward.

She waved back then put the car in gear and
slowly pulled away.

As she drove home, she warred with her
emotions. Part of her clung desperately to Mark’s memory, as if
warning her she was making a mistake by moving on, but the other
part eagerly anticipated this new journey. Brad seemed like the
ideal guy.

But would he be ideal for her?

Chapter 10

April 7

Mark finished his run as he approached Millennium
Park. Slowing to a walk, he breathed heavily, hands on his
hips.

Winter was finally breaking, and even though
the air still held a chill, there were a lot of people in the park
today.

He stopped and stretched for a few minutes
before wandering farther into the park, past the colossal silver
“kidney bean” sculpture and into the courtyard, which was decorated
with huge pastel-colored eggs. Tomorrow was Easter, and there was a
giant Easter egg hunt planned. Children and their families would
descend in droves, squealing with laughter, stuffing plastic eggs
into baskets and bags, gorging on cotton candy, jelly beans,
marshmallow Peeps, and chocolate bunnies. Afterward, they’d
probably go home and collapse into a post-sugar high coma the way
he had when he was a kid.

Fond memories touched Mark’s thoughts as he
found a bench and took a seat, content to sit back and watch a
little boy dart up to a giant, white bunny holding a basket full of
flyers as it made its rounds to promote tomorrow’s festivities. The
little boy was maybe three years old, toddling in sneakers and a
puffy red jacket, pointing his tiny finger at the bunny as he
looked over his shoulder at his mom and dad, who strolled up behind
him. His dad knelt and pointed at the bunny, too, and it looked
like they were having an animated conversation about how special
tomorrow was. Then the dad lifted the little boy as he stood and
set him on his shoulders. The boy screeched and laughed, hugging
his arms around his dad’s head, which made the mom laugh.

Mark smiled as he watched them. He wanted
that. He wanted what that man had.

Bowing his head, he nodded to himself. Maybe
he was going about this all wrong. Perhaps he didn’t need the
universe to give him a sign. What if fate was simply waiting for
him to act?

Could it really be that simple? Maybe instead
of sitting around waiting for the universe to pull a miracle out of
its ass he should take a more active role in making his own dreams
come true.

He glanced up and watched the family meander
away, the little boy still on his dad’s shoulders, rocking back and
forth in time with his father’s footsteps.

Being a dormant bystander wasn’t getting him
anywhere. It was time to take back control of his life.

But talk about poor timing. Mark was starting
a new assignment in Wisconsin on Monday. If not, he would drive to
Indianapolis this weekend to see her. But just when he was ready to
leap, his job interfered. For the next three months, he’d be
eyeballs deep in work. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t start
making plans. In the little down time he
would
have, he
could formulate the perfect way to reenter Karma’s life. Something
grand. Something that conveyed just how much he loved her and how
serious he was about making her a part of his life. This was
something he definitely didn’t want to do over the phone.

So, the universe had three more months, and
maybe not even that long if he finished his assignment early. If
the powers that be didn’t produce a sign before his assignment in
Wisconsin was over, he was taking matters into his own hands. Karma
belonged with him, and he would have her.

As he stood and glanced back toward the
family in the distance, the first flicker of hope he’d felt in
eight months flared inside his chest. He stood a little taller,
feeling a bit of his old swagger reemerge.

If that wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what
was.

Chapter 11

Karma pulled her keepsake box from the top shelf of
her closet and carried it to the bed. Was this really a good idea?
Brad was picking her up in an hour. Now probably wasn’t the time to
go through old memories.

Even so, she pulled the top off the box and
closed her eyes. Until last September, she hadn’t put much in her
keepsake box, but after Mark, she had damn near filled the thing
up.

His scent captured her first. She could still
smell him on the sheets and the pillowcase he’d used that last
night in her apartment. When she opened her eyes, she inhaled
heavily. There he was. Mark. All she had left of him, anyway.

The sheets that still smelled like him, the
red scarf he’d used to blindfold her, which she had turned around
and blindfolded him with their last weekend together in Chicago.
And the gold brooch that started everything.

Digging under the folded sheets, she found
the case of dildos he’d given her. And the Ben Wa balls. She smiled
as she remembered the night he helped her remove one that got
stuck. Then the smile faded and tears took its place.

“I don’t want to say good-bye.” She sniffled
and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweater. “Not again. Why
couldn’t you be what I needed you to be?”

Talking to the things that reminded her of
Mark was as close as she could come to actually speaking to him.
Sure, she could call him. She assumed he still had the same number.
But what good would that do? Calling him would only exacerbate the
pain and reawaken the heartache she’d managed to compartmentalize.
At least until she’d opened the box. Now all the sorrow rushed back
and hurt her heart, and the ghost of last fall’s depression
threatened to consume her once more.

Then the edge of a journal caught her eye.
She dug it out from the bottom of the box. “Karma’s Poetry” was
scrawled in permanent marker over the worn, brown cover.

She flipped it open and read the first page,
which was a poem she remembered writing in eighth grade.

The Caterpillar

By Karma Mason

I look in the mirror

What do I see?

A tiny worm

Staring back at me.

She’s sad and plain

And a little grey

And I have to wonder

How she got that way.

Was it the jokes, the teasing,

The ruthless jeers

That hurt her heart

And fed her tears?

She wants to sing

And wear a grin

But the pain she bears

Feels like a sin.

Is this how life

Will always be?

With a worm in my mirror

Staring back at me?

Or will someday

I wake to find

That all this time

I was only blind?

Will I fall asleep

One day soon?

Tucked away,

In a cocoon?

And when I wake

Will I finally see

A beautiful butterfly in my mirror

Staring back at me?

Karma blinked back the tears and closed her
notebook. She no longer saw herself as a tiny caterpillar or a
worm. She had become a beautiful butterfly, all because of Mark. He
had given her this gift. The gift of true sight. Like a guardian
angel sent to sweep away anything that dulled her confidence, he
had helped her see through the filmy cobwebs that had tainted her
self-vision since childhood.

Her laptop summoned from her desk, which had
been transplanted from what was now her exercise room back in
February.

Taking a seat in her chair, she pulled up her
blog and began a new entry.

M,

I love you. I’ll always love you. You’re the best
thing to ever happen to me. You’ve given me so much.

Even now, eight months after you’ve left,
all I have to do is open my keepsake box, breathe your scent on the
pillowcase I folded and tucked away there, and I’m back in bed
beside you. I’m back in your arms, tasting your kisses, listening
to your heartbeat as I rest my head on your chest.

But you’re not really here. I can’t really
feel you, or taste you, or listen to the beating of your heart.
It’s all an illusion. I’m remembering you the way I want to
remember you, not the way you are.

My intuition tells me you love me as much as
I love you, but that your fear of failure and heartache is greater
than that love. I want more. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I
want the fairy tale, and I want my prince to climb up to my
balcony, even though he’s afraid of heights, and claim my heart. I
want the man who isn’t afraid to risk his heart to win mine. Who is
strong enough to rise up against heartache, look it square in the
eyes, and say, “Fuck you, heartache. I won’t let you keep me from
what I want. I won’t let you keep me from the woman I love.”

I’ve met someone new. He asked me out,
despite previously going through a divorce. Our first date is
tonight. Maybe he’s exactly what I need. He’s certainly willing to
put himself out there, even though he has every reason not to. But
here I am, sifting through memories of you, hurting, wanting you so
badly I could kick myself. I don’t want to love you, anymore. I
want to move on. I want to move on with B. I want to give him a
chance.

It’s time for me to let you go, M. I love
you, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve shown me, but I have to
learn how to tell you good-bye.

She published the post, shut down her laptop, then
sat very still. Eyes closed. She willed herself not to cry anymore.
Deep breaths, one after the other. She drew the air in through her
nose then slowly blew it out her pursed mouth as if she were
meditating.