Heat Wave(109)

And then the unthinkable happens.

Just as I step through the detector, grabbing my items and carry-on from the x-rays, I hear my name.

Loud, rough, broken.

The voice is a hand reaching over my heart and yanking me into submission.

I look up.

Logan is on the other side of the security gate, Kate hovering behind him.

I meet Logan’s eyes and the world goes still.

This man, this beautiful, loving, loyal man is here for me, fighting for me.

And yet I have to convince him I’m not worth fighting for. After the ring and the note, he’s still here, he’s still not believing it.

I didn’t think my heart could break anymore.

“Veronica, please,” he cries out, loud enough that everyone turns to look at him.

“Sir, you need to step out of the way,” a TSA agent says.

Logan ignores him, staring at me in such pain and disbelief that it knocks the wind out of me.

“Do you know him?” a TSA agent on this side asks me.

Shaking my head is the easiest thing for all of us.

“Please, Ron, we need to talk, come out here, please!”

But I can’t.

“Sir, please,” the agent says, putting his hands on Logan. Logan immediately shrugs him off, beyond agitated, as another guard comes over.

“Just go!” I yell at him before he gets in any more trouble. “Please, go back to your home. I’m going back to mine.”

The lies slice me open. They do the same to him. Kate is covering her mouth with her hands, knowing the pain we’re both in, both of us diced in front of her eyes. Meanwhile, everyone around airport security is watching, waiting for what Logan will do next. They can’t figure if this is a tragic love story or a fucked-up apology. It doesn’t happen like this in the movies.

Logan can only shake his head. Utter disbelief. Fear. Hate. Hurt. I see it all running through his head, projected through his eyes. He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t believe. No matter what I’ve said, he doesn’t believe.

There’s warmth to that thought, even though there’s fear. That he doesn’t believe the note, won’t believe any of it.

But at the heart of it he knows that I have to go. That I wouldn’t do this lightly or otherwise. That I have my reasons.

Maybe on his darkest days he’ll reflect and wonder if the note was truth and that he was wrong. Maybe he won’t.

All I can do is stare into his eyes, past the TSA agents and the passengers and the screening equipment, and tell him to please, please let me go.

Let me go.

I mouth the words.

And then, then, I think he gets it.

He nods. He is living pain.

I am dying, trying to memorize this face and hold it in my heart.

He turns around.

Defeated.

Broken.

Ruined.

And he walks away.

Come back, I want to say. I’ve made a mistake.

I want to run through the screener, push the people out of the way, jump into his arms and have him hold me. That strength, that heat, that love that always has my back. But I remember why I have to do this. That too much will be ruined because of us being together.

I give Kate a small wave but she can’t even return it. In the distance, a chicken struts past them. And that’s when I realize how much I’m given up. I thought that Logan and my ohana were everything. I’m giving up this island, too.

I’m leaving my home behind and trading it in for a place that never understood me, where I never thrived.

Oh, Kauai. Another love lost.

I don’t even know how I make it through the airport. I can’t look at the gift shops, can’t eat. There’s no internet and even if there was, there’s nothing to see or do. None of my music appeals to me, I won’t read.

I just find a spot, alone, and stare at the wall and I sink into a cold, numb state. After a while my heart feels like it has frostbite, where it’s so damaged that you can’t even feel the cracks.

And every now and then, Logan, Logan, Logan, I’ll see him, feel him, hear him and it all seems like such a dream. Such a dream.

Even when I board the plane.

Even when I take my seat, packed in the back of a full flight.

Even when the plane takes off and we soar over the coconut coast before heading northeast for home.

Such a dream. A nightmare.

It doesn’t end.

Hawaii is left behind and this pain doesn’t end.

What have I done?

What have I done?

What have I done?





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


Six Months Later



“So, tell us Arch, where did you go to school?” my mother asks, before she slices a bit of prime rib, spearing it with her fork.

I look over at Arch, knowing he’s been waiting for this question all evening.

“Harvard,” he says proudly, in that way that all Harvard graduates have. Like they’re a bit embarrassed even though they totally aren’t and have to show this false humility.