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“We can’t all be perfect,” I laugh, as she playfully pinches my nipple.
* * *
Today Peyton goes back to Los Angeles and I go back to work. We start our first long distance week without seeing one another, aside from what technology will offer us. It’s not what I want but it’s what has to happen.
I stand at the trunk of my car and pull out her luggage, setting it down beside me. She walks around the passenger side of the car with a sad look on her beautiful face. She immediately wraps her arms around my middle and pushes her face into my chest. I feel her body lightly shake and after a moment, I come to the realization that she’s crying.
“Hey, hey. What’s this?” I as pulling her chin up.
“We’ve been together for two weeks and now we won’t see each other,” she sniffles and pulls back with her eyes red from the tears.
I wipe a falling tear from her eye. “We will both be so busy at work this week, that neither of us will notice how fast time goes, and then I’ll be in Los Angeles Friday night,” I remind her. “Time will go by fast.”
“But right now, it feels so far away.”
I pull her against me and kiss the top of her head, relishing in the touch and her presence.
“We can do it. Please, have faith. We’ve got this.” I tell her.
She’s quiet and I can feel the wetness on my shirt from her tears.
“Okay,” she sniffles.
I rub her back and find it odd that I’m back in this type of relationship, a long-distance one, and I’m the one comforting again.
The Past
We’re standing at the airport curb and Marisa is standing stoically with unshed tears in her eyes while standing in front of me.
“I can’t believe this is happening right now, are you sure that you can’t just move to Miami with me? That would make everything so much easier.” She pouts.
“You know I can’t do that. My work is here, there’s nothing in Miami that I can do.” I tell her.
“You can take the company there, I’m sure there are tons of companies that you can buy then sell, every city has the need.” Her tone is begging and slightly irritating. We’ve had this conversation before, and it plays out the same way each time.
“You know that’s not possible,” I tell her, more annoyed that we’re having this conversation again than anything else.
She pouts, and I wrap my arms around her.
“You know that this isn’t goodbye, that this is just a ‘see you later’ type of thing, right? Think of it as a business trip. We’ve done plenty of those and we’ve always been alright.”
“Yeah, that’s because we knew that we would be coming home to one another.”
“Mare, listen. I love you and will be in Miami whenever I can, and then you will come back to Seattle whenever you can, we can do this.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She wraps her arms around me and takes a deep breath.
“I’ll be in Miami in a few weeks and in the meantime, we call each other every day.”
“I’ll be so busy anyways, that I won’t have time for anything else when I first get there anyways,” she says as if she’s convincing herself of something.
“We got this.” I tell her.
Chapter Fifteen
“This one time in Vegas, I went to celebrate my divorce with my friends. Four days later I was pushed through the airport in a wheelchair.”
PEYTON
