It was sometime around three in the morning, in some lonely highway, right on the state line between New Hampshire and Maine. From the side of the road, it was possible to see the summer moon reflected on the calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Emily was deadbeat tired, driving non-stop ever since she crossed the Martha's Vineyard ferry. Her initial intent was to return to her shitty apartment in Boston, but when she got to the injunction, she just drove past, kept going north.
Finally, she reached Portsmouth, NH and ran out of gasoline. As the nearest station she could find already closed for the night, she decided to go over to a small pub that seemed to be open and running, still.
As she crosses into the threshold, she notices why: there was an ocean of men in navy blue Air Force suits, merrily shouting and singing drunken songs with long neck bottles of beer.
The thought of it being a private event did cross the redhead's mind, but she dismissed it. She was much too tired, and depressed, to leave without even trying to argue a case favourable for her getting something to drink.
So the still-finely-dressed woman slithered her way through the heavy mountains of muscles that passed as soldiers, mostly inconspicuously. Reaching the bar, she raises a finger and the barman slugs tiredly over to her.
"A Bud, if you still have one." She asks.
The middle-aged man bends down, places a bottle in front of her, and says, rather snotty: "There you go."
"Thanks." The woman gives him a weak smile, out of sympathy. "What's going on here?"
"It's the air base in town." He says, gruff. "They're going out on summer leave and come here for a last hurrah before heading home. Last call's been hours ago and there's nothing that gets them outta here! Anyways, if you need anything else, just call."
"Thanks." She smiles once more. "I'm sorry for all the rowdiness."
He gives her an acknowledging nod and walks over to yet another customer demanding booze.
The clock goes on, while she admires the little bubbles and the cold fog on the muddy-coloured glass of the bottle. She does not know how long it been, until such time a man slides on the stool next to her.
"Hello." He greets, amicably. He was tall and blond, as muscular as any of the men in the perimeter are, but with a naiveté of sorts on his light blue eyes, something that screamed boy-next-door.
"Hey." She greets back.
"You're not from around here." He stated, clearly not meaning it as a question.
She smirks slightly with the question, amused. "What gave it away? The accent? The dress? Those stupid clasps on my head?"
He shook his head. "No, no, nothing like that. Just that you're kinda crashing our party, and the locals try to avoid the military people."
The woman could not help but laugh softly. "Coulda fooled me. But, anyways, I'm from Michigan, originally, but I live in Boston these days."
"The Great Mitten!" He exclaims, well humoured. "Detroit?"
"Grand Rapids." She corrects, and then asks, "Yourself?"
"Not a local, either, but I'm closer to home than you." His grin shines on the dim lighting of the bar. "I'm from Cherryfield, Maine. A stone throw from Canada."
"Cool." She responds, not really knowing what to say. "You got anyone waiting for you over there?"
"You mean, like a girlfriend or something?" The blond asks, capisciously. "No, I'm a single man. Though, my mom's still up there. I'm going over there to see her in the morning."
"And your dad? Out of the picture?" She asks, bluntly.
The man did not seem to mind. "Yeah. He walked on us when I was little. And how about you? What's waiting for you in Michigan?"
"A mother, and a bunch of busybody aunts and their harlot daughters." She responds with a grimace. "I also don't have a dad, though mine died when I was little."
"Only child?" He follows up.
She nods. "Yup. You?"
"Two siblings." He responds, with some wear. "AJ's at San Francisco. She's a freelance visual novel artist. And there's Kyle. He's a surfer."
"Aren't you guys from Maine?" The redhead asks, legitimately confused how a surfer could rail from such a chilly place.
"He moved to Hawaii for college." It was the simple answer. Trying, and failing, to disguise his discomfort, the man asks: "I've just realized we never introduced ourselves."
"Then by all means." She extended him her hand. "I'm Emily Harper."
"I'm Christopher Powell, but you can call me Chris." He took her hand in his much larger one. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise." She checked the sleeves of his shirt and salutes him slop and mockingly. "Captain Powell."
"At ease, Cadet Harper." He responds, in equal humour. "So, what brings you to New Hampshire?"
"Aw, man." Emily says, self-depreciating. "How long do you have?"
The dirty-blond-haired man looked at his watch. "My bus leaves at five, so I'd say about one hour and a half."
"Let's hope it's time enough, right?" She winked and threw him a smirk.
He chuckles. "That bad, huh?"
"You have no idea." The woman says, in all seriousness. "Well, it all began last New Year's…"
And so, Emily told Chris everything that had happened between her fateful encounter with Nathan Sterling to her crashing his wedding earlier that night. The man listened patiently to her tale, making appropriate interruptions for comments and elucidations.
"Now I'm not sure what exactly I want to do with my life. I'm pretty sure I don't have a job anymore. I don't want to go back to Boston, never liked it, really, but I'm on the fence about Michigan, too. Perhaps I need somewhere new, to start fresh, you know?" She finishes the tale. Checking the clock, she cheerily says, "Looks like I wasted exactly one hour and fifteen minutes of your life."
"I had fun." He says, earnest. "Deployed life doesn't allow for good conversation, and you're a good storyteller. I'm hung up on every word."
The redhead laughs, self-conscious. "Don't flatter me."
He raised his arms in rendition. "I'm telling the truth. In fact, I want to make you a deal."
"Hm?" The woman nods for him to proceed.
"Cherryfield isn't far. It's a few hours on the U.S. 1. Why don't you take me there on your car? I'll pay for your gas, and you get to be somewhere you've never been before. If, by the time we arrive, you decide to go back to Boston or to Michigan, I'll help you out, too."
She let out a wide grin. "Let's do it."
It was a fair weather day in Maine. The sun shone, and people could walk the sinuous and forested streets of Cherryfield with sleeveless tops and open shoes, and most preferred such, so they would soak in the rare sunlight that shone on that part of the world.
Emily sat alone with a book on her lap on the lonely red brick house that served as that little New English town's library.
Ever since the last librarian's retirement, some six months earlier, the place had been closed. It was an understatement to say the town council had been only too glad to have a Northwestern English graduate like Emily to take the job.
The pay was not anything to be proud of, but it came with a small loft and utilities paid. As long as it paid for the food, clothing and a health insurance, it was more than good enough.
That afternoon had been quiet, as usual. The only visitors she had up so far was a couple of schoolchildren looking for help on their summer assignments and a lady after her book club's weekly title.
It left her plenty of time for leisure reading, cleaning and organizing the dusty shelves of the library and, most importantly, for her poetry writing. It was the greatest progress she made ever since moving to Boston, and certainly her new material was of a higher quality than whatever she had written since college.
On that particular part of day, the redhead had put on some music on her phone while she cleaned and repaired a pair of shelves on the far back of the library, which held several volumes in Maine history, as much so as the books were mostly history themselves.
"Déjame que te comparta, todo que lo siento dentro de mi alma." She sang along the lyrics when the front door's bell rung, signalling the arrival of a patron.
It was Chris, and he held a salad bowl neatly wrapped. "Hey, Emily." He greets with a wide smile. "Nice show you're having there."
She smirked. "Glad you like it."
"What is it, though? Never heard it before."
A sad smile ran through Emily's features quickly, before she supresses it and responds: "It's Argentinian pop music. I grew up on a minority neighbourhood in Grand Rapids."
"Argentina, huh? That's nice." He attacks her from behind, placing his hands on her waist, turning her facing him dead in the eye and dipping her very low, on a quasi-90º angle. "Land of romance. And tango."
She laughs and slaps his arm. "Let me go, Casanova! Sneakers and t-shirts are hardly tango-appropriate."
The man lets his 'dance partner' stand up straight and, with a wicked turn of lips, says: "Well, I think the one thing we were short of was a rose."
"Those are usually provided by the gentleman." The girl makes a slight swirl with her hand on her red hair and then continues, "What brings Captain Powell to my humble establishment?"
He held up the bowl. "I come bearing gifts. I'm starting to think my mom likes you better than me."
"You brought me into your home." She shrugs. "You should've had thought it through beforehand. It was pretty clear I'd steal your family and murder you from day one."
"Of course, a grave oversight on my part. Please be kind when chopping my body into pieces before dumping me into the river."
"I'll think about it." She winks. "What's on the menu?"
"It's chicken alfredo. She's been testing that cookbook you got her. I don't know whether to thank you or damn you." He taps his still-hard-rock stomach for emphasis.
The woman rolls her clear eyes. "If ya gaining weight, it's you who is lazing around. Go for a run, for Christ's sakes! The weather is mighty nice for it."
"I would, but it's oh, so boring on my own." He complains. "Would you like to come with? You didn't see anything on Maine yet except from the town hall, the library and my house."
She fishes a piece of chicken and plops it into her mouth before responding: "I thought that was it."
"Very funny, big city girl." Chris teases. "Come on, tomorrow morning?"
"Fine, but if you rush ahead on your big, G.I. Joe calves, I am taking away your library card." She points an accusing finger at him. "And I'll have a mighty good time slashing it into pieces."
Chris takes a deep breath, filling his expansive lungs with the clean air of the Northeast. Smiling with the placidity of the taiga forestry, he stops for a moment so he could enjoy the feeling of being home, a feeling yet not made redundant by the two weeks he already spent at Cherryfield.
He was thrown back into what he was presently doing when a strained, woman's voice called from down the trail.
"Oh, God!" She complains. "How long did you say until we reach the top again?"
"We're close. It's just after those trees." He points to a pair of pines a few steps in front of him. "C'mon, Emily, it's just a teeny, tiny hill."
"What does the military feed you?" The woman wonders, rather bitterly. "I can't. I really can't! If I take another step, my foot is going to fall off."
"We've walked greater distances over the week." The blond points out.
Emily huffs. "I remember I whined quite a lot in all of those occasions. Something on the lines of 'how a man who spends most of his time piloting an aircraft isn't a fat slob', perhaps?"
The man chuckles. "Yeah, how could I forget?"
"Go, Chris, go on without me!" She dramatically plops on the overgrowth. "Finish your hike, walk away into the sunset! I'll be fine here with my calluses for company."
Chris rolled his eyes and walks over to the girl. He kneels down and says: "Hop on."
"What?" She shot him a puzzled look.
"Hop on." He repeats. "We're so close, I'm not letting you give up now."
"You can't carry me!" Her pitch rises in disbelief.
"We're going to have to see about that, ain't we?" He grinned, cockily. "I'm not going to drop you. Scout's honour."
"Were you a scout?"
"Not really, but I'm on the Air Force. Big-ass jet planes should trump needlework and pinecone arts and crafts, right?"
She looked wearily at him once more, and finally complied wordlessly. Chris smirked and navigated through the last leg of the trail until the forest clears into a small cliff that overlooked Millbridge and Narraguagus Bay.
The late-morning sun shone on the ocean water, reflecting placidly on the dark azure wideness. The small town on the seaside was far from bustling, as it was Sunday, but the stillness made it seem like a model train station underneath a Christmas tree.
Chris places Emily down gently on a rock where she could sit up straight. The Midwestern woman, however, was marvelled with the scenery.
"Chris…" She breathes out. "This is so beautiful! How did you know it was here?"
He shrugs lightly. "This is a small town. When I was a teen, I didn't have much to do on weekends besides hanging around the town square with the other kids, so I thought I ought to put the time into something productive, so I explored the trails on the woods around here."
"And you never got lost?" The woman wonders.
"Nah, I had a map, and most trails are marked." The blond man points to the path downhill. "It's not much different from walking down a street."
"What was like? To grow up here, I mean."
He scoffs in good-nature. "What's that about now?"
"I just noticed that I've told you all about my life back in the Midwest and all the Nathan crap but I don't know much about your past." She weighs. "Your mom wouldn't show me a single embarrassing baby photo!"
"I don't think she has any." The man stated, a little unfazed by it all. "As for not telling you anything, I guess I don't have many interesting stories. I never crashed a wedding, I haven't dated a People magazine's eligible bachelorette, nor have I moved across the country to pursue a writing career."
"It doesn't mean I'm not interested on what you have to say." The redhead counters.
Chris sighs. "Fair enough. What would you like to know?"
"Everything." Emily says, rather excitably. "What was like when you were a child? What do you like to eat? Have you ever been in love? Why have you gone into the military? Have you ever robbed a bank?"
He shook his head. "Nope, never robbed a bank, sorry to disappoint."
"How sad." The girl laughs it off.
"As for my childhood, well, my dad was a truck driver. He worked for a shipping company here in Millbridge." He pointed at the compound, on the other side of town. "He was on the road a lot, so it was mainly my mom and I."
"What 'bout your siblings?" She wonders.
"AJ and Kyle are close in age to each other, but I was eight when AJ was born. And, anyways, my dad bailed on us when Kyle was seven months old, so I guess it's been mom and I for most of it."
"How old were you when your dad left?" Emily asks, on a low, tactful voice.
"A little over ten." He responds, grim.
"That's rough." She says with a sad smile on her face and a comforting hand on his arm. "My dad died while I was in college and it was hard enough. It must been terrible to lose yours so young."
"Not really." The blond says, chilly. "He was just this guy who would stop by once every two months. He was never there. I know this sounds rather terrible, but I didn't miss him all that much when he was gone."
The redhead woman smiles kindly at him. "You don't have to feel sorry about that, you know? If your dad was lousy, then you're not obliged to miss him. I wish your dad were a good man and that he stayed, but that's because I wanted for you to have that experience, not that just because the man is your father, he's any less of a dick."
Chris gave her a thin, constrained smile in recognition. "Thanks, Emily. Anyways, where were we?"
"You were telling me about your rebellious years." She shot him a lopsided smirk, full of mirth and wickedness.
The blond scoffed. "I had no such thing. High school and I was more of the dorky wallflower. The basement of the social totem, wallflower."
"I have trouble believing that." She states. "In fact, I see three pairs of muscle right about now further my point."
He snorted. "That's the work of the military. Well, that and a part-time I took junior year. Up until then, I was thin and scrawny."
The redhead laughs and throws back her head. "Fine, whatever you say, Mr. Wet Dream."
"I'm serious!" The Air Force official defended, his pitch a little high due to the stifling laughter that resonated through the otherwise silent forest.
"You also didn't tell me anything juicy." A thin, pale finger pokes him on the tip of the nose. "Tell me 'bout your girlfriends, and make it saucy."
"I only had one. Sorry to disappoint." He responded.
"Tell me about her." The librarian nudges.
He had a nostalgic smile on his face. "Her name was Nicole. She was the head cheerleader and my boss' granddaughter."
"The Geek and the Princess?" Emily scoffed. "How MTV-esque."
"I have to admit it's kind of a cliché, yeah." He nods, slightly humoured. "We dated throughout our senior year. Come summer, though, she broke up with me. She was heading to Orono for college and I was to stay in Cherryfield, I was no football star or super genius to have a scholarship and I couldn't afford tuition.
"She said college would be a new experience for her and she didn't want to string me along." He could not contain a pained grimace. "I know, though, that the truth is that she didn't want to be with someone who was going nowhere in life. The following week, I enlisted on the Air Force, and that's that."
"What. A bitch." Emily deadpanned. "Where's her now? Please tell me she flunked out and has to flip burgers for a living."
Chris shook his head. "Nothing like that. She met a guy from Presque Isle freshman year, really nice sort. Last I heard, they're engaged to be married."
"Twenty dollars say he's gay." Her eyes glinted on nastiness. "Natalie's a beard, I'm sure of it."
"You don't even know the guy." He points out.
She shrugs. "Don't need to. If he's willing to swear in front of the community, a minister and God to spend forever and then some with Natalie, either he's retarded or gay."
"Whatever you say." He smirks at her. "Anyways, I'm starving. What you packed for lunch?"
"Oh, right! Pass me my backpack." She said and the man complied. "Straight from Latin America, another devious concoction of mine to make you fat. Tres Leches cake!"
Emily stood in the middle of Augusta bus station with a tickle on the side of her clear right eye, the spot where a tear threatened to form and spill through her cheek.
The place was busy and loud, an expected scene on a summer Sunday, as people leave the vacationing bliss of Maine for their own grey, stressful lives in the south.
"Thanks again for driving me here, Emily." Chris said, with the pitiful attempt of a cheerful smile. It ended up looking more like a grimace.
"No problem. I wanted to say goodbye here rather than back in Cherryfield." She rubs her eye softly.
After a rather long leave, some twenty-something days, Chris was summoned again at the base in New Hampshire, and Emily drove him to Augusta, where the military had set up a bus, serving the enlisted from northern Maine. Having finished his pilot training the month before, he was to be sent into combat.
After a rather long moment of silence, Emily says: "God, I hate those things."
"Goodbyes?" He asks, kindly.
She nods. "And geopolitics."
"Geopolitics?" He asks, confused.
The young woman shrugs. "What I'm blaming over the fact you're going to war."
The blond chuckled softly. "I'm not going to war. I'm shuffling soldiers between Ramstein and Bagram. I won't be seeing much action, it's more like a very exclusive airline."
The woman huffs. "Well, excuse me for worrying about you. I promise you it won't happen again."
Chris let out a vociferous laughter. "Don't be offended. I'm even a little flattered with your concern, but don't waste energy on it. I'm going to be fine."
The young redhead cannot help herself but to let out a sigh. "Are you sure?"
"Positive." He smiled confidently. "So much so, I'm willing to give you a keepsake, so that I'll have to come back to get it."
"Are we really going to do that? Because if you die anyway, I'm throwing whatever you give me in the river out of spite." She nudges an accusing finger on his toned, stone-hard chest.
The blond smiles. "Yes, we are doing it, and please cooperate. You're ruining the mood."
He takes a step towards the young woman, places a calloused finger softly under her chin, and bobs her head upwards. With the shiny green on his eyes peering deep into hers, he closes the distance between their faces and gives her one of those toe-twirling kisses you see at the end of a romantic comedy movie.
However, it is fair to say, it was not the end of a movie. They usually end at a rekindling of a relationship, a meeting on a busy airport or at a 'Happily Ever After'-kind of wedding.
This was nothing of that.
Much the opposite. This was a separation, and that tone peered from the edges of that kiss. Which, despite being very much pleasurable for both parties involved, lost a nickel of its glamour, its momentum.
Nevertheless, the two of them broke apart breathless. Chris seized the silent moment of his companion and says: "Emily, being with you this last month was one of the best times of my life. You make me feel like I could do anything, like I mattered more than anybody else in the world. I love that feeling, I love being with you, and I could very well see myself falling in love with you in the future."
At a first moment, Emily's lips were pressed together on a thin line of incredulity and appraisal. As he went on, it gradually dissolved into a smile, and finally, on a scandalous laughter.
It wasn't the reaction Chris expected, and his face turned into a grimace. Then, the young woman pressed her hands on each side of his face and kissed him sloppily.
"Oh, God, that was so cheesy! I loved it!" She said and kissed him again. "I can see myself loving you in the future, too."
He chuckled. "Good. But don't laugh next time I tell you I like you. It's not much of an ego boost."
She smirked. "Duly noted, sweetheart."
Afterwards, the joyful mood dissolved back into melancholy when Emily hugged the man's broad frame as tight her puny arms could hold him.
"I'm going to miss you." She whispered against his chest.
"I'm going to miss you, too." He whispered back.
With that, they break apart and Chris walks over to his bus. As he boarded, he takes a last look behind and there she was, red hair and short stature, looking teary-eyed at his retreating frame.
She waves at him, which he responded with a small, rather depressive show of hands.
He will come back, of that much he was certain. What was still left to be undecided was how much it would pain him until he does.
The snow fell softly yet constantly over the small town of Cherryfield, Maine, forming a thick white carpet over the land and the houses.
It was Christmas night. Late enough for most children to be asleep, dreaming about the visit of Santa Claus, while parents spread the gifts under the tree and gorged on cookies and milk.
On a red brick house, near the school and the town hall, Emily sat alone, nursing a cup of hot cocoa. She gazed through the window, admiring the falling of snow from the sky.
She peered at her open laptop on her bed. She wanted to check and see if Chris had sent her something that night.
The two of them had been communicating via e-mail, mainly, ever since he was deployed overseas. But as of late, their exchange was spotty at best. The last message she received was about a week ago and it concerned her. She knew internet connection in Afghanistan was hardly worth mentioning, but the man had said that he would send word whenever he was in Germany.
That must not have been happening often as of late, must it?
She sighed one last time and reached for the computer to turn it off. There was nothing new in there, and it was depressing enough to spend Christmas alone, on the internet was sticking a little too far.
Her puny salary, even lower than what she made at the shipping company, was not enough for a plane ticket to Michigan. Some families in town had invited her to spend the night with them, but she did not want to impose on family time. She could pick on the leftovers in the morning.
As for Barbara Powell, her none-the-wiser mother-in-law, she went on a cross-country trip to San Francisco to see AJ and Kyle, last Emily heard.
She did not talk often with the older woman, funny enough. Mrs. Powell hardly ever came by the library, and Emily never seemed to find the woman at home when she swung by.
The redhead finished her tea and was about to cover herself for the night when she hears a loud banging noise coming from downstairs.
Cherryfield was as tranquil as one can expect from such a town, but Emily was from a rather rough neighbourhood in Grand Rapids and was wary of urban violence. A stint in Roxbury did not help, either. Not to mention, for a girl alone at night, any loud noise was enough to throw reason out the window.
She picked up a curtain rod she swore she would be putting up for weeks now and starts making her way downstairs, careful not to make any sound. Skipping the creaking last step, she sees him.
A large, dark figure was by the wide-open backdoor. He had a considerable amount of melting snow pooled on the floor by his boots and was fumbling with the door, having his back against Emily.
Thinking it to be her chance, she runs forward to hit him with the rod, all in the while shouting, "GET OUT OF HERE, YOU PERVERT!"
"What the hell!" He winces in pain, trying to protect the injured ear with one hand while turning on the lights using the other.
Emily drops the rod. "Oh my God, Chris! What are you doing?!"
"Trying to make a romantic surprise, that's what!" He complains, between groans of pain. "Why did you hit me with a stick?"
"I thought you were a burglar or something!" She shouts back, still high on the adrenaline.
"What kind of person tries to rob a library, Emily?!"
"I don't know! I panicked, I'm sorry!" She walks over him and checks his wound by moving his hand away from his ear. "Does it hurt?"
"Not so much." He sighs. "I'm sorry, I should have known better. Looking back, it does sound pretty stupid to break into a single girl's apartment."
She smiled, in spite of the situation. "But I'm not single."
"You're not?" The blond's voice raises a pitch.
"Nope." The girl shook her head emphatically. "I have a very handsome, very kind boyfriend who's kinda slow sometimes, but I'm very glad to see him, nonetheless."
Chris grinned, wide enough for one to wonder if his face was going to crack. "Well, I'm pretty sure he's very happy to see you, too."
"Good." Emily kissed his cheek. "Now let's get you to bed, you feel too cold."
He swept her off her feet. "Lead the way."