Out of the Woods

by Hannah Bonam-Young

Out of the Woods is my love letter to all of us who met their soulmate before they had the chance to fully meet themselves. I wanted to write a story that reflected the delicate dance of being madly, deeply in love with your significant other but desperately seeking independence, evolution, and change.

Desperate prayer is the only kind I’ve ever known.

“And my mother is going to ask you a lot of questions. She’ll probably insinuate that she knows a guy who can make people disappear but—” Caleb circles his arm around my waist, tugs me to him, and kisses my lips before they’ve had the chance to stop moving. I relax into his hold. “My turn now.” He places his hand on my neck, which always makes my knees weaken, then kisses me softly again.

Though I refused her help in all other preparations for tonight, Win did assist me in writing my speech. Mostly, I had planned to talk about my mother. I was going to say how I’d do anything to have had more years with her. How this research, helped with tonight’s funds, will buy more time for families just like mine. And isn’t that all we ever want? More memories with the people we love?

“Really?” I smile near hysterically, shaking my head as the tip of my nose burns with the threat of tears once again. “What, exactly? Name one thing that I should be proud of, Cay. Something that’s only mine. Something that I’ve done entirely on my own.” I watch as the man who’s known me for seventeen years, the very same man who’s been hailed as a genius and received endless awards for his innovative, brilliant brain, struggles to come up with a single answer. And there’s no fighting it anymore, his silence cracks me wide open. Tears spring loose on a broken sob. Caleb’s eyes close softly as he lessens the distance between us and wraps me in his arms.

Might give you some time to think. To talk. To dream about what you want out of life. What’s the worst that could happen?” “I squat to take a shit in the woods and my vagina grazes poison ivy.” She blinks at me, stunned. “Wow, your mind didn’t even hesitate to come up with that scenario.”

He’s begged to record it on his phone more than a dozen times, at least. And I mean truly begged. Like, fully pleading and whimpering while on his knees—usually as he’s positioned between mine for an up-close-and-personal private show.

On the days that I just smiled and said, “Yeah, he’s the best,” in response to a girl’s sweet sentiments—I’d give Caleb head in his car during lunch period. I figured it was the least I could do to say thank you.

“False alarm, Anthony….” I mutter under my breath as Caleb helps me stand with an outstretched hand. He locks his fingers with mine, then runs his thumb up the side of my wrist. “Missed you,” he says softly, pushing up his glasses with his free hand.

“Hi,” I whisper, the corner of my mouth resting against his palm. Caleb smiles softly. “Hi, baby. I want to say, before we start, that I love you…and, I’m glad we’re here.”

“I’m telling you how it felt to hear you say we were here to get out of my rut.” I put my phone in the glove compartment with his and shut it. Goodbye world. “I don’t know what you meant by it, but I do know how it made me feel.”

“I’m grateful that you agreed to come, and that you want me to feel better…but I also need to know you’re receptive to this experience and what it can give you too.” “I am,” he says, timidly placing his fingers onto the back of my hand before he looks down shyly. “I know I’ve got work to do. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.” There it is, I think, we’re talking again.

Next to Maggie and Phil is a couple closer to our age, or perhaps a bit younger, who appear to be silently arguing with each other with exchanged dagger-sharp side glances, crossed arms, and clenched jaws. I decide it’s probably best to not approach them at the moment. “Sorry, I missed your names,” Caleb says directly to the surly couple. “Was it Jai and…?” Let it be known that Caleb, bless his sweet soul, has never once read a room.

Caleb stands, leans toward me and mouths, “Did you know about that?” I shake my head. “But it wouldn’t be the first time we broke a rule,” I whisper with a wink.

I look at Libby, who cannot be much older than nine or ten, and feel my heart twist tightly. I was double her age when my mom passed, and it’s almost completely derailed my life. I can’t help but wonder how it will affect hers. Caleb squeezes my hand twice in quick succession. When I turn to look up at him, he searches my face. “You okay?” he mouths. I nod weakly, but even still, he brings the back of my hand to his mouth and kisses across my knuckles.

“We’ve got this,” he whispers, lowering his lips to mine. He kisses me fiercely, which is very much unlike Caleb while in the company of near-perfect strangers. His lips engulf mine as his thumb strokes the side of my face, his fingertips pressing against my jaw with delicious pressure that’s removed too soon. “Right?” he asks, pulling back. “Yeah…” We’re definitely going to die.

I laugh so hard that I snort as my legs start to burn and quake, nearly giving out. Caleb laughs too, purposefully exaggerating his grunts and moans as he stretches for my benefit. And damn it feels good to laugh with him like this. Even if we are truly fucked.

“Secret hobby,” I say mischievously, smirking at Caleb as he holds out a hand to help me over a fallen branch. “You’d know something about that.” “Oooooh,” Kieran says from up ahead. “What did he do?” Caleb shakes his head, grinning. “Sarah likes to tease me for playing Dungeons and Dragons.” “He told me he was going to the gym but I caught him playing at my best friend’s house with her partner and a gaggle of dorks.”

Caleb perks up. “Do you play?” he asks her enthusiastically. Libby stops, slowly turns over her shoulder, and looks him up and down with nothing less than disgust. “No…obviously.” I push my lips together, fighting a laugh as she twists back around and continues walking on. “That was humbling,” Caleb says, forcing my laugh to spill free. He looks at me with humored annoyance then up to the sky, his tongue pushing against the inside of his mouth as he smirks. “Guess I shouldn’t tell her about Glinera, then?”

About an hour ago I began pretending I was in a fantasy novel, and this was my unlikely band of heroes on a righteous quest. But then my imagination got away from me and I almost made myself cry thinking about the love interest I lost in the war two years prior, who I’d sworn to avenge, so I had to come back to reality.

let my head hang back, staring up at him adoringly. “What?” he asks, his tone suspicious. “I forgot my water bottle at the table.” I smile sweetly up at him, batting my eyelashes for good measure.

Caleb yawns again. “Do you want your e-reader?” “I didn’t pack it. It would’ve only lasted a few days before the battery gave out anyways.” Caleb smiles knowingly, his face still tilted up to the ceiling. “I brought it and a solar charger. I didn’t want you to lose your reading streak. Downloaded a couple of extra books too.” I gasp. I actually, audibly gasp. I would have never admitted such a thing out loud, but I was devastated that upon our return my eBook reading streak would’ve been back to zero. “You’re at what…a thousand days of reading all in a row?”

“She’s going to be okay,” she whispers into my hair. But she’s not. Mom knows it. I know it. Aunt June knows it. The doctor seems to know it. And I can tell Win does too. The only one who seems not to know yet is Caleb, who, despite only leaving our house two hours ago, has already sent me a research paper discussing new and improved techniques for treating ALS and has asked his mother to contact a friend of a friend’s husband who works out of some special research clinic in Toronto.

I am a simple creature, at my core. Give me books, sunlight, water, and a handsome man looking at me like I’m some rare jewel, and I’m all set. Especially when it feels like a long time since I’ve shined for him.

“Maybe, if you’re not too tired after today’s hike…” “Too tired?” Caleb leans back, satisfyingly smug. “I would climb mountains for the chance to watch you come undone, baby.”

“My mom was ill and, well, Caleb and I knew we would probably get married eventually anyways. We both wanted her to be at our wedding and it was something she really wanted to be there for—obviously—so we…got married.”

Perhaps, instead of requesting lightning, I’ll pray to be Nina’s age again. Or, at the very least, I’ll pray for the tits I had at twenty-three—when my nipples pointed out like perky headlights and not like Caleb’s mother’s ancient shih tzu with two lazy eyes pointing in slightly different directions, as they do now.

“I miss my tits,” I answer, keeping this thin filter between my mouth and brain intact. “The way they used to be,” I explain further, looking toward her as we keep walking the trail. Helen studies me for a long, thoughtful moment, and then nods slowly as she looks down at her own chest, covered by a simple black T-shirt, and sighs. “Don’t we all.”

“You’ve got this,” he says, nodding as if he wants me to say the same. “I’ve got this,” I repeat, grinning softly. “You’re the next big thing in writing,” he says. I giggle, covering my face with both hands. “C’mon!” he jeers.

Reality around me blurs and in its place, I see Caleb’s subtle smile from across a crowded room. I see every time he has locked eyes with me instinctively when we both unexplainably look for each other at the same time when mingling with different groups of friends.

“Often, we can find ourselves playing what-if instead of recognizing what we can do now to build the life we want. The truth is the past is one of the only things as stubborn as us humans. Unfortunately, it won’t change no matter how much you ask it to.”

“You’re beautiful,” I say, for his ears only. He turns toward me, his head tilted in confusion as if I misspoke. So, I repeat myself. “You’re beautiful,” I emphasize. “Thank you…” he says, lips turning downward into a sentimental frown.

“You had a dead mosquito on your chin,” he explains. And they say romance is dead. Clearly, they haven’t met my husband. My shoulders fall and I give him a sad sort of smirk before drifting my gaze back to the fire. “Sounds about right.” He laughs weakly. “Sorry…I ruined the moment, didn’t I?” “A little,” I say, matching his weary grin. “But that’s okay. I’d rather be bug-free.” “You’re beautiful, baby. Dead bugs and all.”

The reality is that if Caleb did think of several negative things to say about me when I wasn’t around, it will only magnify my hurt feelings over him not being able to think of one, single positive thing to say about me when I asked him on the night of the fundraiser.

“I want to be proud of me. I want you to be proud of me.”

“Fuck me for being happy, I guess,” he says exasperatedly, standing up in a fury. He paces as if he’s intending to walk away but turns back around to say one last thing. “This has always been enough for me, Sarah. You have always been enough. But I guess I know where I stand. I’m not enough for you. Clearly nothing ever will be.”

“A lot of people will say relationships are fifty-fifty, but I think that’s a load of rubbish. We all have seasons and periods where we require more from our partner. The trick to a long, lasting relationship in my professional experience is not getting stuck at a set percentage.”

I climb into our tent and find my sleeping bag neatly laid out over my mat. Folded nicely on top of it is a fresh change of clothes, my e-reader, and a small bundle of yellow cornflowers. It’s the last thing I expected to see. So much so, that I nearly tear up at the sight of it.

But something is missing. Something to bring him comfort. With limited resources, I pull out my journal and pen, tear out a page. I love you so much, I write onto a blank page before folding it into a paper airplane. However, as soon as it’s folded, I realize I have more to say. So, I tear out another page. You’ve always been enough, I write on this one, then fold. Then, again, I realize I’m still not quite done. You don’t have to fake it anymore. Tear, write, fold. I am sorry for not telling you how I’ve been feeling. Tear, write, fold. I am grateful for you, I promise. Tear, write, fold. I want us to grow together. Tear, write, fold. I want us to change for the better. I keep going until Caleb’s bed is covered in at least two dozen paper airplanes.

“At first I was embarrassed because they were all looking,” I admit, reaching to tilt his chin up to see me. I stroke his jaw with a bent finger before dropping my hand back to my lap. “But then, after you went to bed, I got a little bit high—” Caleb’s face crumples into an amused look of confusion. “More on that later,” I interject. “And I realized I was actually feeling relieved. You got angry with me for real. Of course, it didn’t feel great in the moment but I’m glad that you expressed yourself instead of sitting with it alone. You trusted me to see your anger and not shield me from it.”

“I don’t want to risk losing you.” I trace the scar on his hand, thinking of all the hundreds of times I’ve done it before. “You won’t.” “Promise?” I look up to find his eyes, searching for mine. “If you give me the space to grow, I’ll plant myself next to you. Always.”

“I can feel you when I’m alone. I can sense your presence like a second nature and can anticipate your random visits to the office based on some sort of intuition or connection between us. And, when you’re not near, you occupy every corner of my life. Half of my thoughts are about you. All of my dreams involve you. My hopes and fears and purpose revolve around you. I just want you to be at peace. That is all I have ever wanted from the first moment I saw you cry and had the privilege of being the arms you ran to. And, if your future peace means leaving, so be it. But don’t think for a single second you could ever truly leave me. You can go as far as you need to, but you’ll always be a part of me. You will always be the second voice in my head. The force that surrounds me. The source I pull inspiration from. I am sorry if it’s too late. Sorry for myself that I’ll have to go on as half of a whole. And I hope that if you have to rewrite your life, you won’t erase my part in it, that you’ll let me stay a part of your story.” He looks up with tears in his eyes, “Always yours,” he pauses awkwardly, “Caleb.”

“Thank god,” he whispers, so quietly it’s as if he didn’t mean for me to hear it.

“I just got a vivid flashback of you asking me to help you ‘study.’ ” He throws up quotation marks over that last word. “Well, we’ll actually be doing the work this time and not groping each other between the school’s library shelves.” “Less fun but understood. What sort of homework?”

“Perfect, change into it and meet me outside.” Caleb makes his way outside the tent, practically diving at the door’s zipper. “You can stay here while I change, Cay…” I reach into the bottom of my pack for my swimsuit. “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” I tease. Caleb raises a brow in my direction, then shakes his head as if I cluelessly misspoke. “You have no idea, do you?” “What?” I half-say, half-scoff. He drops his hand from the zipper’s pull and places his forearm over his bent knee before he flexes his fingers. God, I love his hands. “I’m trying to be a good boy, Linwood.”

It’s been a long time since he has looked at me like that. Or, maybe, since you’ve noticed, a kind part of my mind tells me.

I know we have a lot of work we should be doing, but the only thing I’m remotely interested in right now is lying out naked on a rock like a lizard warming in the sun as Caleb devours me.

“Maybe,” he says with a throwaway shrug, “I’m not as easily influenced to break the rules as I once was. Maybe you will have to beg for it.”

“We have the rest of our lives to fuck each other’s brains out. I’m here to get your heart back first.” He lays his palm over my chest, right above my rapidly beating organ. “I know that your body is always mine but this, this is what I want most.”

“You’re insane if you think you’ve ever lost it,” I say, placing my hand over his. “All of me is and will always be yours.” His smile unfurls slowly as his eyes linger on our hands. “Me too,” he says, his voice slightly choked.