“Don’t tell her that. She’ll use it against me in our next fight.” He tosses a tool into the box and reaches for his coat.
I’m trekking back to my truck when I catch the faint buzz of a snowmachine. By the time I’ve hauled my belongings from the back, Calla is coasting up.
Her eyes sparkle as they size up my loaded arms. “You look like a Sherpa.”
“I feel like one.” And you look ready to grace the cover of an outdoor magazine. She’s picture-perfect as always, her long, caramel-colored hair framing her face, the fur pom-pom on her black knit hat dusted with snow. It’s hard to pinpoint what it is, but Calla has a look about her that can make even a pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt look stylish. I met her mother, Susan, at the wedding, and it’s clear Calla inherited that flair from her. I’m not sure there’s a room Calla walks into where she doesn’t draw attention, without even trying.
There was a time when I was jealous of her for that, and for everything else she is that I’m not—namely, Jonah’s first choice. His only choice. I’d lie in bed at night, itemizing all the ways I’m better suited to Jonah, reasons why he should pick me. I wished she would be another Teegan, an interest that faded with time and distance. I cursed myself for not letting Jonah know how I felt sooner, as if that might have made any difference.
None of it mattered.
I wish I could say I was above the bitterness and envy, but as Cory has reminded me on more than one occasion, I’m only human. I have a heart that aches when dreams are shattered, and emotions that can pull a river of tears when hope proves false.
Just have hope.
Don’t stop hoping.
If you believe in it long and hard enough, it will happen.
What a foolish and dangerous notion for a person to cling to.
Hope is what broke my heart. Not Jonah, and not this city girl from Toronto who showed up in Alaska unannounced.
“Jesus, Marie. Why are you so damn stubborn? Here, give me some of that.” Jonah sounds annoyed as he yanks the bundles from under my arms, leaving me with nothing but my black veterinarian’s bag. “You get everything sorted over there?” he throws over his shoulder to Calla, already on his way to the plane.
“Yeah. All good.” Calla climbs off her snowmachine, her white bunny boots sinking into the snow. We fall into step with each other, trailing Jonah, our breaths billowing ahead of us. “I hear your first stop is the Rohn safety cabin?”
“Yeah. You know it?”
“We’ve been there a couple times. Stayed overnight once.” Her smile is secretive. “Are you sleeping in the cabin?”
I laugh. “God, no. They use that for meals and for the mushers.” There’ll be bodies everywhere, wherever someone can fit a sleep pad down to grab an hour of rest. “I’ll be in a tent.”
She grimaces.
“Don’t knock it. They’re way more private, and they have stoves in them. Ask Jonah. He’s stayed in one with—” I cut myself off before I make the mistake of saying Jonah stayed in a tent with me for a few nights the last time he volunteered with the IAF. We weren’t alone, and nothing happened, aside from me stuffing my ears with plugs to drown out his reprehensible snoring, but the prick of warning along my spine says that might not matter.
Calla and I seem to be on good terms now, but it’s taken time and several bumps along the way to get here. I think she saw through me that very first day we met at Alaska Wild. She’s always suspected my feelings for Jonah weren’t platonic, that I would gladly take her place. And while she’s never questioned or accused me to my face, there were some moments last year when I waited for a confrontation.
Jonah and I have a history and a close friendship, and I’ll be the first to admit I held—still hold—a possessiveness over it. But I wanted more, and she knew it. I saw it every time she looked at me, her pink lips pinched into a tight line. I heard it in her unspoken words when she tried setting me up with Toby. Find your own man, Marie. This one’s mine.
If the roles were reversed, I can’t say I would act any differently. Her wariness was understandable, just like my envy was for what she had with Jonah. Calla picked up her life and moved to another country for him, to a home that was so vastly different from everything she’d left. They faced a wave of growing pains in those first months, and here I was, that female “best friend” racing over every time Jonah needed an ear to vent to.