Love Not at First Sight by Sarah Ready

6

Sam

I pullVeronica into my side. She’s brave. One of the bravest people I’ve ever met. She hasn’t shown an ounce of fear since we fell, she hasn’t complained or lost her head, but I can tell that she’s scared. She holds herself stiff against me and her breath comes out in short pants. I run my hands down her arms. Her skin is clammy. Of course, it can’t be above fifty degrees in here. It isn’t surprising that she’s cold, my clothing’s still damp and I’m feeling the chill.

I look at my watch. We’ve been in the cave for five hours. It’s just past noon.

“I’m sorry I had us leave the pool,” I say.

I knew before that we were in a serious situation, but it didn’t truly sink in until now. We’re trapped in this cave, and we can’t go back, we can only go forward and pray that there’s a way out. There’s no way back to the pool or to the chance that someone will happen upon us.

“It’s my fault,” I say.

“Don’t say that.” She stiffens against me, then buries her hands in my shirt. I feel her shake her head. “You can’t second-guess. We can’t start doubting our decisions. Besides, you didn’t have us leave…we made the choice together.”

“You’re right.” There’s nothing more to say about it. We won’t survive by sitting here regretting our choices. Whether in a cave or in life you have to move forward. “How should we do this?” I ask.

We walk along the edge of the cavern. The ledge we’re on extends twenty feet along the wall and five feet out over a deep hole. Veronica picks up a rock and drops it over the edge. I count slowly from zero to three before we hear the rock clatter at the bottom.

“Deep,” she says.

“One hundred and eleven feet deep,” I say.

“What? How do you know?”

“Newtonian physics. I modified the free fall equation to fit the specific environment and then…” I clear my throat. “It’s one hundred eleven feet deep. Roughly.”

She buries her face in my chest and her shoulders shake. I have a moment of panic until I realize that she isn’t crying. She’s laughing.

“I love how you just calculated how far we’ll plunge to our deaths. Roughly.”

I smile. “You like that?” I ask.

She keeps laughing. “Absolutely. What other amazing things can you do?”

She tilts her face up to mine and although I can’t see her, I can feel her warm breath and the nearness of her mouth.

“What do you want to know?” I ask.

She moves her hands to my shoulders. “If we get out of here, what will you do? What do you wish you’d done?”

Kiss you. The thought pops into my mind. I want to kiss her. She doesn’t know who I am, how much I’m worth, or what I look like, but she likes me. And not the aloof, suave, billionaire me, but the me that I don’t show anyone. The me that no one can see anymore.

“I’d start another business,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about it for years. But I haven’t done it.”

“What kind of business?”

“I want to create a think tank with the mission of utilizing technology to aid humanity. It could be technology and ocean cleanup, or technology and clean energy, or technology and—”

“Search and rescue.”

I smile. “Exactly. We could create a remote-controlled, video and GPS-enabled rover that finds people lost in caves. Forget about Mars exploration, we need rovers for caves.”

“You should do it,” Veronica says.

I squeeze her arms. “I will.” Then I step back from her and turn to the bridge.

“What are the chances it collapses?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh. I was hoping you had another equation.”

She takes my hand and threads her fingers through mine. It’s funny, in the outside world where there’s light, touch isn’t so necessary. But here, touch feels almost as vital as breathing. Without touch the sheer blackness and oppression of the cave start to pull you under. A warm hand, a voice, they’re lifelines.

“There’s an equation for load-bearing capacity, but I can’t see the length of the bridge, or its width, or any of the other measurements I need.”

“Oh. So it could break with us on it?”

“That’s right.”

She lets out a long breath. Then, “I guess we better get to it then.”

“I can go first,” I say. “Make sure it’s safe. That way if it breaks only one of us will—”

“No way. I’m not going to sit up here on my own with your dead butt at the bottom of that one-hundred-and-eleven-foot pit. Nope. We do this together.” She squeezes my hand.

“Alright,” I say. “We’ll lay down on the rock, distribute our weight and crawl across.”

“Like on thin ice,” she says.

“Exactly. Stay behind me, at the light’s edge.”

“To distribute our weight.”

“Right. We’ll go slow.”

We’re at the beginning of the bridge. I start to bend down.

“Hang on,” Veronica says.

“Yeah?”

She puts her hands on my shoulders, then to my face. Her fingers feather over my jaw, rubbing over my stubble. I still as I sense her tilting her face up. She drags her thumbs over my lips and then I feel her lips a millimeter from mine. Her breath teases my mouth and the air between us heats. My lips tingle and then she leans in presses her mouth to mine.

Neither of us move. Her hands still on my face. Our lips remain as quiet and as still as the darkness around us. Then I taste her, sweet and salty. I take her bottom lip and run my tongue over her. She opens her mouth and invites me in. Slowly, I explore her. I can’t see her, so I paint her in my mind. Her lower lip is lush and full and wide. There’s a dip in the middle and I circle my tongue around it. Then I move to her upper lip and trace the shape of it. I never understood why anyone would call someone’s mouth bow-shaped until now. Her upper lip forms a perfect cupid’s bow. My hands itch to touch her, so I bring them up to her cheeks and run them over the smoothness of her skin. Her cheeks are high and full, and as I run my fingers over her, tracing her features, I explore her mouth. She lets out a small groan and her teeth scrape my bottom lip. I run my thumbs over her eyebrows, the soft skin of her eyelids, and I play with her eyelashes. She sends her fingers over my jaw and into my hair. She grabs the ends and tugs, then pulls me closer. Then she takes my tongue into her mouth and sucks. There’s no light in the cave, but sparks flicker and crackle like fireworks behind my closed eyelids.

I open my eyes, expecting to see the cavern light up. But there’s no light. Only Veronica pulling away, leaving my lips tingling and the rest of me wanting more.

“That was…” I trail off.

“For good luck,” she says. “Let’s try not to die.”

I swallow and the warm glow vanishes.

“Right.”

“But if we do,” she says, “it was really nice knowing you. You’re making me rethink some of my theories on life.”

“Oh yeah?”

I get down on my belly and start a slow crawl onto the bridge.

“Tell me about it,” I say. I know she likes to hear a voice in the dark. So do I.

“How about this, I’ll tell you if we make it across.”

“Deal,” I say.

I crawl forward slowly, keeping on my belly, scraping along the rock. I hold my breath for a moment, waiting for the bridge to crack. It holds. I breathe again. I hear Veronica drop down to the ground and begin to crawl after me. My heart pounds against the stone and my knees and shins scrape on the rock. They’re cut up from the tunnel, and the rock of the bridge grinds into my raw skin. The sting of the rock abrading my skin centers me and I move forward. The blackness opens before me, and the dim blue light of my watch illuminates the way a few inches at a time.

“You know how you said that you’re going to start your business when we get out of here?” Veronica asks.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to go see my mom,” she whispers.

I pull myself forward over a rough patch of rocks. A few stones fall and seconds later the crack of them hitting bottom echoes through the cavern.

“I haven’t…” Veronica’s voice shakes. We both ignore the next handful of rocks falling off the bridge. “I haven’t spoken to her in ten years. I’m…I’m going to see her.”

“What happened?” I ask.

The bridge starts to narrow and within a few feet, it’s only three feet wide. Then two.

“It’s narrow here. Twenty-four inches max. Be careful.”

“I will.”

I’m quiet as I concentrate on keeping on top of the bridge. As I crawl, more rocks slide off.

Behind me, I hear Veronica’s slow crawl and labored breathing.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I’m good. I’m a rock climber, you know. You should worry about yourself. I’ve never seen such a flat-footed hiker.”

I smile at her teasing tone. I may have been awkward and not into sports as a kid, but as an adult I lift, climb at the gym on the rock wall, run.

“What happened with your mom?” I ask.

“I was angry at her for not meeting my standards. I blamed her for not living the way I wanted her to. I only just figured that out. In this stupid cave. I stopped talking to her because I thought she’d ruined our lives by not walking away from my dad, that she was weak and…I wanted her to be stronger.”

“Kids want their parents to be invulnerable. Not to have flaws. That’s not anything to be ashamed of. It’s normal.”

“Yeah,” she says in a small voice. “But I punished her for it. I cut her off. I’d like her to know that I love her. That even though I don’t agree with her choices, I still love her.”

“She knows,” I say.

Then the glow of my watch illuminates the end of the bridge. “We made it,” I say. “I can see the other side. There’s a ledge and another passage.”

“Thank you God.”

The last few feet to the ledge seem to take hours. Waiting for Veronica to make it to the ledge seems even longer. When we’re both off the bridge we move away from the wall.

We sit with our backs to the wall taking deep, slow breaths. My heart slows and the sting in my shins fades.

“Alright,” I say, “It’s time for you to share what theories on life you’ve changed.”

She moves closer and presses her arm and legs against mine.

“I thought you’d forget.”

“Not a chance.”

She leans into me and draws her knees up. “I’ll tell you as we take on the next tunnel?”

“Deal,” I say.

We collect a few stones and make a cairn at the entrance to the tunnel then I lead the way in. This tunnel is about seven feet tall and five feet wide. I keep the dim glow of my watch lit and move carefully over the jutting rocks and stalagmites. We’re getting thirsty, so every so often we stop at a dripping stalactite and try to catch drops of water. The water drizzles into my mouth and tastes strongly of limestone and minerals.

“I had a theory for most my life,” Veronica says. “That there are two types of men.”

“Am I going to like this theory?”

She laughs. “Doubtful. But you’re the reason I’ve started rethinking things. You, well, and my best friend’s husband, but mostly you…you’re proving it wrong.”

I turn back to her, but can’t see anything but her outline.

“What’s the theory?” I ask.

“That all men in the world are either players or wanna-be players. There’s no other type.”

Surprise hits me and I trip over a stalagmite and catch myself on the wall.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She’s concerned for me. Dang it, of course she’s concerned. She thinks I broke her theory of players and wanna-be players. Me. The King of Players.

“I’m…yeah. I’m good.” I right myself and keep moving forward. “So, you, ah, changed your mind?”

“I did. Well, sort of. I mean, players and wanna-be players still exist. But, I mean, you’re not…look at you, well don’t look because it’s pitch dark, you know what I mean, but look at you. You had only one girlfriend, your wife, and she cheated on you, and then you…you’re decent and smart and…I was wrong. I admit it. It just took getting trapped down here with a good man to realize it. So, I’m probably going to have to amend my theory to make room for good men.”

My watch light fades and the darkness pressing down on me feels strangely similar to guilt. There are no secrets here, that was our deal. She doesn’t know who I am. I have to tell her.

“My theory started with my dad,” she says. “He used to take me with him when I was little to help him pick up women. You know, the cute little girl, sad single dad routine. Except he and my mom were still married. But he didn’t care. For years I watched him pick up women. I saw all his moves, learned it like a playbook. After he died, my mom and I found his little black book, it had almost a thousand names in it. I was there for nearly half of them.”

My throat burns. I feel hurt for the child she was, that a father would do that. “I’m sorry,” I say thickly. “That was…”

“Horrible of him. Super crappy. I know.”

“It was wrong. I’m sorry.” We’re quiet for a moment, then, “Not all men are like that.”

“Unfortunately, the men I dated were. I saw them use all the pick-up moves I knew so well. I saw it when they dated my friends, I saw it at bars, in movies. It seemed like they were everywhere. I never met a guy that could prove my theory wrong. Until you.” She seems happy, almost pleased with her discovery. “I guess, if I get out of here, I should rethink my stance.”

“Or stick with me,” I say. Then I hear her stop walking and I realize that she’s surprised. So am I. I didn’t think before saying it, the words just came out.

“That’s a thought,” she says.

We start walking again. There’s a short climb, a few natural stairs. I reach down to help but Veronica has already boosted herself up. A heavy weight is settling over me. I have to tell her.

“I didn’t…” I stop.

“What?”

I clear my throat. “After I got divorced, I dated a lot of women.”

“Okay?”

“I was trying to prove my ex-wife wrong. Or right. When she’d said no one would want me. I wanted to wipe away what she’d said, I…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. My best friend was cheated on, it took her a long time to feel that she was worthy again. If you had to go on a few dates to get there, that’s your business.”

“I mean it was a little more than a few.”

She laughs. “Alright, fine. You can call yourself a player or a wanna-be player. But I don’t think you really are.”

“Thank you,” I say. “You’re right. I’m not.”

“Good.”

She reaches toward me and grabs my hand.

Another six hours pass. We come to forks and turns, and leave cairns and arrows every time we take a new route. It’s lucky we do, because I’ve lost count of the number of dead ends. We turn around and try another route and another. The pressure of the darkness increases and every so often we hear noises. Scratching, thumping, rustling. But we never see any life. No sign of it. Just noises in the dark.

At eight o’clock we stop and drink as much water as we can stomach from a dripping stalactite. We’re in a small room, about eight feet in circumference. It leads into a small passage. It looks like it’ll be another crawl.

“Can we stop and rest?” Veronica asks.

“Good idea.”

I find a clear dry area and brush away the bits of gravel and broken rock. I sit down and Veronica sits and leans into me. Over the past hours we’ve talked about everything and nothing. Her business, her friends, her soon-to-be born goddaughter, her fears and her ambitions, how much she loves small towns and the outdoors. I’ve told her about my childhood in the city, my family, where I’ve traveled, my worries and my goals. The more we talk, the faster time moves. I feel like I know her better than I’ve ever known anyone. I think if we do die, she has her wish. She won’t die with a stranger, she’ll have a friend.

I reach out and take her hand. She leans her head against my shoulder.

“We could try to sleep,” I say.

“I don’t know if I could.”

I lean back to the ground. The cold of the rock seeps through my clothes. I take Veronica and pull her on top of me. “Here. I’m warmer.”

She relaxes against me, puts her hands on my chest and rests her head on my shoulder. Warmth spreads between us and I start to think about the kiss we shared before the bridge. I wrap my arms around her back and pull her closer. I rest my head against hers and close my eyes.

After a few minutes of silence, when I think she’s almost fallen asleep she shifts and lifts her head.

“It’s funny,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“I was thinking about pick-up lines. The ones where the guy says, ‘I feel like I’ve known you forever,’ or ‘no one understands me but you,’ or ‘I wanted you from the first day I knew you.’ You know those lines?”

“Yeah. I do.” I’d just been thinking them.

“I never thought I’d ever feel that way. That I’d know exactly what they’re saying.” She drops her head back to my shoulder. “Do you know what I mean?” she asks.

I feel her heart beat softly against my chest and the length of her along my body. She feels as if she belongs there, like we’ve lain like this a thousand nights before and we’ll keep doing it far into the future. She fits me.

“I know exactly what you mean,” I say.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’ve known each other years instead of a day.

She nods and her fingers splay over my chest. “Funny thing, I was in the woods this morning because my best friend’s aunt, she’s psychic, predicted my soul mate. She’s never wrong and she predicted the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.”

A sharp pain hits me in the chest. I shift Veronica in my arms. “You were going to meet him?”

“Heck no. I was running. The guy’s a sleaze. The worst sort of creep. You have no idea.”

“I hate him,” I say jokingly. But I do. I’m insanely jealous of a guy I’ve never met. Her supposed soul mate.

“You’re nothing like him. He uses women like they’re disposable. He’s conceited. Arrogant. I’d rather sit in this cave for a decade than be with him.”

“That bad?”

“Trust me. This guy is the epitome of a player. There’s no way I’d ever be with him.”

I smile. I’m starting to feel better. Clearly, there’s no need to be jealous. Besides… “You realize psychics are scientifically improbable? So, you really don’t need to worry.”

She laughs into my chest. “Bless your heart. Miss Erma, the soul mate seer, has a record of success thicker than the Bible. She’s been at this for decades and she’s never been wrong.”

Dang it. I’m back to being jealous of the player.

“Except, the joke’s on Erma because it’s likely we won’t get out of here. So, no soul mate for me.”

I don’t like that. “Hey. You’re the one who said survival is eighty percent mental. No more of that talk. I’ll get you out of here.” Even if it means delivering her to the conceited, egotistical player.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she says. I smile, because her confidence is back.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t be with him. Not ever. I promise.”

“Yeah?” I ask. I’m not sure why the answer means so much. Except, when she braces her hands on the ground and moves her mouth over mine I realize I actually do know why.

“Promise,” she says. “I’d rather be right here with you than with him.”

I don’t like her mentioning him, because her breath hitches and her voice catches. So I lean up and kiss the sound of him from her lips and replace him with me.