Love Like Theirs

“No,” Keira told him, soft but firm. “It’s not about that. I’m not waiting to forgive you. I just don’t… I don’t want you like that. But we can be friends.”

“Sure,” Zach said, gazing at his feet. “We can be friends.”

Keira led a dejected Zachary from Bryn’s house. Self-pity certainly wasn’t going to help his case. She hoped he’d bounce back soon enough, and learn that he hadn’t really blown it with her, they just weren’t right, and that there’d be some other woman out there who was right for him.

As soon as she closed the door, Bryn hurried out of the bedroom.

“Sis!” she exclaimed, raising a hand for a high five. “That was awesome!”

Keira felt the edges of her lips twitch up. She clapped Bryn’s hand. “It was?”

“Yes! You totally held your own.” Bryn slung an arm around Keira’s shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine on this assignment, I know you are.”

Keira smiled, feeling filled with strength and resolve. Bryn was right. She was going to smash this assignment.

CHAPTER SIX

Bright and early the next morning, Keira received a grumpy call from the real estate agent saying the paperwork was ready for her to sign. Relieved, Keira hurried to her office and scribbled her name on the lease, before racing off for the airport.

Her head was spinning so much from having to rapidly sort things out, that it was only as she plopped herself into her seat on the airplane that it really sank in where she was and what was going on. At least this felt familiar to her now, being on a plane. It was nowhere near as intimidating as it once had been. For the first time, Keira felt much more positive about the future.

She couldn’t help but recall how the last time she’d boarded a plane Cristiano had been in the seat beside her. She could still remember the thrilling excitement she’d felt as they neared New York City, and the way his eyes had widened at the sight of a million lights below. That was all gone now. All she had left now were the memories. And for the first time since she’d ended things with Cristiano, her memories of him no longer stung. The thorny layer that had been around them before, causing her pain any time she tried to touch them, had finally gone.

She thought of the text from Cristiano’s new girlfriend, the one she’d been agonizing over. It felt so stupid to her now to have been that worked up over him seeing someone else. Of course it didn’t mean their relationship had meant nothing to him, it just meant that he was moving on with someone new.

The plane took to the skies, and the sensation of soaring made her stomach flip. Being so high above the world made her feel so free, so bold and independent. She smiled to herself and looked in her carry-on bag for the details of the upcoming cruise.

Heather had outdone herself this time. The itinerary was laminated. Probably as an attempt to mitigate against Keira’s tendency to spill coffee and fall off gondolas into canals. Heather had also bound the pages. It reminded Keira of something she would have produced in college, and she smirked to herself.

Keira flicked straight past the pages of important contact numbers – noting with a wry smile the empty space where a tour guide’s name and number would normally be – and skipped straight to the juicy details of the cruise. She’d hardly had time to get her head around the fact she was going on a cruise, that she’d be on a huge boat in the open sea. It would be a brand new experience for her. Her stomach leapt with anticipation. She glanced through the list of locations: Copenhagen, Denmark. Helsinki, Finland. Stockholm, Sweden.

Heather wasn’t one for adornment and there were no pictures included to further whet Keira’s appetite —too expensive to print in color, she thought in Heather’s voice – so she took her tablet from her bag and began to search online.

The images were stunning. Unlike the European cities she’d visited thus far, the buildings in the Scandinavian countries were different, peaked like alpine lodges. And there were vast swaths of countryside, beautiful evergreen trees, lakes of deep blue, and craggy mountains. She could hardly sit through the rest of the plane ride; she wanted to be there now!

Napping was always a good way to pass the time, so Keira settled into her airplane seat and let herself drift off to sleep.

She dreamed she was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the ocean, deep blue and calm. Through the waves she saw a school of dolphins, jumping up before disappearing again. She watched, amazed, as they leaped in strange formations. It was almost like they were dancing, or performing synchronized routines for her. As though trying to impress her.

Keira noticed something peculiar about the dolphins then, about their faces. Even from this distance, she could make out their strangely human expressions, and the varying shades of their eyes. One had the same piercing blue eyes of Shane, and his crooked, cheeky smile to match. Another had deep chocolate eyes, a softness in its expression that reminded her of Cristiano. Yet another had a lost expression, with a look of mourning and regret behind its eyes. Zachary.

No sooner had she made these connections than their graceful acrobatics transformed into something new. Not a coordinated routine anymore, but something aggressive. A display of masculinity. The Cristiano dolphin plowed headfirst into the Zachary one, busting his nose, or snout, or whatever it was called on a dolphin. The Zachary one hit back, swishing his tail at both Cristiano and Shane. Shane just stood on the back of his tail, flapping his great flippers like this was all a huge joke. Then they piled in on one another, ripping shreds from one another as she watched on horrified, the blue ocean turning red before her eyes.

She tried to call out, “Stop! It’s not a competition!” But her voice was drowned out by the winds.

Then a new danger took her focus. Racing through the waves toward the sparring dolphins was an enormous whale. She didn’t know who this whale was, a stranger, but he moved with purpose and killer determination. Her dolphin-exes were so busy attacking one another they didn’t even notice the whale approach until it was on top of them. In one huge mouthful, the whale ate all three dolphins up. Then it disappeared beneath the waves, making a whirlpool as it went, leaving nothing behind but bloody water to show anything had ever happened there.

Keira startled awake. She was sweating, and her neck was stuck in a painful position. She rubbed it, adjusting to the brightness of the cabin, to the smells and sounds of the airplane in flight around her; rustling chip packets, the merry chatter of excited vacationers, the whirr of powerful engines. Finally coming back to herself, Keira began to chuckle.

What a strange mind she had! To turn her exes into dolphins like that. But she wondered who the whale signified. Not a new boyfriend, she assured herself. That wasn’t the plan, not at all. She decided the whale signified her career, the way she was going to put it first and forget all traces of her ex-boyfriends in order to excel. There was no rebound affair on the horizon. At least, that was the plan…

CHAPTER SEVEN

Keira landed in Berlin, Germany – where the ship would be embarking from – several hours later. Her mind hadn’t quite gotten over the hilariously strange dream it had shown her on the airplane, and it took a bit of concentration to switch focus to the real world.

She maneuvered through Berlin Tegel Airport, collecting her case and following the signs that she hoped were taking her to the exit. It felt good to be on her own this time. No guide to show her around, or take any of the responsibility off her shoulders. This time it was just her, and it made her feel powerful.

She made it out of the airport and hailed a cab. The driver was in his fifties or so, with graying hair and a stern expression. But his attitude was far friendlier than his fierce expression would have indicated.

“You’re going on the Scandinavian cruise?” he asked in perfect English and just the smallest hint of an accent.

“I am.” Keira beamed. “I’m so excited.”

“I’d love to go one day,” he said. “It’s a bit too expensive for a taxi driver though. Do you mind me asking your profession?”

“Oh, I’m a writer,” Keira told him. “This is all paid for by the company.”

“You’re very lucky,” he said. “What do you write?”

“Travel articles. Well, sort of. They’re a bit of a mixture. Travel and romance.”

From the back seat, Keira saw his reflection in the rearview mirror as he raised his eyebrows.

“Travel and romance?”

“I know, it sounds strange. But it’s more like personal accounts of the countries and my experiences within them, with dating and trying new things, meeting new men. It’s a bit of a mishmash but I’m starting to get a loyal following.”

“Weird question,” he said. “You don’t write for that Latin-sounding magazine, do you? Viaduct, or whatever?”

“Viatorum,” she told him, a little surprised he’d have heard of her New York City publication all the way over in Germany. But then again, they also e-published and anyone in the world could access the content online. “Have you heard of it?”

“My wife loves it,” he said, with an air of frustration. “You’re the one on the cover, aren’t you? I recognize your face now.”

The cover. With Cristiano. Keira groaned. She’d known at the time the image would come to haunt her one day, but she’d let Nina and Elliot have their way. She regretted it now.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said, hunkering down defensively.

“It’s your fault I’m taking her to Paris for her birthday,” he said, jovially, in spite of the complete discord with his stern face. “Great, she’ll want a cruise next. You’re going to bankrupt me.”

“Sorry about that,” Keira mumbled.

She gazed out the window, trying to switch her focus from the somewhat awkward conversation to the sight of a new, foreign city passing her by.

Berlin was stunning. Keira had heard about the city reinventing itself and moving on from its troubled history, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite this vibrant and artsy. It seemed very youthful and cosmopolitan, like the quirkier parts of New York exemplified.

Her driver must have noticed her staring, because he said, “We’ll be passing by a part of the wall soon.”

Keira hadn’t been sure whether she’d get a glimpse of the wall that had once divided East and West Berlin, splitting families apart and cleaving the city by political affiliation. She shuddered now as it came into view, a crumbled relic that the German people had torn down with their very hands. Mallory had watched the momentous occasion on the news, and it was a moment of triumph in history she seemed privileged to have witnessed. Keira felt humbled by the sight of it and took a photo with her cell phone in order to show Mallory when they were reunited at Christmas.