Julie looked out the window of the airplane and felt both giddy and nauseous. "Am I insane?" she wondered for the fiftieth time that day. "What if he hates me? What if throws me off his verandah? What if he's indifferent, and doesn't even care that I've come?" Julie posed one absurd question after another, partly to draw out her unspoken fears, and partly to prepare herself for the worst.
It had been just over a year since she'd last spoken to Aaron, and it still made her wince with pain to remember that evening. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance lasting only six months, but it was more intense than anything she'd ever experienced.
And they had never even laid eyes on each other.
She had met Aaron on the internet a year and a half ago, after stumbling upon some photographs he had posted on his web page. He was a professional photographer, and his pictures were captivating and beautiful; she had been so impressed that she wrote him a brief message, thanking him for posting and saying how much she liked them.
Surprisingly, he had written her back. Then she wrote again. Before the first week had passed, they were chatting back and forth many times a day like old friends, talking and laughing about everything, including sex.
They hadn't intended to fall in love.
Julie's thoughts were interrupted by an attendant's arm leaning across the passengers next to her and offering her the drink she'd ordered. Julie smiled politely and accepted the plastic cup and held it on her lap as she turned her gaze out the window at the blue sky once again.
By all accounts, Julie was what people would describe as "together." She was an attractive – many people had called her beautiful even – woman of thirty-two with long brown hair, fair skin, blue eyes and an eye-catching figure...full breasts, slim waist and a curve to her hips that, unbeknownst to her, made men want to come up behind her and press their cocks into her smooth, round ass.
But that hadn't happened to her in a long time.
She had married young, and it had been five years since her painful divorce. She'd given up on ever finding love again, not that she'd been looking. The handful of men brave enough to approach her were nicely but coolly refused. She had secretly vowed to never be in a position to be hurt again like her divorce had done, so she simply refused to even take the risk.
Until eighteen months ago, that is. Even then, she had found herself in love with Aaron before she knew it was happening.
Their long-distance relationship was intimate and intense, more so than she would have thought possible. He was two years older than she was, and they spoke and laughed about anything and everything; she knew what he did every day, knew all about his family and his thoughts, and he knew as much about her.
She also knew what kind of a lover he was, from the countless times they'd made each other orgasm while speaking on the telephone, and sharing fantasies about being together someday, even spending the rest of their lives together.
And then that evening last year ended everything. It was a silly argument, really, and yet it resulted in him making an ultimatum he didn't quite mean to sound the way it did, her stubbornly refusing to be dictated to, and both of them saying that their relationship wouldn't work in the long run. That was how it ended.
Julie sipped her white wine and sighed, settling back into her seat as she remembered the last time she had contact with Aaron. She knew they were both simply scared. Scared of being hurt, of being rejected, and that's why they reacted the way they did sometimes, like a nervous cat ready to skitter away at the slightest fright.
The last year had been difficult and lonely. Outwardly, Julie was pleasant, bright, and laughed almost as much as ever, and was serious about her job as business manager of a large ambulance transport agency. She felt as if she was actually helping the community, and the interaction with patients and family members who had been helped was rewarding.
Inwardly, she still felt like she'd been punched in the stomach.
For weeks, she had been watching the calendar, knowing Aaron's birthday was approaching and wondering if he still missed her.
She'd daydreamed many times about visiting him in the little town where he lived on the east coast of Canada, studied the community's web site and had heard him describe the people and places often enough that she felt like she knew and already loved the area.
What wild hair made her actually book the long flight from the west coast state where she resided, she didn't know, but here she was sipping wine from a plastic cup and nervously wondering what would happen when she knocked on Aaron's door.
"What will I say? 'Happy Birthday, I'm here!' or should I phone him first?" Julie had asked herself those questions many times, but still had no answers.
A thought suddenly startled her. "What if he's married? What if he's living with someone?" Why hadn't that occurred to her before? She closed her eyes and felt the wave of nausea flood her.
"I'm such an idiot. What the hell am I doing?"
Julie swallowed another gulp of her wine and took a deep breath. It was too late to back out now, but at least she decided she had better call him on the telephone first, in case he wasn't alone.
************
It was a warm August afternoon and the cool breeze off the bay felt good on Julie's arms and legs as she stepped out of her rental car the next day in front of Weyville's one and only Inn, where she had made a reservation. She tried not to look around too noticeably at the surrounding houses; she knew Aaron's house was less than a block away from the Inn, and she wasn't ready to see it or him yet, or have him see her either.
She left her luggage but carried her purse and opened the front door into a small, friendly-looking room used as a lobby. A middle-aged woman looked at her from behind the table and smiled.
"Hi," Julie announced with a shy smile. "I'm Julie Eldridge. I have a reservation."
"Welcome to the Weyville Inn," the woman greeted warmly. "Oh yes, here it is. You've traveled a long way... did you have a nice trip?"
Julie made small talk with Rose, as she discovered her name was, assuring her that her flight was long but uneventful, and when Rose asked what brought her to Weyville, Julie was as evasive as possible without evoking too much curiosity. Julie knew it was probably uncommon to see a woman traveling to a place like this alone, but her natural reserve wouldn't allow her to mention her true reason for coming.
Besides, what would she say? "Uh, well...you see, I met this man on the internet who lives near here, and although we haven't spoken in a year, I just had to see him, and find out if he still loves and misses me..." Julie inwardly rolled her eyes at how that would sound. Rose would probably think she was a crazy stalker and call the police. Then she'd have to tell it to the judge. Cripes.
