Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📕

“You love all of them.”

“Good. Write it down so that you don’t forget. Carry it in your pocket. I loved you yesterday, I love you now, and I’ll love you in the morning. When I come home in five days, I’ll love you then, too, and I’ll tell you so to your face.”

“I . . .” His voice is raspy. “I cannot wait for that. Maybell, I love you so much, you have no idea. Every part of you. Everything.”

“I know you do.”

“Write it down,” he tells me.

We are both emotionally collapsed, so we hang up with the promise to talk again in a few hours after I land in Inverness, and then do another check-in after I make it safely to Beinn Dhearg, a B & B in Loch Ness.

Disconnected from his voice, I slowly inch back into my environment and reckon with the reality that not so long ago, we were on our first date. Now I am in the UK alone.

But.

And this is a but that Means Everything:

Somebody out there cares. Somebody out there loves me, every part of me. Everything.

[email protected]

YOU RECEIVED AN ECARD!

Wesley ([email protected]) has sent you an ecard from American Greetings:

You are a whaley special person!

VIEW ECARD

[email protected]

American Greetings: Here’s a copy of your ecard

Recipient: Wesley

Bzz bzz! You’re the bees’ knees!

VIEW ECARD

Maybell: Good morning! Still a little jet-lagged but first night at the b&b was pretty good. It is BEAUTIFUL here

Wesley: Well that’s because you’re there

Maybell: Awww Heading to the Dores Inn for a late lunch, then off to do some exploring. Will send you lots of pics! Prepare for your phone to be buzzing all day

Wesley: It feels weird to be here alone

Maybell: You’re never alone. I’m right there in your pocket.

Wesley:

Wesley: Very early here but I can’t sleep because I know you’re touring the highlands and isle of skye today. I looked up the weather and it’s supposed to be cold so please bring a jacket and plenty of water

Maybell: I’m going to need to buy another suitcase for the souvenirs I’m getting you. Don’t get your hopes up though because it’s mostly rocks and dirt

Wesley: My favorite

Maybell: Literally just glass jars with pebbles from Dores Beach, some interesting moss I found, and the tiniest wild yellow primrose with its roots intact

Maybell: I’m also taking notes. Copious notes. With terrible illustrations of local plants. I am a botanist now, basically

Wesley: No more, please, I can’t handle it. I am already a wreck of a person. What have you done

Maybell: Sorry

Wesley: No, you’re not

Maybell: Not at all, no

Wesley: Me neither. There’s still a little bit of me left if you want to destroy that too

Maybell: For your birthday I’ve decided to get you a sheep

Wesley: That’s it

Wesley: There’s nothing left

Maybell:

You ever think you were single for no reason and then you meet someone and realize you’ve been waiting for them without knowing it? I know I’m not the first to have this thought or to write it out. I’m sorry these words probably aren’t my own, because I want to give you original genius, but they’re the words that I feel and I wanted to share them with you.

Another evening in Loch Ness, and Wesley’s latest text is a heartbeat in my hand. I look down at his message, trying and failing yet again to come up with the deep, nuanced response it deserves. He thinks he’s alone in not being able to find the right words when he needs them, but he isn’t. Not even a little bit.

He makes me lose mine all the time, and all he has to do to accomplish that is be himself. His serious, darling, perfect self, whom I would not change a single thing about.

I am on a rocky shore overlooking a loch in the Scottish Highlands, yet another impossible-sounding statement I’ve made within the past couple of months. Life is starting to look less like going with the flow and more like steering the boat. Who knows where I might be a year from now? The possibilities are infinite.

I snap pictures: a boulder, clouds reflecting off the water, a tree. It’s been a long day of Loch Ness Monster searching, so I’m running low on new finds to capture on film and resort to artistic shots of my sneakers. Shadow puppets. An apple core that remains from my lunch.

I raise my camera phone to frame the dramatic panorama of mountain summits and valleys, swathed in mist. It’s a gray, gloomy day, with robust winds and a chill that leaches through my clothes, but perhaps this is the type of weather that will entice Nessie to pop her head above water. You never know.

“I won’t even take a picture of you,” I tell the water seriously. “I promise I’ll keep the secret. All I’m asking for is a look. One quick little glimpse.”

In my mind’s eye, the ballroom mural paints itself into the scene: the Felled Star pirate ship breaks through the water’s surface, crumpling in the iron grip of the kraken; the little trees with their soft brushstrokes appear one by one. Out of nothing arises the My May Belle.

The historic paddlewheel riverboat lazes by, my mother leaning on the balcony, calling hello with a white handkerchief. The water is deep green, sky a hot summer haze. Someone dressed in a red-striped suit from the Mark Twain days strums a banjo. A calliope plays. And a monstrous head rises out of the water, scales gleaming in waning daylight.

I take a picture of it all, the painted people, ships, and monsters, but my phone’s not advanced enough to pull them properly out of the nonphysical plane and they come out looking like water, like rocks and trees and sky.

My phone vibrates, the