In six months, Gwen Johnston turns thirty, and when she does, she vows she'll have her life together. She'll no longer be jumping from one job to another, from one relationship to the next. A new, more mature, Gwen will have emerged. She's giving he...
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We've snagged a window seat in the restaurant of my hotel that overlooks the falls. A lucky find, much like me coming across her. After I'd gone to her hotel with no luck and my texts had gone unanswered, I'd been terrified I'd never see her again. That I'd spend the rest of my life messaging every Gwen Johnston in the world trying to find her.
I'd even logged into my social media accounts to try to locate her, but she must not use her own name for those, and we have no mutuals in common to even narrow the search. Futile and frustrating.
The flood of relief that rushed over me when I saw her against the railing will stay with me for the rest of my life. Even in the dense crowd, I still somehow ended up next to her. A sign, maybe, that being distant hasn't stopped something from budding between us.
To have her sitting across from me with her wine filled water bottle perched on the edge of the table feels like a gift, as though fate is winking at me. I might never have seen her again, but instead, we're here.
When we get to Newfoundland, I'll have to deliver her to the airport and we'll go on with our lives, but I'm hopeful we can still keep in touch, that our parting won't have to be a line drawn in the sand like this one was.
After two of the longest nights of my life, I'm going to let her open a door. Not sure I'm ready to throw them all open, but I heard what she said. My default setting is guarded, has been since I was a kid, what with the upbringing, or rather lack of upbringing I had, my walls have been the best way to keep myself together.
But when I called Angela last night to check in, she must have heard something in my voice because she asked how Gwen was, and I admitted we'd gone our separate ways at my suggestion. Angela accused me of sealing myself off from people with emotional concrete. I denied it, but when I make eye contact with Gwen, and I see the wariness in her normally sparkling brown eyes, I suspect Angela is correct.
"Ask whatever you want," I say after the waitress takes our drink orders.
She stares at me for so long I'm not sure she's going to ask anything when she says, "Blake hired a doppelganger. That's the only explanation for that open invitation." She wags her finger at me, and then she leans across the table. "You don't go from not even telling me why we're not traveling together to "Hey, Gwen, I'm an open book, isn't this cool?" in like two days."
"That's a fair response," I admit.
"Now that sounds like you," she says, leaning back. "Color me confused. Blake. Doppelganger. Blake. Doppelganger." She spreads her hands out, palms up, and pretends to be weighing something.
"How much wine did you have?"
"A whole bottle. It was fantastic. I think part of the groveling might involve alcohol. Enough for me to forget that you ever tried to ditch me."
I wince at her need to dull her feelings with alcohol. That's not a road I'd recommend anyone go down. My instinct is to tell her I didn't ditch her, but that would be a blatant lie.
