'Andi!'
I hurried faster, trying to find my Jeep through my tears.
'Andi! Stop!'
I pulled my keys out of my pocket, trying to find the right key to unlock the door.
'Why are you running from me?' I turned, seeing Haley running toward me, just in the pant suit she’d worn for work. Finally she stopped, standing at the back of the car, her face red from the exertion and the cold, and filled with confusion. 'What happened? Why are you crying?' She took a step forward, but stopped, apparently seeing something on my face that made her unsure.
'When were you going to tell me, Haley?' I asked, my voice deathly calm and quiet, though my eyes still burned from tears shed, and those waiting in the wings.
'Tell you what?'
'That you’re leaving! You’re going back to California. Goddamn you, Haley. How could you do this to me?' I turned back to my car, again, attempting to find the right key, even as my hands continued to tremble. 'I can’t do it again, Haley. Not only can’t I, I won’t,'
'Come with me.'
My head jerked up, my heart in my throat. She looked like she was on the verge of tears herself.
'What?'
'Come with me, back to California, Andi.' She took a step closer. I could only stare. 'Please? I’ve found you, gotten you back into my life, and damn if I can imagine you out again.' She took a deep breath, quickly swiping at her eye, then looking at me again, taking a small step forward.
'Why didn’t you tell me?' I asked, my voice quiet, defeated.
'Do you know how many times, how many ways I tried to ask? Do you think all my questions about you ever seeing, or being interested in seeing California were arbitrary? Andi, I wanted you to come with me.'
I finally turned to face her fully, my hurt and fear being covered by anger. Always my weapon of choice.
'Why? So I could live down the street from you? We could have our Saturday nights? What, can’t live without my baking?' Her eyes narrowed, tears springing to them.
'Why are you saying these things? Andi, I’m trying to offer you a life with me in it. Do you want that? Because from everything you’ve said and done thus far, I’m sorry, but that was certainly the impression I got.'
'I do want you in my life, Haley! But on whose terms? Yours? I can’t go as your boy toy to take out and play with when you want, and then tuck nicely back into my own little house when you don’t.'
'Is that what you think of me?' she asked, taking the final step that separated us, bringing our foreheads so they were nearly touching. 'Is that all you think I’m capable of, Andi?'
'What are you capable of?' I closed my eyes, fearing my heart would pound out of my chest. Haley was silent for a moment, then she let out a deep breath, shaking her head.
'I don’t know.'
I sighed, taking a step back, finally getting my key in the door, turning the lock.
'Please, at least think about it.' I glanced at her. She was looking at me with pleading eyes. 'Okay?' All I could do was nod. I climbed into the Jeep, and closed the door, shutting out the cold, shutting out Haley, shutting out the world.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I stopped just before turning onto the major street. Turning left would take me toward home. I quickly flicked the right turn signal, and headed out.
As I drove, I fought the tears, but it was a losing battle. I let them come.
She wanted me to go with her. But to what end? Leave my home, my family, my daughter, my career? Sure, there were labs up in California, I knew that, but all that I had built here in the past ten years. All I had accomplished, the awards I’d won.
But then there was Haley. My whole life, no one had been able to affect me as she did, no one could claim they had won me over, or opened my heart. Some sick part of me relished the fact that no one had been able to break me.
But then there was Haley.
She rocked my world every single day in one way or another. Damn, even now as I thought about her, my stomach began to dance, my heart singing along, and the corners of my mouth automatically turning up.
It often made me think of Bunsen. No matter how much trouble he’d gotten into that morning, because he’d torn something up in the night, or had decided to make the kitchen floor his personal latrine, he always had a wagging tail, and a lick or twenty for me. Such was the way of Haley. In my eyes she could do no wrong.
The sun was beginning to peek out from between the clouds, and its light reflecting off the snow was too much. I pulled down my visor to grab my sunglasses from where they were clasped, and I stopped, seeing Kendall’s fourth grade picture where I’d tucked it under a rubber band. She was smiling at me, her green eyes bright with youth and innocence.
I pulled the Jeep to the side of the road, and took the picture out, staring at it. The girl was so young, only ten. I trusted Vince and Michelle Torrini as much as I trusted my own mother. I knew Kendall was in good hands, or I never would have left her there. She’d be taken care of well, just as she had already been for the first decade of her life.
There were ways to see her often, and Haley loved her. She’d have no problem with Kendall visiting.
I closed my eyes, setting the picture aside, and putting my hands on the wheel. What is this 'we' bullshit? Haley has said nothing about a we. She’d only said that she wanted me to come with her. What the hell does she want from me? What are her intentions?
God, I hate being confused.
I walked down the hall, headed to the lab. I knew my eyes were red from lack of sleep, and though I hated to admit it, more crying. Damn those ducts. If they didn’t serve an actual bodily function, I’d have them removed.
I had done a lot of thinking last night, a whole shit load of pacing, making my dog dizzy as he sat on his haunches, watching the crazy human walk back and forth, back and forth.
No conclusions had managed to be reached as of yet, but I knew that it was only fair I give her an answer soon.
Pushing it all aside for now, I pushed open the door to the lab, and was immediately met by Samantha.
'Andi, thank god you’re here. Disaster last night.'
'What?' Alarmed, I threw my wallet and keys onto the nearest work table, and followed my colleague over to the test read-offs. I searched through the numbers, trying to find the problem. 'Why did this happen?'
'The cooler gave out over night. The one with the sample in it.' I looked up at her, eyes narrowed.
'No,' I breathed. She nodded. She looked like she was about to cry. 'Hang on, let me think. Where is it?' She hurried to the back of the lab where she’d placed the Petri dish to keep it safe. I grabbed it, quickly taking it to the nearest microscope and zooming in on it. It couldn’t happen this way. There was just no way.
'We’ve got to hurry, Andi. The other freezing units are losing temperature, too.'
'You’re kidding?' I looked at her, she shook her head.
'I only wish.'
'Fuck.' I stood. 'This one’s too far gone. 'Check the others.'
I hurried back to my office, my blood on fire. Grabbing the phone, I punched the extension of Dr. Bill Johns, the supervisor of the wing.
'Dr. Johns,' came the smooth, calm voice. Not what I needed to hear.
'You need to get your ass on the phone, and get us some new cooling units with the money we were promised at the beginning of the year, Johns,' I raged. This had been an ongoing problem, our equipment dying out long before its time, even though all the labs had been promised a budget increase at the beginning of our fiscal year, which all of us had yet to see.
'Excuse me?'
'This is Dr. Andrea Littman, and you just cost us about a thousand man hours, and a million dollars in research, doctor. Our cooling units have failed for the third time in the last six months.' I could feel my emotions building, the situation with the lab, and Haley building into one massive ball of ‘oh shit.’
