want to fail, Arlo. I want to be the kind of person who can step into a situation—any situation—and do what needs to be done. I mean, you’ve always known I have a huge fear of failure. And look at me now—marching into the center ring, pretty much without a clue. For me, this is really pushing the envelope, as they say. And while the whole you and me relationship thing is off the table, I need to be able to depend on you to help me, or at least point me in the right direction so I can figure it out myself.
“Even though being here and doing what I’m about to do scares me, I don’t want to take the easy way out.” Like giving in and going with him when she’d always known the life he led would make her miserable. Oh, she’d weighed the decision, for months. Made the mental pros and cons list. But in the end one thing had always tilted out of proportion to everything else—to be the best doctor she could be meant she had to be satisfied with her lifestyle.
What Arlo offered would never satisfy her. And, sure, maybe that was the leaning of the materialistic girl in her, but it was something that couldn’t be overlooked. Layla had lost sleep over it, paced a rut in the carpet, bitten her nails to the quick, trying to figure out how to change herself, but, in the end, even her feelings for Arlo hadn’t been strong enough to bring that about. Sadly, that was the answer. If she’d loved him enough, she should have been able to make the necessary changes in herself. But she couldn’t, which meant she hadn’t.
“Nope. You never were easy, and you never took the easy way out.”
Arlo was decked out in tan cargo shorts and a faded navy blue T-shirt with the Voltaire saying on it: The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. He looked like he belonged here. Layla was glad for him because she’d never really found that yet—a place where she belonged.
Working with Ollie in his hospital was good, and she liked it. But did she love it? She wanted to, but because there seemed to be such a long distance between like and love, she wondered if love could really exist—for what she did, or for the person she might spend her life with. The bottom line was she didn’t know. Wasn’t even sure she knew what love was.
“Maybe not being easy was some of my charm?”
“You had many charms, Layla. Trust me, you had more charm than you ever gave yourself credit for.”
“You’re just saying that because I was... convenient.”
“You were a lot of things, but convenient was never one of them.” He chuckled. “Even if I hadn’t been raised in the jungle where I really didn’t have much of an opportunity to get to know women, I’d have never called you convenient. Not in anything.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“There were many, many times I took it as a frustration. But it’s who you were. Maybe still are. And, yes, it is a compliment because I did like your independence. It made you different from the others.”
“Ah, yes. All the girls chasing after jungle boy. You did have your fair share, didn’t you?”
“None who could hold my attention the way you did.”
“Do you have someone now, Arlo? Are you married, or otherwise committed? I mean, I think Ollie might have told me, but you know how he is, the way he keeps as much to himself as possible. And I think he’s gone out of his way not to mention you because, well—you know. It was awkward.”
“There’s no one. I did see someone in Bangkok for a while after I got back, but it didn’t work out. She wanted attention all the time, and I didn’t often have time to get there to give it to her. And she wouldn’t come here. Eventually, she got to be very clingy, then demanding, when I refused an offer in one of the hospitals there. She’d set it up, assuming I’d take it but, well—you know me. You can take the jungle doc out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the jungle doc. I didn’t conform enough for her and I certainly didn’t want her to assume she could control me with a good job offer.”
Arlo shook his head. “We lasted six long, difficult months then she met someone who could—and eventually did—give her all the things she wanted that I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not. She did much better than me. Besides, it’s the story of my life. I can’t bring anything to a relationship but me. I’ve got no money. Where I live—well, you’ll see that for yourself. I don’t own things. I work ridiculous hours. It wouldn’t be fair of me to expect anybody to live that life, and it wasn’t fair of me back then to ask you to, then end it the way I did, when you told me all the reasons you couldn’t. At the time I was so...angry. Eventually I realized that anger was disappointment, and not in you. But in myself for expecting that I could ever have any kind of real relationship in my life since I have nothing to offer.”
“You have yourself. If someone loves you, that should be enough.”
“But that’s not enough, Layla. You know it and I know it. But I made this choice, it was a promise to my mother. Now a lot of people depend on me. And if not me...there’s nobody.”
Layla shook her head as well. “I almost got myself into something once, but it’s a long, complicated story. Girl on rebound meets wrong boy, mistakes his overtures for true love, boy tries to change girl to fit his mold, girl’s not the type to bend into anybody’s mold. In the end not a heartbreaker so much as an eye-opener and a huge caution that I’m better sticking to something where my heart doesn’t get involved.” And the last sentence of it went something like: Besides, he didn’t measure up to Arlo. But Arlo didn’t need to know that.
“Sorry to hear that. Even sorrier that I had a part in it.”
She forced a sad smile to her face. “The truth is, I don’t know what love is, Arlo. I recognize the kind my parents gave me—more obligatory love than the genuine thing. And don’t get me wrong. They’ve spent a lifetime trying hard, not always getting it right, but trying. Which, I suppose, is love in some variation. At least the only way they knew how to give it. Then there’s what I felt for you, which came with a time limit. I thought if I ignored it, it would magically disappear. Then Brad... I don’t get it right, or don’t do something right. Not sure which.”
“Your parents you can’t help. With me—us—the boundaries were there before we...” He swallowed hard. “Before we turned our friendship into something it wasn’t meant to be. And with Brad, everybody makes that mistake sooner or later. The rebound affair. That’s what I had with Gayle, I suppose. Someone to fill in the gaps.”
“Then you were rebounding from me even though we weren’t...”
“Readjusting,” he said.
“I like that. And maybe that’s what I was doing...readjusting.” Readjusting to life after Arlo. Yet here she was, the one place she didn’t belong given the feelings for him she’d had. But this time she was prepared. At least, she hoped she was. Because she needed to close this chapter. Even after all this time. “So, now that we know each other’s biggest mistakes, how about showing me your hut?”
“Are you sure you’d actually stay with me after...”
“Just consider it like sleeping in on-call. Remember those days during our residency after long, hard hours where you barely had time to eat, let alone sleep, when any bed would do as long as the person occupying the bed next to you didn’t snore?” She paused for a moment, and
