I'd Kiss You Goodbye If I Thought It Would Make You Stay

“Permanent jetlag, please take me back. Please take me back.” - Fall Out Boy

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“You can stay in here,” William says, setting my suitcase near the door and my duffel bag on the bed in his guest room.

“Thanks, Bill,” I reply, hugging him gratefully. It feels nice to be back in Chicago, although I try not to remember how I could walk around in tank tops back in L.A., and here I need a sweatshirt meanwhile the wind’s messing up my hair.

“No problem. I’ll let you get settled,” he smiles, leaving and closing the door behind him.

I sigh, unzipping my bag and taking out clothes to fill the drawers.

I look up in surprise as I hear the bathroom door opening.

And...it’s…him.

He’s humming a little, wet hair sticking to his face and towel slung low around his waist, and I can’t move and I’m thinking things I shouldn’t be, but he’s so perfect, and I haven’t seen him in six months and I miss his voice and I miss his hair and I miss his smile and I miss his blue eyes his green eyes his blue-green eyes- I never could decide what color they are- and I even miss his tattoos, and how pathetic is that?

He finally looks up to see me standing there, and he freezes.

I feel my breathing coming quicker, and I’m starting to silently panic, and then I think I might be hallucinating, because it’s not possible that he’s here, and he can’t be here, so I’m probably crazy, but then I feel I should say something to make sure, because hallucinations don’t talk, right?

I’m not sure how many minutes or seconds have passed, but we’re still staring, and I still can’t force anything to come out of my mouth.

“Rae,” he says finally, running a hand through his hair. “How…how are you?”

And his accent actually hurts my ears, because it just proves that he’s here, right in front of me, of all things, in a towel, and he’s real, so I’m not crazy, but I kind of wish I was, because then he’d be back in Australia and I’d be my insane self here.

But he’s not halfway around the world, he’s here, and it’s killing me, but he’s waiting for an answer, only I don’t know what to say.

So I lie.

“Fine. Good. Great,” I fib, finally composing myself enough to spit out a few words.

And then I can’t take it anymore, it’s too claustrophobic when we’re in the same room, and I’m running, I’m out of there, and I’m running. I run past William in the kitchen, and he calls after, but I ignore him and run straight out the front door.

I run until I feel like I’m going to pass out and I sit on a bench near the bus stop, and Bill pulls up to the curb, and he’s giving me this look that says let me help you.

And I want to cry because it’s the same look that everyone gives me these days.

I instinctively scratch at my tattooed wrist, as if it will help me erase him from my arm as well as my stupid heart.