Visitor

The rain pelted down onto the dark asphalt like water spilling from a basin: long, loud, and with a splash. It was pouring like a rushing waterfall. The roads were icy and glittered, the wet boulevards reflecting the lights of the late night establishments of the city. The air was extremely frigid. He could feel the arctic air wrap around him as if he were standing in a freezer. Puffs of mist blew from his lips and nose like cigarette smoke with every exhale of breath he made. His teeth were close to chattering behind his full, previously pink lips—they had become chapped and had turned an ugly blue color. His nose had turned a bright shade of red, his hands were shaking in the pockets of his coat, and his hair was dripping wet. East coast weather differed greatly from the West. Garrett Nickelsen learned that fast when he stepped out of the warm confines of the hotel he and his band were staying at for the night.

He pulled the collar of his black trench coat up and tucked the scarf closer to his neck. It didn’t do much to keep him the least bit warm, but he tried. He’d forgotten to take an umbrella; he hadn’t thought that he would be walking in the rain. But being him—and that in itself automatically meant him being a shit-luck kind of guy—he had left his wallet upstairs and hadn’t realized that until he was already four large blocks away from the Marriot they had gotten a couple rooms at. He was already wet, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was also already well into the evening and if he tried walking back, it would just be too late, Garrett had foolishly resolved in his head. He’d given himself a good kicking though when it started pouring. He could have damn well used his wallet to pay for a cab in this shit weather.

A half-hour walking in the rain, he thought about calling one of his band mates, but the thought was pushed away as fast as it had crossed his mind. He couldn’t call one of the guys. No, no, he couldn’t do that. He would never hear the end of it. They would have just yelled at him and they had already done a good job of that before he left. They were in D.C. for just one night on their current tour. One night only, and it should have been spent resting. It was their first day off on this tour. He and the guys had already walked around town, and they were due to leave for New York in the morning. There had been no plan to stay out late or go out of the way to see a shit girl, and they would say that to him—they had. But Garrett had to see her. He couldn’t not see her. So when the guys arrived back at the hotel he’d announced his plan to them, and their responses had been less than amused.

“No you’re not,” was the first thing Pat had said to him. He’d never approved of their relationship, but what right did he have to judge them? was what Garrett had instantly thought. He scowled and rolled his eyes, which in turn earned him a whack on the head.

The other boys’ reactions had been just as disapproving. “You’re an idiot if you go” and “Don’t be a stupid, little shit” were what John and Jared had blatantly told him, respectively. Moose had only complained that it was late and he shouldn’t be out when they had to leave at six AM the next day. That, however, still didn’t stop Garrett from walking out the door. He had just given them a mouthful of vulgar words before he slammed the door behind him, and moped down the hallway, muttering more curse words under his breath in frustration.

They just didn’t understand. They didn’t know what he had been going through. They’d never had a girl like her walk out of their lives. They’d never met a girl like her, a girl who could steal their hearts and pull them in just to rip them apart and leave them out in the open, vulnerable. Girls came and went and the boys just moved on, but Ria Hawthorne was one girl you didn’t just forget about. The thing was: she wasn’t just another one. To Garrett, Ria was the one. Garrett had loved her. God, had he loved her. He was hopeless, a wreck, a fucking mess over her. She was the one, the one he had fallen in love with, the one who had completely stolen his heart and made him ashamed to be called a man because Hell did she make him sound like a pansy with the way he felt about her. But he didn’t care. All he cared about was how he felt for her.

Ria and Garrett went way back; they had known each other since junior high. On the first day of seventh grade when he sat beside her in homeroom that fateful morning, Garrett knew Ria Hawthorne was the girl for him. At age twelve, she was already quite a beauty. Her chestnut hair was long and luscious, healthy and shiny—so smooth when he ran his fingers through it, he would later learn. And her eyes. If you had known him then, and now, you knew better than to mention her eyes to him. They were the lightest green he’d ever seen, he’d say. When she looked at him, it was like all his barriers were stripped away. The intensity of her stare was incredible. It was a mystery to him how they could hold such passion and simultaneously be the softest, kindest eyes he’d had the pleasure of knowing. Garrett remembered they were most beautiful when the morning sun was still low and near the horizon, when the sun’s rays reflected across her eyes and made them shine bright and a golden green color that he could have stared into for days on end.

She wasn’t just gorgeous. Ria had the voice of an angel. She was soft-spoken, but was quite eloquent. The way she spoke, she might as well have been singing, because it was music to Garrett’s ears. And she was a singer. She wrote songs all the time. For all four years of high school, she was in Chamber Singers, the head choir of the school. She sang in church and once had even sung with John, his band’s lead singer, during one of their shows. Her love for music was as great as his passion for it and that had been one the main factors that had brought them so close. She’d wanted to be in music, too, back then. Before she found her true calling in psychology, Ria had wanted to be a musician and perform in front of large crowds. She wanted to do what Garrett and his band had achieved of doing: tour across the country and sing for hundreds of people.

If her beauty or her voice and love for music hadn’t been what had stolen his heart, it was that she was just as big a nerd as Garrett was. They spent their lunches discussing their latest zombie apocalypse ideas and their afterschool hangout sessions at each others’ houses playing Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil on their Playstations for hours. She liked reading books, like Pride, Prejudice, & Zombies and Day by Day Armageddon. She knew The Zombie Survival Guide by heart and could have been an aspiring Jedi knight with the Star Wars knowledge she had. She had a collection of MARVEL comic books in pristine condition, and knew the stories and lives of all the superheroes from Batman to Superman to Spiderman to the X-Men. Most people would have said she was completely ridiculous and that her knowledge was useless shit, but the minute he found out she knew it all like it was her religion, he knew they must be meant to be.

For five years of their childhood, it was Ria and Garrett, Garrett and Ria, those two kids who were connected at the hip, obsessed with their zombies, and watched scary movies religiously. They were best friends—and although Garrett had helplessly wished they could have been more, he was okay with that. It was better that he knew her inside and out and her the same with him, than not knowing her at all and not being as close to her as he was. He foolishly thought they would be friends until they grew older; worse, he thought they would sooner or later fall in love, that she would realize what was standing in front of her this whole entire time. Thoughts of a life with Ria, of being in love and getting married, and spending an entire lifetime of happiness with a girl he was sure would make him the most lucky man on earth circulated through his naïve mind.

And Garrett still believed that, after all that had happened between them. Even after that summer before senior year when Ria cleaned up her ‘nerd, one-of-the-boys’ look and exchanged that for being one of the pretty, girly girls, Garrett still hoped that she hadn’t completely forgotten him. That she hadn’t actually thrown away five years down the drain because she had wanted to fit in and be popular. “It was a lost cause,” was what the guys always said. As much as they had loved Ria, too, they just couldn’t have that kind of faith in her that Garrett had. They couldn’t imagine her coming to terms with herself and going back to Garrett.

But Garrett kept at it. That’s why he was out walking in the pouring rain, that’s why he was stupid enough to not listen to his friends and leave when they told him he’d be a fool if he did.

He flicked his hair away from his eyes and ran a hand through his drenched copper hair. He was soaked head to toe, his clothes just dripping with moisture. The rain hadn’t stopped and his teeth had begun chattering, but he bit his lip and pretended he wasn’t freezing to death. He squinted through the rain at the tall building that stood before him, searching for the street number by the door. Looking at the five numbers placed haphazardly by the side of the apartment’s entrance, he glanced down at the identical numbers, smudged and messy, on the palm of his hand.

The building was a tall brick structure with one black fire escape running down one of its sides to an alley. The entry was an unlocked glass door that led into a rundown lobby with stained tiled floors and rusted mailboxes. The walls were an ugly off-white color with brown and black smudges spotting every surface of the room. A set of shabby furniture was placed at one corner to make it look more welcoming, but no one sane would dare sit on them. The mailboxes were dirty and rusted, like it was hard to open them, or even get the key into the hole. To the right of the many boxes that lined the wall was an old elevator that smelled of piss and cigarettes. It was slow and creaked, and as Garrett stepped inside, he found himself worrying and believing he’d just entered a large death trap.

With the sleeve of his jacket, he pressed the number ‘3’ and the button lit up. Then, he waited as the elevator slowly climbed, bouncing on the balls of his feet and running a hand nervously through his hair, all while holding his breath for as long as he could. His fingers drummed at his sides anxiously as he eyed the yellow spot on the floor with disgust, and he wished more and more that he could get out sooner.

On the third floor, the elevator dinged and finally opened. He literally jumped out when the doors began parting, and stumbled into a shabby hallway that smelled like sex and more cigarettes. He walked down the length of the hallway before he stopped in front of the last apartment, glancing back down at his hand to read the number that was also on the door he was standing before. His hands began twitching with uneasiness and he succumbed to his nerves for a second when he found himself walking back to the elevator. But he kicked himself in the gut and returned to the door, his heart pounding in his chest and his face contorted into a look that conveyed just how perturbed he felt.

He stood in front of that door for ten long minutes, cursing himself under his breath and pumping himself up, just trying to gain the courage to knock on the door and hope he didn’t look like an idiot. For a second, he wished he had just listened to the guys for once and not acted on impulse like he did so often. He also wished he didn’t have such shit luck—because then he wouldn’t have to worry that this would be a total disaster.

Licking his lips, Garrett lifted his hand, curled into a fist, and rapped his knuckles against the hollow wood. He stood there for a minute and then heard a female voice call a “Coming!” He heard footsteps thud across what seemed to be carpeted floor inside and approach the door. Then he heard her at the door, twisting the locks and releasing the chain from the door holder. He stood there awkwardly, bouncing up to his toes again and tapping his sides with his fidgety fingers. The door finally unlocked for the last time, and he heard a light thud hit the door before it was swung open. She wrenched the door open with an annoyed face, making a mental note to herself to fix that stupid lock. It had always given her trouble when she tried opening the door. She was ready to bitch at the pizza boy, who was twenty minutes late, but closed her mouth when she realized it wasn’t the pizza boy who was standing before her. He was certainly not the pizza boy. Her eyebrows began to scrunch, and neared in the middle. Her lips were turned southward in a small frown and she questioned her sanity for a second.

“Garrett?” she asked disbelievingly, her eyes squinted with uncertainty. He looked like a wet cat, to be truthful, with his heavy saturated clothes hanging off his thin body and his sopping brown hair splayed across his forehead. His lips were quivering and she heard the clatter of his teeth as they banged into each other in his mouth. He looked pathetic, and momentarily she forgot all about the pizza and solely worried over the sad looking boy standing in the hallway of her apartment, dripping wet.

Her lips parted and she let out a gasp. “Oh, look at you!” she fretted over him, stepping out into the hallway to grab his arm. “C’mon, come in, come in. You’re soaked to the skin!”

Garrett allowed her to pull him into her flat. She closed the door behind him and then left him standing there while she disappeared through a doorway, calling a “Be right back” over her shoulder. She emerged back moments later with a large towel in her hands. She unfolded it and threw it over him, already scrubbing his hair. She found his arm and her tiny hand clasped around his muscled forearm so she could pull him toward the bathroom. Her touch lit his skin on fire and he asked himself if he was dreaming. She pushed herself into the bathroom with him and her hands quickly found the buttons of his coat. She was muttering something about walking in a storm like that and something about how it was just crazy, but Garrett wasn’t paying attention to her words. He was too preoccupied with the fact that she was standing in front of him, smelling just like the strawberries she had always smelled like because she claimed that was her favorite shampoo scent. It had always been Garrett’s, as well. It reminded him of home, of when they were kids and she would lie next to him on the bed and he would breathe in her fragrance. Even when she had finally left her spot on the bed, the scent carried to the pillow and lingered in the air. His attention was more on her familiar features. Her bright green eyes and round, flushed cheeks. She had dyed and cut her hair to her shoulders. It didn’t flow like it used to; it was layered and thinner now, although it still framed her heart-shaped face nicely. Her button nose was still small and her lips full. She was lifting his shirt up when he found himself tracing the curve of her upper lip with his thumb delicately.

She looked up at him and froze, her now curious eyes searching his face. He flushed when he realized what he was doing and mumbled an apology, to which she just smiled and continued on what she was doing.

“I think you can get out of the rest of your clothes yourself, yeah?” she questioned with a smirk. He only nodded and watched her move out of the bathroom. She pointed to a bundle of clothes he hadn’t noticed she had been carrying on the counter, and said, “Just put these on. They were the only things I found that you could probably fit into.” With that she left the bathroom, closing the door behind her as she left.

Garrett slumped onto the counter and breathed out a low sigh. Butterflies had erupted in his stomach and he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips. It was Ria, in the flesh. He had seen her, spoken to her—well, she’d spoken to him. She was there and Garrett couldn’t have been happier. He’d wanted to see her for what seemed like years and she had been standing right in front of him. He combed through his hair long overdue for a haircut with his fingers and let out another shaky breath. Then he slipped out of his wet clothes and into the ones Ria had provided him. He tugged an old wife beater over his head and pulled up the long black basketball shorts. He took the towel and ruffled his hair with it for a minute or two only to leave it partially damp and less wet-dog looking.

He opened the door, carrying his sopping clothes in his arms, and walked back the way he came from. She was sitting on the sofa, the television playing softly. When he entered the living room, she looked up and smiled at him. He stood there not knowing what to do.

She stood up from her seat on the couch and grabbed the clothes from him. “I’ll throw these in the dryer, alright?”

“Thanks,” he said softly.

She left the room and disappeared through the kitchen where Garrett presumed was the laundry room. He moved further into the room and sat down on the shabby couch. It sunk beneath him as he expected it would after countless times of being sat on. The room was dimly lit and smelled of warm vanilla and roses. At one wall was a small entertainment center with an even smaller television. Below it was a myriad of DVD cases varying from horror to romance to comedy and drama. Opposite it was the old, worn out brown couch. It was soft and comfortable, had probably been even more comfortable before at one point before it lost its cushion and had sunken. Beside it was a small side table and atop it was a tiny lamp and a couple picture frames of her and her family.

One had stood out among the rest to Garrett. It was one he remembered had used to always be in her house back home in Arizona. It was of her and her family, including Garrett—because back then he was a part of her life and family. She, her parents, two younger brothers, and Garrett had driven the four hours up to northern Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. The picture was taken early in the morning, just when the sun was slowly emerging from behind the large rocks because Ria’s dad had insisted that they had leave in the wee hours of the night, so they could see it rise. They had crammed into the family minivan, her dad at the wheel and mom beside him, John and Todd in the middle row, and Ria and Garrett all the way in the back where it was bumpiest. It had to have been one or two in the morning and everyone save for Mr. Hawthorne could barely keep their eyes open. Ria had fallen asleep in Garrett’s lap before her dad had even started up the car. What made the photo so comical was that everyone’s smile was strained and half-hearted while Mr. Hawthorne’s was the only one genuinely happy to be there. It was just too early and no one had enjoyed the long ride and the early wake-up call. It had been one of the last family outings Garrett was a part of before senior year when Ria dropped all her friends for the cheerleaders and football players.

“Oh, gosh, that was so long ago.”

Garrett leaned back and looked up at Ria, who he noticed just then was standing a few feet away in front of the entertainment center. Her face held a certain emotion Garrett couldn’t pinpoint, but he knew it had to do with the old photo. It seemed like ages ago, a different time and universe. He had to agree with her that it was a long time ago. He offered her a small smile, a corner of his lips turning up slightly higher than the other.

“I have one just like this at my place, too,” he mentioned.

She reciprocated the action by throwing him one of her grins and sat down beside him.

“How’d you find me?” she asked in a teasing manner.

Garrett’s cheeks erupted in flames and he looked down at the fidgeting hands in his lap. She watched him mumble almost inaudible curses under his breath in amusement, a smile playing along her lips. He was still that shy, awkward young boy she knew those years back. He was exactly the same as the sixteen-year-old boy she knew, who was going through puberty and battling raging hormones. He might have looked a little older, now more like the nineteen-year-old he was, with a stronger jaw and stubble. He wasn’t as lanky either, and she could see the slight muscles in his arms. If she was still sixteen, she would have jumped his bones.

“How are you?” he queried quietly.

She didn’t have to think twice about her answer. She was fine, and that was what she told him. She was happy here in D.C. So, the place she stayed at was a little (maybe really) sketchy, but she was accustomed to it now. She’d been living there for a little less than a year and she liked the independence. It was better than Arizona. She probably wouldn’t be used to the heat anymore. It was far cooler in the East than in the Southwest. She was doing well in her studies, and she had a handful of good friends she thought Garrett might have liked. She didn’t really have a boyfriend; she didn’t have the patience for that now. She was more focused on building her career and being young. Guys just came and went, but, she told him, she hadn’t found the one just yet.

Garrett swallowed the lump in his throat at that and stared down at his lap, pretending he was listening. But his thoughts were stuck on that there was no man in her life. She hadn’t found the one yet. Why couldn’t she see it was him? He was perfect for her. He loved her, he wanted her, he could take of her. Was that so hard to see, to realize what was standing right in front of her?

“What about you? Huh, rockstar, how’s tour going?” she countered after she’d finished relaying to him all that had been going on in her life. She was curious about his. She’d heard from her friends back home that The Maine had kicked off after they graduated high school. She’d heard news about their tours and their album that had come out the previous year. She’d only heard one or two of their songs, but she liked them. Better sounding then when they were in high school, she thought. They’d grown up.

“Real’ good. Great, actually,” he answered with a genuine smile. Ria could tell that it made him happy with the way his face lit up. It reached his eyes and she hadn’t seen that smile in a while. She missed it.

“We’re on tour right now,” he continued. “We’re only staying in town for the night, then we’re heading up to New York. You should come to a show when we’re back.”

“Maybe I will,” she offered with a small smile.

They fell into a silence, not the uncomfortable kind. It was just a silence where no words needed to be spoken. They were just wrapped in their thoughts after that, both thinking about the past years, how so much had changed. It was strange sitting in the same room with Ria. They hadn’t spoken in what could have been called lifetimes because both had changed in some way. He didn’t know the girl sitting across from him on the other end of the sofa. He hadn’t known her for a long time. But he knew the old Ria and he knew she was there somewhere. He missed that old Ria. He missed the Ria he loved—the Ria he knew so well. Could he even find that Ria in this new one?

“I miss you,” he spluttered out before he could stop himself.

Ria’s face fell and her lips turned down in a small, sad frown. How was she supposed to react? Did she miss Garrett, too? Of course she did, but he had been part of one chapter in her life that she had finished. He wasn’t supposed to be part of this new one, part of Ria’s new life. She didn’t know what to say to him. It was more complicated with emotions out in the open and Garrett was making it that way. He looked up at her from under his eyelashes with a red face and curved his lips into a tiny smile, like a peace offering.

Ria sighed and gave him a smile, herself. “I miss you, too, Gare—”

“Well, y’see, it’s ‘cause—I mean…I…I don’t know,” Garrett stammered, cutting her off. Ria watched him quietly as he tried to collect his thoughts. His head was in a jumble and he didn’t know how to organize it. He took a deep breath and let it all spill out on the table. “I know it’s been a while…I don’t know what happened in high school—I mean, you just kind of left. You got new friends and stopped talking to us. You stopped talking to me, Ria. Do you know how much that hurt? Hell, it hurt fuckin’ bad. It ripped my chest open and spilled out my blood and…it was just bad, okay. But that’s beside the point now—I…Ria, I miss you so much. I miss when we would hang out in my bedroom and lay on my bed just talking. When we made forts with the chairs and my gramma’s old quilts. I miss those hours-long game nights and the stupid discussions we had about whether a shot-gun or an axe would kill a zombie faster (and we know that shooting a bullet from a shot-gun’ll do ‘im good to the head, y’know.)”

“Garrett—”

“You know, I was so fuckin’ surprised when you let me into your place. I thought you would send me back to the street. I mean, it’s been what? One-Two years? I thought for sure you didn’t care anymore, but you let me in and got me dried up ‘cause Hell is it pouring out there. This is like monsoon season in AZ, but colder. Fuckin’ a lot colder.”

“G, can you please—”

“I mean, we hadn’t talked in so long. I didn’t expect you to be so friendly. I just thought that I had been put on the backburner and left there, y’know. Just left there, but I knew you were better than that. I knew you weren’t a bitch, Ria. You’re the sweetest gal I know. That’s why I love you so much. You were always the nicest and the coolest—”

“You love me?” Ria asked in shock. Her eyes were wide and her mouth agape.

Garrett smiled confidently and announced, “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Her heart exploded then. She lost all her self-control and leaned forward, brushing her lips across his chapped ones. He kissed back in the most delicate kiss and she thought she was melting away. “I…” Ria began, but was cut off by a knock on the door. She pulled away from him and frowned, getting up from her place on the sofa to get the door. She yanked it open and greeted the pizza boy, who, she informed, was over half-an-hour late. He apologized and she waved him off as she looked for her purse to pay the guy.

The pizza boy nodded his head to Garrett and pulled his lips up into a smile. “You the new guy?” he asked.

“What?”

“Y’know, Ria’s new guy? You him?” the pizza boy asked, like Garrett knew what he was talking about.

Garrett's eyebrows scrunched together. The pizza boy frowned, watching as Garrett’s face appeared utterly puzzled. “What d’you mean?”

The boy laughed. “Ria’s always got a new guy with her. They come and go by fast. Never last more than a week. I guess you’re just a friend? It’s hard to believe, though, y’know, with the way she goes through—”

“Okay, how much was it again?” Ria questioned as she walked back into the room.

“$12.56, Miss.”

Ria paid and grabbed the pizza from the boy, thanking him and telling him not to be so late next time before he left. She placed the pizza on the coffee table and opened it up, smiling as the smell of cheese and warm pepperonis filled her nostrils.

“Hungry?” she asked Garrett as she pulled apart a slice of warm pizza.

Garrett shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and grimaced. How could Ria do that to him? Was that what she meant by they came and went? The guys literally stopped by for a week and she moved onto the next one? Would he have just been another one in her long line of guys? Like a small trophy for another victory in bed? He stood up and brushed his shorts with his fingertips so they fell past his knees. Ria looked up at him questioningly and stood up, as well.

“Where are you going?” she inquired sadly.

He walked to the door and turned around to face her. He stared at the girl he had loved for years with a different kind of emotion flickering through his face and passing through him. He was disgusted. The old Ria he knew would have never been like this. She was reserved and shy. She didn’t go through guys; she never hooked up with her friends or random guys. She didn’t have short blonde hair either, or wore ridiculously thick make-up.

“You can do whatever you want with my clothes. I have to get back.”

Ria rushed after him as he went out into the hallway. “But it’s still pouring. Don’t you want to stay a little longer? Catch up?” she called to him dejectedly.

“Maybe some other time,” he offered, though he didn’t think he would keep his word. He looked at the calculator watch on his wrist and shrugged his shoulders as he walked backwards down the hallway, pretending he was reading the time. “It’s late! I’ve got to go, Ria. I’m sorry.”

He left her perplexed and alone in that empty hallway while he stepped into the smelly elevator and left the apartment complex. The rain had lightened and was only drizzling when he stepped outside. It was still extremely cold, but he didn’t care anymore. He was just ready to go home—or at least to the safety of the hotel. He knew what would happen when he got back. He’d get a mouthful from the guys, maybe a few slaps at the head and some disapproving looks. Then they’d tell him they told him so and he would take it with the little dignity he had. That was the end of him and Ria, the ‘what could have been?’ feeling was void. He didn’t want to know what could have been—their one week relationship. He shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his shorts and walked purposefully down the sidewalk. He realized then, after a short glance at the apartment, that he had been worth leaving those years ago in high school because she would have left him in the end either way. Ria Hawthorne had changed and they wouldn’t have lasted long anyways. He still missed the old Ria, the Ria he knew, the Ria he loved. There was nothing he could do about it though. Garrett had always had shit luck.