Just Traveling Through

I sat on the couch at Eric’s house, a bowl of popcorn in my lap. Lucy was curled up beside me, sound asleep as I flipped through the channels on the TV. Eric was taking a shower while no one else was home. It was awkward sitting there alone, patting the dog with one hand and switching between the remote and a handful of popcorn with the other. It was almost lunchtime on my second day back in Arizona and Eric had begged me to come over to his house for a lunch-movie-friend-date, or whatever he really called it.

I think it was awkward because of what happened last night. The argument, the kiss; the truth, really, is what made things awkward for me. It was still hard for me to be in Arizona, let alone tell anyone the reason I left in the first place. It didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly sure what my motives behind coming back were. I guess, maybe, it was to let my family and friends know I was okay after the years I’d been silently hiding away. Getting married was just the cherry on top.

I finally settled on a local news station. I didn’t recognize any of the anchors or reporters, but I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to catch up on what’s going on with my hometown.

“News?” Eric asked when he walked into the living room seconds after I settled on the station. I looked up at him, watching as he rubbed a towel against his head to dry his hair. “Really, Amelia?”

I laughed. “I thought I could find out what you all have been dealing with lately.”

He sat next to me and continued to dry his hair with the towel. We watched the news for a few minutes. The weather had just finished and it was now a report on the immigration issues happening a few towns over. The clips they showed while they talked about the new law were intense. I had forgotten all about these things once I moved away. I could see why the law was even bothered with in the first place, but something about the whole act of it felt morally wrong to me. I would be devastated if I was kicked out of my home in Australia just because I didn’t have my citizenship documents on me while I went to the market for milk.

“Yeaaah,” he said uneasily in response to whatever the news reporter had said and reached across me for the remote. He clicked a few buttons and a blue screen came up, prepared for a DVD to be put into the DVD player. “Did you decide on what we’re going to watch?”

I mumbled out the name of the first DVD I saw on the shelf. I hadn’t given it any thought, really. He happily got up from the couch and grabbed the DVD I mentioned, put it into the DVD player, and came back to stand in front of me. His hand was stretched out in front of me, offered as help up from the couch. I shyly placed my hand in his and as his fingers wrapped around mine, I felt a rush of something spreading through me. I hadn’t felt anything like this since high school.

Once I was standing, I quickly pulled my hand from his and shuffled toward the kitchen. I had a pile of food sitting out on the counter by the time he came wandering in. Like most of the things going on in my life, I wasn’t sure what I was going to make, but I kept dicing up a tomato anyway. He seemed to catch on to my aimless cutting and put a few things back into the fridge, replacing them with other ingredients. I heard him getting some pans out from the cabinets below the counter and I looked around. He had decided we were making grilled cheese sandwiches.

“So,” he said slowly, dragging it out. I put some slices of cheese on my two pieces of bread, pretending I hadn’t heard him trying to start a conversation. I put a handful of tomato on top of the cheese and pressed the other slice on top, pressing it together so it was smushed down. “What’s he like?”

My heart stopped. I think my lungs and brain froze, too, because I couldn’t really breathe or think properly. “What?” was all I could manage.

“You know,” he said with a shrug and took my sandwich to place in the hot pan. “Your fiancé.”

“Not right now,” I said softly. “I can’t talk about him to you right now.”

He was silent and I could hear the pan sizzling. I looked up at him, wondering how he had taken that rejection. He seemed okay by it, a small smile on his face as he tended to our lunch. I leaned against the counter, my arms crossed over my chest. So his looks weren’t the only thing that had changed since I left; he had become confident, easy going.

“I’m just curious,” he said moments later, sliding the sandwiches onto two separate plates. “You haven’t really said much about what you’ve been up to, just that you’re here now and back home you have a fiancé waiting.”

I knew he was right. I had been keeping things to myself and it was wrong to be so secretive after showing up unexpectedly after being away for so long without any contact. I just didn’t think it was the right time to talk about it.

I watched as he tore two paper towels from the roll and tucked one under my plate. He took his with him as he slowly passed by me, making his way back to the couch in the living room. I heard him baby-talking to Lucy and I could feel the smile broadening across my face. I picked up the plate he had left for me and grabbed the napkin as I pushed myself away from the counter. Maybe it would be okay to tell him about my new life.

I sat on the couch, Lucy separating us. She abandoned him and came over to me, sitting in front of me and staring at my lunch. I bit my lip as I ripped a tiny piece of crust off and fed it to her.

“His name is Myles,” I said and wiped my hand on my shorts. “He’s 23. Um. He works at a zoo. Well, he kind of owns it, really.”

Eric looked at me. “Myles, huh?”

I leaned over the edge of the couch for my purse. I rifled through it for my wallet. I opened it and handed it to him. He set his plate on the armrest and examined the picture I had just handed him. He glanced up at me, then back down.

“Who’s that?” he asked curiously, tilting the wallet so I could see whom he meant. I knew exactly who he was looking at, though. The air became thick with hesitation. If that was who he thought it was, would he want anything to do with me? There were some things that you could accept, and some things that were just flat out deal breakers. This goes for both friendships and relationships, and I think this might have been one of those deal breakers.

“His name is Ryder,” I mumbled. I paused before mentioning his age. “He’s 2.”

He swallowed hard. That was the perfect timeframe. I had left almost three years ago. “Is he..?”

I felt my cheeks flush a deep violet. “He’s not mine.”

And just like that, the room felt livable again. The air wasn’t thick, the words weren’t carefully calculated. “He’s cute,” he offered, handing my wallet back.

I smiled to myself, glancing at the photo before closing up my wallet and tossing it back into my purse. I missed both of them and wished I were there with them, hugging them close to me. I looked at Eric; he was staring at his grilled cheese, most likely wondering what had been so wrong between us, why I had to leave him behind and find so many great things for myself. I was wondering the same about him months before I even thought of leaving.

“Let’s get to that movie, yeah?” I suggested and handed him the DVD remote.

He nodded stiffly, “Right. I can’t believe you picked this one.”

I looked at the screen for the first time. I had picked the scariest movie he owned, go figure. “I hate scary movies,” I uttered to myself, pulling Lucy closer to me as if she would save me from the frights I’d surely get while watching the movie.

I made it halfway through the movie without screaming, mostly because I was hiding behind my hands. Lucy was no help to me; she had curled up on my lap and had fallen asleep once I had finished sharing my grilled cheese with her. A monster popped out suddenly and I screamed, causing Lucy to skitter off my lap and away from the living room. Eric laughed, reached out and grabbed my arm. He pulled me from one end of the couch to the other and tucked me protectively under his arm.

“It’s just a movie,” he laughed softly, smoothing out my hair. What he did next, my mind told me I should hate it and my heart told me that it was a sign that not everything was as perfect as I had thought it was.

So I closed my eyes, placed a hand on his cheek, and leaned into the kiss.