Lost In Pacific Time

The doorbell rang, waking me up. My mind felt foggy but I found my way down the stairs and opening the front door.

“Hey sleepy head,” Amber teased.

“Hey Amber” I say looking the coffee and paper bag she’s holding.

“So…um have your houseguests left?” Amber asks gingerly walking into my foyer.

“There weren’t any houseguests last night, Amber” I say trying to reassure her in case she wants to call Misty or Sarah later today.

“Oh,” Amber says shifting uncomfortably “I bought you some breakfast”

I led Amber into the living room and we sat down on the yellow couch while SportsCenter
played in the background.

“Do you want the pain au chocolat or the blueberry muffin?” I ask peering into Amber’s paper bag.

“Pain au chocolat, wow the city of Boston has cultured you.” Amber says grabbing the pain au chocolat and splitting it in half. “We’re going to go halvsies”

Amber pretends to watch intently as about five baseball games are recapped. “I brought you some carbs, they should help absorb the alcohol.” She says sitting cross-legged on the couch.

“Thanks,” I reply, its sweet that she cares.

Amber takes a long sip of her coffee. “So have you um read any tabloids lately?” she asks, I assume it’s because that’s because Us Weekly is the literary material necessary for working in Hollywood. Much like how writers read the New Yorker, people in finance read The Economist, or people who work in the front offices of the NHL read The Hockey News.

“Not recently” I reply taking a bite of the blueberry muffin “Why what’s new?”

Amber shrugs “I don’t know. I’m been gone so long I wouldn’t be surprised if I came back and everyone decided that vomit green was the new hot color for clothes.” Amber looks over at me “You know there have been some misconceptions about me.”

“Really like what?” I ask.

“Well… people think that I sleep with all of my clients and that’s the only reason where I’ve gotten as far as I am.” Amber says, she peeling the croissant part of her pain au chocolat, the saves the chocolate part for the end and refuses to eat them together. It’s weird how you grow to know all these quirks about a person.

“You haven’t right?” I ask her.

“How could anyone compare to you,” She says licking her fingers, making my mind go to places it shouldn’t.

“Yeah, I know what you mean” I joke and Amber gives me a small smile.

“Actually there’s another … um misconception about me.” she says and Amber sits on her hands, I assume to keep herself from fidgeting.
________

I explained the story of Milly and I to Milan. Honestly I don’t think I gained anything from it. I think I should’ve just decided to leave things the way they were but deep down inside I know that I want to see if there’s another chance for him and I. For … Milber, Ambroslan? Well none of us exactly have a charismatic Hollywood coupleable name. Milan’s reaction to the news? Well there wasn’t one. I’m sure he just needs the news to sink in. Or worse, maybe he doesn’t care.

I suggested that the two of us go to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Yeah the art gallery for my hometown is called the VAG, which leads me into an immature fit of giggles every time I think of it. I figured the art gallery was a nice place for a Friday afternoon, we could have some tea and browse the gift shop. Maybe we should’ve just save ourselves the forty dollars in admissions and just visit the gift store and cafe.

“Do you like that chair?” I ask Milan as we walk pass a chair made out of those red cups you find at frat parties.

Milan shrugs.

“Milan, you’ve hardly said anything since I told you that I’m not gay,” The two of us are basically the only people inside the gallery, well us and some Dutch tourists so I’m not really worried about anyone listening in.

“Amber, I feel deceived by you. Honestly you had this whole time to tell me and you choose today, when we only have a little over a week together.”

“How could you feel deceived? I’m the one who was being treated differently by you all this time.” I say, the odd thing about me is that I don’t get mad. I just skip the whole anger thing and get depressed.

“I was only treating you differently because you never bothered correcting me.”

“Milan, the only reason I told you was because I didn’t want you setting me up with anymore skanks.” From what I’ve seen yesterday, I can only imagine the rest of the girls he has lined up for me.

“I was only trying to help,” he says and we walk further away from the red party cup chair “you were just going to spend the whole time letting me think you were gay and go back to LA without even giving us the chance to…”

“The chance to what, Milan? The two of us just aren’t meant to be together.” The words are spoken and I can’t take them back. The worst thing is that as soon as I hear the words I realize that it’s true. The two of us just aren’t meant to be together. He’s a hockey player in Boston and I’m an interior designer in Los Angeles. The only real connection we have is that we went to the same high school and happened to date. In the real world things we would’ve never have gotten together. I seem to have the worst timing when it comes to finally figuring things out.

Milan sighs, “You’re right Amber, we’ve changed too much. I’m not even sure why we bothered with playing nice and trying to be friends.” With that Milan walks back towards where we just came from and I manage to make it through the entire gallery without crying.

When I get back to my car I just sit there with my head in my hands and let the tears do whatever they want.