Palm Trees

Needless to say, that experience was disappointing. For the most part, anyway. I got to see you again. It shouldn't have been disappointing. What the hell was I expecting anyway? You weren't going to fall back into my arms just because I was there. I shouldn't have wanted you to.

You were friendly enough about it. I tried to convince myself that it was the whole reason I was there - so that we could become friends again. That was all we would ever be, and it should have been enough for me.

I told myself that these old feelings would pass soon. It was just the shock of seeing you, right? To distract myself, I thought of Hannah and the way she would always be there for me, the plans I had with her... It still didn't help me let go of the ones I had with you. Not completely.

You invited me to your house a few days later. You said that we should do some more catching up, since there wasn't much time for that when we went to the restaurant.

"Yeah, you can come and meet my roommates and stuff," you said. "I'll make sure they don't kill you."

I didn't know you had more than one roommate. I didn't ask about the others, though. "Yeah. That sounds great."

I was really looking forward to it. I mean, I had nothing else to do except for sit in my room and watch TV. There weren't many channels to begin with, but I also had no idea what channel was what here.

A while later, I was back in front of your house. Luckily, you were already sitting outside. I didn't really want to deal with Minh again. She seemed like she wanted to rip my head off, and I had no idea why. She knew what happened between us, I guess, but she still shouldn't have had a reason to murder me. Unless... had I really hurt you that much?

"Hey Aden," you said, smiling at me.

I couldn't help but smile back. "Hey."

"I had to come out here so that Minh wouldn't answer the door. It's never a good idea for her to do that."

"No kidding."

"I guess you want to meet her though? I mean, you did read about her in the letters."

That was the first time you mentioned the letters at all. I thought it was awkward to talk about them, because it kind of felt invasive. You let me in, and I knew exactly what you were feeling, while you know nothing about what I was really thinking. So all I said was, "Yeah."