Somewhere in Neverland

“You’re far too excited about this museum,” Eliza announces as Alex wanders around, enchanted by the wonders the Adler Planetarium holds.

He’s notorious for staying up until the sun rises Googling space and he finds anything and everything that has to do with it intriguing to the point that we sometimes worry about him. Still, his passion and interest in the topic is admiring and kind of adorable.

“You don’t understand, Eliza,” He says, staring at a large telescope. “You would seriously be able to see the fucking Milky Way with that thing!”

“No, I understand plenty fine; you’re just way more excited than I am,” She smirks as he continues wandering around, too caught up in exploring to really appreciate anything. “I find it all interesting, but you clearly have a strange obsession with shit like this.”

He stops and looks at her for a minute. “You’ve been gone too long. The past seven years is when my interest really evolved.”

“Sort of created a mind of its own, huh?” She laughs as he nods and turns back to the exhibit.

“He’s a real keeper,” She links arms with me as we try our best to keep up with him, but he’s moving quickly. “So how’d you two end up back together?”

I scoff and give her an unbelieving look. How she’s able to infer that from the very little interaction he and I have had since we picked him up from the airport a few hours ago is beyond me.

“Don’t even try and pretend you’re not together,” She has an all-knowing look plastered to her face and I can’t keep from blushing. “I see the way you look at him. I can pick up what you guys are putting down.”

“Oh, are you hip to the groove? The bee’s knees?”

“For sure!” She thrusts her free hand in the air in the ‘raise the roof’ motion and rolls her eyes slightly. “But I’m curious! I know you were super nervous for this tour and I video chatted you the other day and you’re lying in bed with him without a shirt on.”

“I still don’t know what happened to that shirt,” I mumble and she laughs loudly.

“Caroline!”

“What?” An embarrassed smile spreads across my face. “It got kind of crazy that night.”

“Ew, TMI. I love you and all and I know it’s your duty to talk to me about sex and stuff, but it’s weird when it’s about your sex life, with Alex.”

“Why is it so revolting to you?” I ask, honestly curious as to why my sister is so put off by the fact that Alex and I have had sex.

“Because he’s like my big brother and, I dunno. I guess looking back at your history sort of makes it less weird because he was around so often because you did date him, but I was seven and he was just that cool older kid,” It’s cute the way she looked up to him like an older brother when she was younger. Alex and I actually met and became friends before Eliza was born, so in a lot of ways, he was like an older brother to her. He was around enough to play the role of protective big brother, at least. “But I’m still curious about how you two ended up back together.”

“Honestly, it’s because Alex and I are both horny bastards,” She crinkles her nose in disgust and shakes her head.

“Oh, so romantic!” She giggles uncomfortably. I can tell she’s debating whether or not to continue to delve deeper into the story behind our current relationship, but she ultimately is. “So you just ended up having sex and getting back together?”

“Sort of,” I think back to how it happened and literally think it was based off of our physical attraction to each other. “Actually, yeah, pretty much. We got drunk every night for the first like, three nights, and I always woke up in his bed.”

“Did you even like, talk about what you were?” She asks as Alex stops and calls out for us to come look at something.

“Yeah,” I say, walking a bit quicker to meet up with him. “We talked and he said he wanted to be back together and long story short, we’re back together.”

“So weird,” She mutters. “After all these years and it was as easy as ‘hey, let’s fuck.’”

“What was that?” Alex asks, only catching the last part of her comment.

We all crack up at his unfortunate entrance into the conversation, warranting dirty looks from some of the employees.

“I was gonna pretend you guys were interested in this thing, but then I realized you wouldn’t care,” He says, pointing to a small sundial.

“Sorry, bud,” I say, shaking my head with no interest in the contraption. “I don’t get excited over this stuff either. I don’t even know what that thing is used for.”

“I’ve accepted it,” He says, shrugging his shoulders and heads off towards the gift shop.

We follow after him, but stay back enough to continue our conversation. It’s not that it would make Alex uncomfortable if he were to partake in it, but it’d make me uncomfortable.

“Was it hard to just accept the fact that seven years had passed but you both still wanted to be together?” She asks, her voice is small. I know she’s asking for advice, but she’d never admit that. “Or was it just like, ‘hey, we’ve both grown up a lot, but I still love you’?”

“Are you nervous to see Theo tomorrow?” I change the subject to the one she’s hinting at.

Her cheeks flush bright red and she shrugs her shoulders. “Yeah. Please help me.”

“Liza, seriously? The boy adores you!” I’m surprised I even have to tell her. She and Theo remind me a lot of a young me and Alex. They met on her first day in the school district and have been inseparable ever since. Only it took Alex almost nine years to grow a pair and ask me out when Theo and Eliza began “dating” almost immediately, if you could even call it that.

“I miss him,” She sighs. “He’s my best friend, Caroline. Even if we don’t get back together, I just want my best friend back.”

“Girl, you’re preaching to the choir,” I say, noting the similarities in our cases. “But I know Theo and I know that he still loves you. Whereas I didn’t have contact with anybody from Baltimore when I first got on tour, you have the connection with me, so it’s not gonna be weird. I promise.”

“I got astronaut food,” Alex announces, walking out of the gift shop with a small bag clutched tightly in his hand. “I’m not proud, but I’m super excited about it.”

“It’s okay; we’ll love you anyways,” I say, standing up from the bench and intertwine my fingers with his.

Eliza smiles and I hold my other hand out for her to take. She does and the three of us find our way back out to the car hand-in-hand.

“Shedd?” I ask excitedly and Alex’s face lights up. He’s taken it upon himself to act as the tour guide as neither Eliza or I have ever experienced Chicago correctly by his standards before and he’s clearly excited that I’ve shown any enthusiasm for anything.

“Yes!” Eliza says from the backseat. “Will it be inappropriate if I quote Finding Nemo the entire time?”

“Probably, but I’ll support you 100% in your life decisions,” Alex shrugs his shoulders. “And I’ll probably join in on the fun.”

“Good,” I say, driving the short distance to the aquarium. “Because I’m pumped to see all the little fishies!”

When I was younger my dad used to take me to a whole bunch of different places. I used to think it was because he wanted me to have a plethora of exciting childhood memories and to an extent I still believe that, but I also think it was because he was cooped up in the house day after day with an adventurous toddler and he needed an out. Of all the places he took me, the aquarium was always my favorite and we would spend so much time there watching the marine life that he eventually just bought a membership.

“Didn’t you and dad spend a lot of time at the National Aquarium when you were little?” Eliza pipes up from the backseat.

I nod and smile at her in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, then you came along and joined our trips and I hated you a little bit.”

“Well, you know,” She shrugs her shoulders as we get out of the car. “You can’t always love this. Sometimes it takes work.”

The aquarium is full of life today with school groups and families with lots of little kids running around in awe of all the exhibits. Alex immediately finds a tank full of sting rays and stares in complete amazement.

“Those are so cool!”

He’s like one of those little kids whose parents can’t quite keep track of them, running around and constantly finding new things to look at.

“Fish are friends not food!” Alex says after finding a tank full of different types of sharks.

“I’m dating an eight year old,” I laugh, but melt at his touch as he wraps his arm around my neck and kisses my cheek.

“And you love it!”

I can’t hold back the smile that forms on my lips and turn to quickly peck my lips on his. I do love it. I love that even with everything going on at home, Alex can distract Eliza enough for her to forget about it and have a good time. I love that he cares enough about my sisters to fly out to spend the day with us because he wants to.

Everything that I was so nervous about a little over a week ago is completely absent from my mind because we’re just living in the moment and right now that moment is complete perfection.