Page 69 of For the Record

My eyebrows knit together, something heavy and unsatisfying sitting at the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to say yes. I didn’t want him to want me to say yes. I wanted him to stand here and now and tell me that we were more than friends. That I wasn’t single, because although we couldn’t label this relationship right now, I was still his.

It hurt, honestly. This was a different kind of hurt than I was used to. You expected people closest to you to disappoint you from time to time. You never expect them to cast you aside, though.

Maybe I will next time.

Adam coughed across from me, but I kept my eyes down.

I didn’t like miscommunication. I didn’t like the thought of leaving here tonight and having no idea where this left us. So whether I was going to get a harsh answer or not, dang it, I was asking the question.

Is that what you want?

Adam: No. But I don’t like the thought of holding you back from something you want either.

Then tell me what this is.

He didn’t respond, which was answer enough for me. It shouldn’t have angered me as much as it did, but oh well. I’d never been entirely rational before. If roles were reversed and someone tried to set him up, without a doubt, at the very least, I would have begged him in private not to go. Or maybe I would have moved to his side of the table and clung to him like a koala, chanting mine over and over again.

Mama B and Crew turned the corner with trays of food, setting them down around us.

I wanted to smile and say thank you. I wanted to appreciate the good people around me and the quality time I had tonight, and yet I was so ridiculously stuck on a mostly silent conversation.

Normally, Adam’s general quietness was something I liked. It was one of my favorite things about him, how he never said much and yet said everything at the same time. But this? This was the worst kind of silence.

This…indifference, or brushing off, or whatever you wanted to call it, wasn’t going to work for me. It had always been so easy before, but it was like time was working itself against us, and the more we had, the thicker this unknown empty space got.

When I got back home that night Adam texted me a quick You all right?

I didn’t answer.

Currently playing: Until I Found You by Stephen Sanchez

***

I’d always hated the airport goodbye scenes in those cheesy rom-coms growing up. The crying at the gate, holding their handkerchief or whatever and watching the plane take off (which definitely had to be the wrong plane, in retrospect). The way she usually sobbed about their love and he would grab her, hoisting her up and spinning her with zero concern for those around them.

Pretty ironic that it was now my turn to do just that.

Adam and I had spent the last forty-eight hours hip to hip, minus showers and sleeping at night—though if it were up to me, those would have been spent together too. We kept our usual routines, though I requested time off so we could put in additional time to binge our favorite movies.

Layla offered to drive me home from the airport, which made me feel slightly guilty, considering I hadn’t exactly been the best friend since we left Vegas. And kind of before Vegas too. But when I told her a hundred times that I could drive myself, she said, and I quote, “If you don’t let me take you home, I will be sure to hide all your records where no one will find them again.” She was a real friend like that. And now that we were here, where he was going to have to leave me, I was incredibly grateful that I wouldn’t be driving home crying and screaming the lyrics to “Zombie” by The Cranberries. Actually, I may still do that, but at least I wouldn’t be alone in doing it.

She parked the car and smiled at both of us. “Go on. I’ll wait for you so I don’t have to witness you two getting arrested for public indecency.”

I clung to Adam the whole way. He hadn’t had much to say the last couple of days, and neither of us had brought up the topic of his work or him leaving. I think, for both of us, not talking about it meant it wasn’t truly real. As if we could keep each other the way we had without any end.

We stopped walking in front of the security check, as far as we could possibly go without being in the way of everyone else. My fingers slipped from his hand, and he reached for them one more time.

I turned to him, keeping my chin down to look at our palms facing each other.

“You know I don’t want you to go.” I sniffed to keep any rogue tears at bay. “You know that, right?”

His right hand freed his luggage, reaching for my back to pull me in for the tightest hug. “I know. You know I don’t want to go, right?”

I nodded, breathing in his scent and trying to memorize it. I wished I could bottle him up and take him home with me, giving the airplane a middle finger.

Adam’s chin moved against the top of my head as he spoke. “One month. That’s all it is. We’ve done it before.”

“It was different then.” I sniffed.