Road

They folded out the couch into a bed together, the light of the moon shining in through the balcony sliding doors. His suitcase rested beside it empty. Everything he had brought with him lay scattered around the living room. Tonight was his first time coming to the city his longtime friend had moved to. Since she moved, they had talked on the phone and exchanged letters, but he stayed back on the island they grew up on and she never wanted to return. Her ex-boyfriend, his once best friend, was the reason. That man was the reason he wasn't returning to the island anymore either. The city lights flickered alongside the distant stars outside, making up the difference for the ones he couldn't see anymore. They were too far now to see the ocean. Tonight was his first night staying anywhere where he couldn't hear the waves. Cars and planes replaced the missing sounds. "Do you need to go back for anything?" His friend asked him. "No." He said. He left a note for his landlord that he was leaving and that his remaining belongings could be sold or trashed. His parents were sent a shorter message in the mail. He didn't leave anyone an address. His letters ended with happy, meaningless words about the future and finding himself. The words were to dissuade any fears about why he was missing. Thinking on it now, he doubted anyone would notice his absence much. The people back on the island were laid back and carefree, too much so. He was sure his parents would believe every word he wrote down and not worry over his lack of phone calls. After all, he was an adult now. They let him do whatever he wanted long before his eighteenth birthday, including letting him drop out of school to start work early. There was one more person he left a letter for. That one was the most dishonest of the lot, but he couldn't leave without saying something. He had just agreed to be his former best friend's best man at his wedding. 'I'm sorry to cancel on you last minute like this. I just got a job offering on the mainland and I need to come for training right away! I don't know if I'll make it back in time, so please continue on without me. I'll send you my new address and phone number as soon as I can.' He had written. He wrote on for three more pages about how happy he was for his former friend and how much he wanted to catch up with him again as soon as he had time. He had given up a lot of his time for that man, he thought. He didn't know what he was going to do tomorrow or the day after that, but there would be no more letters and phone calls for anyone there. His old friend, she put several thick comforters on the fold out bed. "Sorry they're kinda beat up. I got them down at the thrift store for five bucks." "It's fine." He said, sitting down on the bed. It creaked a little under his weight. She checked the time. "It's getting late. Hey, I'm gonna order food. Is Chinese okay?" "Sure." He collapsed back against the blankets. Everything around him was unfamiliar, except for the scent lingering on the threads beneath him. He would know her scent anywhere. The three of them had been together for most of their lives. That was how he thought about it, but that wasn't quite true. Since they were teenagers, they had always been scattered about. She was responsible enough to stay in school. He and their other friend, her boyfriend, dropped out early to work initially at the same place. He moved on quickly to other jobs, hopping from one to the next until he left on a boat and they rarely saw him after that. The two of them, in their diverging paths, would wait for him by the shore in the one place all three of them were remained connected at. Every day, they both waited for his letters, and every night, his phone calls. They became fewer and fewer as the months dragged on into years. In all that time, in his friend's absence across the sea, he came to understand the longing building inside him was the same longing she felt for him waiting at the shore every morning. He couldn't say it. Not in a place like that. A confession like that would almost certainly end in rejection, and the moment that rejection happened, the whole island would know about it. He knew it could cost him his job to even joke about it. When he waited by the shore too often, he needed excuses for others. He needed to make sure she was okay alone down there by herself. He just wanted to see the ocean that morning. He was out looking at something on the horizon, a storm coming in perhaps. He had a thousand excuses for the nosy people in town. A thousand, he envied, she would never need when waiting there. His envy turned to jealousy, then sadness. He resigned himself to that place, that it was all he would ever know. One day, he would have to make the choice of staying silent in his pining alone or doing the same with an acceptable woman on his arms. He often wished he could trade places with her. As his sadness deepened, he managed to find some peace in living through her happiness. If he couldn't have that man, at least she could. He could make sure they stayed happy. So many of his phone calls to him were about her. How much she missed him, what she was doing, how happy she would be when he finally came back. His friend was always cheery on their phone calls and in their letters, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else. His friends words on the phone weren't about her or him, but other people and places far away; so many names and connections disconnected from their home that filled up his friend's moments. He couldn't keep up with them. He didn't even know what their faces looked like. His friend rarely sent any photos along with his letters, no matter how many he or she sent his friend with theirs. When she left and they broke up, he wondered if his friend had grown apart from her long ago and that was why their conversations always drifted to other people. Briefly, he hoped that might mean he had a chance. He worked himself up to risk it. But when he last saw his friend, the man showed up with another one, one that looked a lot like her. There was so little time in between the break-up and the new woman, it left an uneasy feeling in him. His friend announced his engagement that day and he gave up everything. Something in him broke. He was certain it couldn't be repaired. He didn't think he could ever move on from that man. Then, she brought him here to the city. He looked over at her. He expected she would be more broken than he was. She seemed stronger than ever. On the boat ride over, when it was only the two of them, he confessed all the things he had always wanted to say to that man. He was terrified of how she might react. She simply said, 'I've always known.' When the food arrived, they sat out on the balcony of her apartment. She burned a large candle on the table for light. "How long has it been? Seventeen years, right?" He asked her. "Seventeen?" She asked. "Since we met. You and your grandma moved over to the island seventeen years ago. Yeah, that's right. I was five then." He counted back in his head. She mentally counted with him. "Yeah, that's right. I was four. Granny wanted to move as far from the city as possible after my parents died. I don't know how being on an island helped. Cars are even more necessary there." "I guess it was because of him, but you know, thinking about it now, it's a little surprising you stayed as long as you did. She died when we were still in elementary school." He said. "It's not like I had a choice then. The family next door took me in, so I was stuck there for at least another eight years regardless. But I didn't want to leave then." She picked at her food. "I stayed for him. And then he'd run off, telling me to stay home and wait for him. I used to beg him to let me come along with him at work, but he always had the same excuse. It's too dangerous on the ship. Everything was always too dangerous for me to do with him other than walk on the beach and roll around in bed." "Hey, at least you got that part." He laughed at himself. "I've been waiting years for a guy who never once noticed my feelings. I couldn't even get to the rejection stage. My reward for loyalty and patience, being a twenty-two year old virgin." She laughed with him. "I told you not to waste your time on him. Should've took my own advice too. I could count the number of times we had sex per year on one hand." "I'm an idiot. I'd probably have put up with that longer than you." He said. "I'm sure you would've. You put too much of your own self into making other people happy." She opened up a soda "You didn't used to be like that. Back when we were young and we used to play on the beach, back before we ever thought about dating or anything like that." He finished off the one he'd opened. "When did it start?" "Around when you dropped out, when you figured out you liked him. Then you did everything for him, same as me." She took a long sip from the can. "Even back then he was distant. It's like as soon as we were dating, suddenly he needed to be everywhere else. Sports, part-time jobs, all his other friends." "He was really popular in high school. Looking back, it's so stupid he quit early. God, don't...don't yell at me..." "What are you about to say?" She raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "I only dropped out because he wanted to. He convinced me we should go get jobs at the same place together. It'd be so much fun and who needs a high school diploma anyway. And you know what he did after I dropped out..." "Got a job somewhere else immediately and left you alone." She laughed and took a swing of her drink. "Classic. Hey, let's be together all the time...not. Sorry, I gotta go hang out with other people you don't know now! Bye bye! I'll call you later! But really not till next week!" "More like in two weeks. Ugh, why did I put up with that shit?" He ate some of the soup he ordered. "Well, I guess for me it was a little more okay to ditch me. We weren't dating. But you...how many dates did you two ever actually go on? Do you remember?" "I don't even know. He never wanted to take me anywhere. So many years of my life wasted. He'd show up for the important stuff though, you know the things people expect you to do. He made a big show out of taking me to dances when we were still in school or when he bought me something. He'd sit there and complain about how it was such a chore to do all this old fashioned stuff, but only he ever wanted to do that. I didn't care about any expectations from other people. I just wanted him to be alone with me for once." She said. He watched her expression change to a more somber one. Far as they were from the sea, he swore he smelled the scent of waves in the air around them. The moonlight illuminated her, as if she was meant to join all the other artificial stars down on in the forest of metal and concrete. "I don't think I ever mattered to him beyond being a girl. That was enough. Everything else was a play for someone else to clap at." "His loss." He said. "I'm sure you'll meet someone better. Promise me that next time you won't put up with anyone like that again." She smiled at him, then stood up. "Same goes for you." "I'm not sure there will ever be a time in the first place." He laughed at himself. "You don't know that." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up hope." "I'll try." The pair went back inside after eating. She took a shower while he organized his things around the makeshift bed. Tired from the trip, he curled up under the blankets. He slipped in and out of consciousness. The sound of the shower shifted to rain and then waves. He could see the shore in his mind, but he couldn't tell if it was dawn or dusk. Somehow, it felt like it was both at once. He saw him there on the beach, smiling in that way that his friend always did. He reached out for him from the water, but that man didn't move one inch from the shore. The waves pulled him deeper into the water until he was starting to drown. He gasped for air, only to find himself back in the apartment. "You okay?" She was standing there in a towel. "Yeah." He sat up. "Had a bad dream. That's all." She undid her towel and put a pair of underwear on, then a loose tank top. He was taken aback by her nonchalant attitude about changing in front of him. He didn't expect that out of her. He wondered if she had become more comfortable with herself after leaving and wasn't embarrassed over things like that anymore. Thinking back, they used to change in front of each other all the time when they were little. He remembered a few times they took baths together. That stopped around later elementary school. He wasn't sure if that was because they became uncomfortable with it, or if it had been adults telling them should be. After drying her hair, she relaxed on the sofa bed with him. "Maybe I should sleep here tonight. Haha, do you remember when we used to have sleepovers together, just the three of us?" "Yeah, that was forever ago. All we did was stay up watching bad movies, eat junk food, and pass out on the floor." He laughed thinking about it. "Why'd we stop that?" "Girls aren't supposed to have sleepovers with boys once they need bras." She said. "Cause you know, something might happen." "Riiiight..." He laughed, lying back down. She slipped under the blankets beside him. "It's dumb. What would it matter? It's not like I needed to spend the night for that to happen anyway. Hey, can you turn that lamp off?" He sat up to turn off the lamp beside the couch. The rest of the lights had been out since before they ate. He settled back into the bed. "It's kind of cold in here." "Yeah. The heater doesn't work. I could get another blanket." She offered. "It's okay. I'll deal." "We could cuddle together for warmth." She said as a joke. "Hey now, that definitely could lead to something." He said, mostly joking. "Would it really?" "You never know." He mimicked how one of the older adults in their neighborhood used to talk about such "dangers" they needed to "avoid". She laughed and rested against his chest. "This is much warmer." His heart beat faster. He had never felt her body against him like that. He put his arm around her to play along. To his surprise, his mind was going to places it wouldn't usually when he was around her. His affections and desires had been focused on that man there had never been any room for anyone else. He liked how her body felt against his, but he didn't know what to do with those thoughts. 'I might just be lonely. I shouldn't. It'll mess things up with her too.' "I keep thinking I should give him my new number." He said, staring at the outside lights moving on the ceiling. She looked up at him. "Don't. Let it go." "I know. I know it's pointless. But I still miss him." He said. "You don't miss him. You miss the person you thought he was." She corrected him. "But that person never existed." "Yeah." She listened to his heartbeat. "It's a shame you fell in love with him instead of me. We'd probably both have been better off." "Maybe." He gave the idea more thought than he wanted to admit. "Who knows. Maybe he'd still mess everything up somehow anyway." "Because you can't picture it." She said. "You can't picture us not being in love with him." "Yeah, I think that's it. Even if we were together back then, it feels like...somehow he'd be the center of everything." He said. "He always was the center of any group he was with. I wonder what it would've been like if we'd been together instead...Do you think we would've left sooner or would we still be stuck back in that hellhole?" "I think we would've left right after high school." She propped herself up some on the bed to look down at him. "I don't know why I fell so hard for him. You're cuter." "Thanks." He leaned upward towards her. "So are you." The space between them vanished as he went in for a kiss. She reciprocated, then pulled away. "You're not forcing yourself to do this, are you?" She asked. "What do you mean?" He asked back. "I thought you were gay." He shrugged. "I said I was in love with him. I didn't say I was gay. I like girls too." "Then why didn't you date anyone else?" She asked. "Why didn't you?" He asked her, before answering her question. "I loved him. I loved him so much I couldn't even think about anyone else but him." Red rose in her cheeks. "And here I got naked in front of you and didn't bother putting a bra on because I thought you wouldn't be interested." "We're both old enough to drink. I think I can handle seeing a little bit of nipple without it being a big deal." He joked. "Besides, I'm barely dressed too." "You kissed me." She said. An awkward silence hung in the air. "I'm sorry." He turned away. "I didn't say I was upset about it." She put her arm around him. "I wouldn't mind...if we kissed again." "We're both just lonely." He said. "That might be." She pressed her face against his back. "But what's wrong with that, if that's all it is? Does everything need to be some grand destiny with wedding bells and eternity at the end?" He turned back around. No more words were exchanged between them for the remainder of the night. Their bodies intertwined, what needed knowing was understood and left unsaid. Within each other's forms, they found solace from the pain that man left within each of them. Each distant, happy smile; every morning waiting on the shore for a boat that wouldn't come; the agony of waiting by the phone, afraid to miss the ring of a device that remained silent; all the little cuts he left in between his goodbyes, all the passion unreleased; everything overflowed between them and filled the other's broken places. A union, connected by him. His presence was strong in the spaces between them. It likely always would be. The boy they both fell in love with was long gone, and never really quite real in the first place. He had haunted their thoughts and days across ink, wire, and sand. He would always be a numbing pain lingering in their shadows, a force undeniable to the molding of their actions and minds. It didn't have to be for nothing, he thought. Those mistakes, that longing, would define his future in shaping what he would not allow himself to become again. He intended to ensure she remained unbound in the same way. Whether the night would lead to something new between them at dawn or merely be a passing memory, he felt reaffirmed in their connection as friends. Whatever was to come, he could count on her being there and answering his call. He wouldn't need to wait, lonely through the night, to hear a voice in the dark. He knew she would answer his letters, and the read wouldn't be another game of excitement and dread at each line. When he woke in the morning, he found her out on the balcony again. She was dressed in nothing but a tank top and underwear. He put a t-shirt on and a pair of boxers before joining her outside. The morning wind was cool on his skin. It reminded him of being alone on the beach at sunrise. He noticed a stack of papers in her hands. "What's that?" "I wrote him one last letter." She said. "Are you going to send it to him?" He asked. She shook her head. "I thought about it, but I don't want to anymore. I don't need to. I think I'm ready." "Ready?" "To let him go." She looked down at the papers and ripped them up into pieces. She held her palms up and let the wind scatter them across the city. A tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away and smiled. "Goodbye." He covertly wiped away a tear from his own face. "There's something I need to do." "Hmm?" He went back inside and grabbed an envelope. He brought it outside. "I kept one letter that he sent me. It was the last one he sent before he came back with that girl. I don't...I don't know why I kept it." "Let it go." He nodded and ripped the letter to pieces. He looked up at the clear sky above them and whispered. "Goodbye." For a brief moment, the wind felt like waves washing ashore. He closed his eyes. He could swear he heard that familiar sound. But it faded away, drowned out by the sound of cars and people rushing about down below. He found he didn't mind it. They settled down for breakfast in the same spot as last night, quite comfortable in each other's presence and both filling with thoughts about tomorrow. Main