Eli 3
Eli
The station swarmed with people today. More than usual.
They rushed past in every direction, dragging suitcases, dodging each other, filling every bit of space with motion.
I leaned against a pillar near the exit and scanned the crowd for Rowan.
Commuters hurried in and out of the trains while a knot of tourists hovered by the information boards looking completely lost.
Rowan finally emerged from the mayhem. He moved through the noise at his own unhurried pace, completely at odds with the chaos around him.
He hadn't changed much since the last time I saw him.
Same deliberate walk, same glasses perched on his nose, still looking vaguely out of place in the middle of London.
His worn shoulder bag was the only sign he planned to stay longer than a few hours.
His gaze flicked through the crowd until it landed on me. He smiled, and I found myself smiling back as he approached.
I pulled him into a one-armed hug. "Hey, Ro. How was the trip?"
"Noisy." That understated warmth was still there in his voice. But as he glanced around at the walls of people rushing past us, his brow furrowed just a little. "Busy here as usual, huh?"
I chuckled. "Pretty much."
Between the overlapping voices and garbled announcements overhead, the station was always loud. The noise barely registered for me anymore, but Rowan seemed to be counting the seconds until we got out of there.
I nodded toward the exit. "You hungry? We can grab a bite before heading to mine."
"Sure." He smiled again, but it didn't quite land. He was bracing himself for the chaos outside.
We stepped out onto the street, and the city hit us in full force.
A car blared its horn as it zipped past. Motorbikes weaved through traffic, and hordes of people packed the pavement in every direction.
It always gave me a rush. I thrived on the energy that pulsed through every corner of this place.
Rowan, on the other hand, shrank a little as we walked. His eyes darted around as if the noise and movement were pressing in on him. He buried his hands in his pockets and kept his shoulders tight to make himself smaller.
A man distracted by his phone barrelled past us and clipped Rowan hard enough to send him off balance. I caught him around the waist on instinct to steady him before he could hit the ground.
He stiffened under my arm, frozen somewhere between surprised and embarrassed.
"You're tense," I teased. "Still don't get along with the city?"
Rowan ducked his head as he pulled himself free. "What gave you that idea?"
I laughed at the way he brushed away imaginary dirt from his shirt. He shot me a look, half amused, half irritated.
Rowan had always been the down-to-earth one. He liked things predictable, and I respected that about him. But sometimes I wondered how he hadn't gotten bored with the slow pace of Tunbridge Wells and seeing the same faces every day. It drove me crazy when I lived there.
Then again, he wasn't me. He was content with things as they were.
By the time we made it to the relative quiet of my flat that night, Rowan looked a little more at ease.
He dropped his bag by the door and took a slow look around.
He always did that when he visited. His gaze moved over the scattered photo gear, the mismatched throw pillows, the prints leaning against the walls instead of hanging on them.
The space worked for me, but I imagined it just felt like one big mess to him.
The flat still held a bit of warmth from the afternoon, so I tossed my keys onto the counter and nudged open the windows in the sitting room.
A light breeze drifted in, cooler than expected but more than enough to cut through the leftover heat.
It carried with it some faint traffic sounds and muffled chatter from the street below.
I lingered to listen for a moment, then headed for the kitchen. "Beer?"
"Yeah, that sounds good." He sank into the nearest chair, leaning back with a quiet sigh.
I grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge and handed one to him before flopping onto the sofa.
We sat in comfortable silence for a little while, sipping our drinks and listening to the faint evening noises outside.
Rowan's posture was much more relaxed now, his unease from earlier in the day mostly gone.
It didn't matter that we hadn't seen each other in over a year. We fell back into this quiet routine as if no time had passed at all. It felt familiar. Easy.
"You really live for this, don't you?"
I glanced over. "For what?"
"This." He nodded toward the city beyond the open windows. "The noise and the crowds."
I smiled. "Yeah, I guess. I love it. There's always something happening. Keeps me on my toes."
He gave a quiet nod and looked down at the drink in his lap. I knew this hadn't been his world for ages, but I liked having him here, anyway. He was good company, and he never asked me to be anything other than what I was.
We moved out to the balcony once the sun had mostly gone, leaving the sky streaked in pale oranges and dark blues.
The air had cooled enough to be comfortable, and the city noises had mellowed into a calmer kind of buzz.
Rowan lounged in the chair next to me, nursing the last of his beer in comfortable silence.
He stared out at the skyline for a minute, then said with a faint smirk, "So. Another one bites the dust."
I groaned. "You're really going to quote Queen to me now?"
He grinned over the rim of his bottle. "Why not? It's true. And you don't make it tough to see the pattern."
I sent him a look as I took a slow sip of my drink. "It's not my fault things don't work out."
"It's not always theirs, either." He was still teasing, but there was a glint in his eyes that gave me pause.
"What're you implying?"
His gaze wandered somewhere past the skyline, and for a second, I thought he might say more. But then he just smiled faintly and shook his head. "Never mind."
I leaned forward with a hard stare. "Nope. You don't get to lead in with that and then pretend you said nothing. Out with it."
He hesitated, and I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. "Well... You always dive into things headfirst, but you're not always in them. So maybe you're... I don't know. Maybe you're avoiding what you actually want."
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He wasn't outright accusing me of self-sabotage, but I felt a flicker of irritation.
I let out a breath and leaned back in the chair. "I'm not avoiding anything. I just haven't found the right person yet."
His smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yeah. Maybe."
I tried not to think too much about what he meant by that. Rowan didn't usually get all introspective about this kind of thing. We kept it easy with banter, sarcasm, and a bit of ribbing. But something in his tone stuck with me. Something I couldn't quite place.
He set his empty bottle on the floor. "Well? What actually happened with Nadia?"
For some reason, that question annoyed me, and I caught myself picking at the label on my own drink. "What do you think happened? Same old story. She said I wasn't 'present' enough."
He didn't seem surprised. "You don't think she had a point?"
"I mean, maybe. But what the hell does that even mean? I was there. I was involved. It's not like I ignored her."
"You can be there and still not be there," he said quietly.
I glanced over. His eyes met mine in the low light.
"I don't know," I grumbled. "Maybe I'm not cut out for this relationship shit. Every time I think something's going somewhere, it just doesn't."
He watched me for a while, as if thinking through what to say next. "Sounds to me like you haven't figured out what you want."
The way he said it didn't feel like he was just talking about Nadia, but I didn't know how to respond. So I just shrugged it off and downed the last of my drink.
Rowan didn't push it. He just smiled that quiet, knowing smile of his and leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. He stayed like that for so long I thought he'd fallen asleep.
Then he asked out of nowhere, "You ever thought about leaving?"
I frowned. "What, leaving London?"
"Yeah." He didn't look at me, just kept his eyes closed and resettled to get more comfortable. "You ever thought about going somewhere quieter?"
I let out a dry laugh. "Not really. I mean, it's fine going home every now and then, but I couldn't live there again. I'd lose my mind."
He nodded and opened his eyes. Something flickered across his face, but it was gone too quickly to name. After a while, he turned to look at me with a small smile. "Anyway, thanks for today. I know this isn't really my scene, but... It was good to see you."
I nudged his foot with mine. "Hey, I'm just glad you survived without having a meltdown in the middle of Piccadilly."
He snickered under his breath. "Barely."
We talked for a while longer. Nothing serious, just easy stuff.
But I could see the tightness in his shoulders and the way he kept shifting in his seat.
Exhaustion had caught up to him, so eventually, we called it a night.
He headed for the guest room, and I moved to the sitting room to throw something on Netflix just for the background noise.
But I wasn't really paying attention. Rowan's words were stuck on a loop in my head: Sounds to me like you haven't figured out what you want.
I could only guess what he thought I was missing. But I hated how perceptive he could be sometimes.