18 Samantha
18
SAMANTHA
W E SPENT THE whole day together.
We went back to my apartment so I could wash the mouse off and feed Pooter. Then we picked up the boys and took them to the zoo. When they realized what Xavier did for a living, they completely lost it. It was like they were getting to see elephants with their own personal veterinary tour guide. He was so good with them. He grabbed us water bottles and lemonade before we knew we needed them and procured snacks for everyone at intervals that felt practiced and intuitive and I realized that Xavier was a natural caretaker. It went beyond handing me a hoodie to wear before a night playing miniature golf or getting me a coffee before I woke up.
He was Airport Dad. The guy who plans everything and drives you there and parks the car and lifts all the heavy bags. Carries the passports and makes sure everyone gets to where they’re going and they have what they need. It wasn’t just me who got to shut off their brain around him, it was anyone lucky enough to be placed in his care.
My dad was also an airport dad. Maybe that’s why I had gravitated toward Xavier. I recognized his spirit.
I loved his spirit. All of it.
I’d been sort of hoping to walk away from these two days and be over him. That something this weekend would give me the ick.
Nothing about him gave me the ick. I had the opposite of the ick right now. It was actually a problem.
After the zoo, we dropped the boys off, checked on Pooter, cleaned up, and then went to dinner. Practically closed the place down talking. The tea light candle on the table burned out an hour before we did. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost midnight.
I flopped onto the bed while he bolted the door. He put his wallet on the table and took his shoes off and came to lay next to me. We gazed at each other from our respective pillows. We were exhausted. We’d walked like twenty thousand steps, and both of us were a little sunburned. I was too tired to move and I think he was too.
I had to get him to the airport by 4:30 a.m. The visit was almost over.
He reached out and brushed my hair off my forehead.
“I had a good time,” I whispered. “I’m glad you came.”
“I had a good time too.”
His eyes were bloodshot. I felt bad. It was 2:00 a.m. in Minnesota, I’d run this poor man ragged today, driving him around in my hot, mouse nest car.
“You should go to sleep,” I said. “You have a long day tomorrow.”
He didn’t answer. He just kept looking at me. His contemplative gaze. Those piercing blue irises.
It made my stomach twist in a longing sort of way.
I was going to miss him when he left.
If I’d stayed in Minnesota, we probably would have been a thing, instantly. We would have rolled right out of that UFO into a relationship. I’d be meeting him for lunch at the clinic every day and he’d be asking me to stay over at his place until I just stopped leaving altogether, and Pooter and I moved in. There’d be the pumpkin patch pictures that I’d force him to take at Halloween, ugly sweaters at Thanksgiving, matching pajamas at Christmas. He was a good sport, he’d do it. In fact, I think he was looking for someone he could do things like this with, even if he didn’t know it—because he didn’t get to be a kid. His parents sucked. He didn’t get the goofy family traditions and the framed vacation photos on the mantel. And I think it made him grow into a serious adult who didn’t do miniature golf and escape room dates or go to the zoo. And I could see how much it changed him when he did. How he lit up and got looser. He needed the razzmatazz that I brought to the relationship.
And I needed his steadiness.
He was level and capable. Someone you could always depend on, someone who would make you feel safe and loved and taken care of, who could talk you onto the shoulder of a freeway while you’re driving blind and panicking. He could keep you calm in a swaying gondola a hundred feet in the air or a room you can’t get out of, someone who would jump into a lake to save your phone.
We were really well matched. Even this early I could tell.
But I didn’t stay in Minnesota. And I was never going back.
If we were lucky, Mom had a decade. More. And I wasn’t missing a moment of it. I’d missed too much already.
She couldn’t make any more memories with me. But I could still make memories with her . I would be a witness to her life, even though she was done witnessing mine. And it sucked, because it meant this thing between Xavier and me had no future.
“Today was the perfect day,” I said, almost to myself. “Minus the dead mouse.”
He laughed softly. He held my hand between us. “When can I come back?” he asked.
I let a breath out through my nose and said the hard part out loud. “I don’t think you should.”
He stared at me a long moment. Then he sat up. “Why?”
I sat up too. “You don’t live here,” I said.
Silence.
“Can you honestly say that this makes sense?” I said.
“I like you, Samantha—”
“I like you too. I like you so much that I know if we keep doing this, I’m going to set myself up to be miserable. And you’ll be miserable too.”
He studied me. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. You didn’t. I just think we need to be smart—”
“I don’t think I want to.”
I licked my lips and looked him in the eye. “Xavier. What is it that you want?” I asked. “Like, in a relationship.”
“I want someone who knows what come on Eileen means.”
“You want a witness to your life. Right? You want a parallel timeline.” I gestured between us. “This, you living two thousand miles from here, is not a parallel timeline. You can’t witness a life that’s taking place in a whole different time zone.”
“People do long-distance,” he said.
“They do it when there’s an end in sight. They do it when it’s temporary, for school, or the military. They do it until they get to be together. It could be ten years before we get that. If we get that. I am never coming back to Minnesota. I will not leave my mom. And you can’t be here either, you have a business there. You just opened it, right?”
“Two years ago.”
“So it’s probably upside down still, you can’t sell it? You still owe too much money to the bank?”
He went quiet for a moment. “No, I can’t sell it.”
“When could you?” I asked. “In theory, if you wanted to move here, how long? Three years? Five? More?”
His silence confirmed more.
“I think I let you come partly because I was hoping it would give this closure,” I said.
“Me too,” he admitted, quietly.
“But it didn’t though. It made it worse. And it’s going to get harder every time. You can’t be here,” I said. “I can’t be there. And I know that’s all really down the line stuff, but I don’t want to start something that can only end badly. I’m not doing that to the Samantha of two years from now. She would be very mad at me.”
He looked hurt.
Xavier’s mask had come down, the blank slate had fallen away sometime over the last two days. I bet that would have been fun to see. Xavier, thawing. Getting warmer and warmer as time went on and we got to know each other better.
He was very worth knowing.
He deserved a proper witness.
I took his hand. “You need to forget about me. I’m serious. Go home, find a girl there. Don’t call me, don’t text me. It’ll only make it harder for both of us.”
He didn’t try to reason with me again. The facts were the facts. Even if we hated them.
Four hours later I dropped him off at the airport and kissed him goodbye.