CHAPTER 7
Eline looked almost as she had twelve years ago, but still different at the same time.
Her long blonde hair was a little wavier than it had been when they’d first met, and Arlowe wondered if it was still just as soft as it had been when she’d used to run her fingers through it.
They would lie in her bed or in Eline’s after making love, and she’d have Eline’s head on her chest and feel like the world could end around them, and she would be totally fine because she had her fingers running through Eline’s soft hair that smelled a little of cucumber melon.
Eline’s bright blue eyes were still just as blue, but Arlowe could see something else in them that hadn’t been there until the very end of their relationship.
She recognized it easily because she still saw it in her own eyes whenever she looked into a mirror: sadness and regret.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that it was okay to contact you?” she’d asked a moment ago, and Eline hadn’t yet answered, so Arlowe turned her eyes toward her and away from the window to find out why.
“Oh,” Eline let out when their eyes met.
“Yeah, oh,” she replied.
Eline shifted in her chair and took a sip of her coffee, and Arlowe waited, not wanting to fill the space between them with meaningless sound.
It had already been an awkward meeting. She had seen Eline coming out of the bathroom, which wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured them laying eyes on each other for the first time after so long, and she had pictured it.
She’d pictured running into Eline accidentally a million times.
She’d be in Amsterdam with her friends, having some kind of reunion trip there, and running into Eline on the street, at a bar, or at that grocery store that they’d frequented.
They’d talk and probably laugh a little while they caught up over time lost, and every time, she could picture them sharing their first kiss in a long time, making love like no time had passed at all, and then trying to figure out what happened next.
She’d even pictured Eline in this very town, thinking about how ridiculous and impossible that would’ve been just as of yesterday, seeing her walking on a sidewalk, coffee in hand, and having to stop to make sure that it was really her.
She had never pictured walking into a coffee shop and seeing Eline walking out of the bathroom and looking right at her, but what concerned her wasn’t that.
It was that they’d probably never had a weird moment between them.
They’d been nervous upon meeting, yes, but it hadn’t been like this.
It had felt to Arlowe, even with only seeing Eline for a second, that she’d found someone she was going to fall in love with, and that nervousness had abated quickly.
“I wanted to call you, text you, email you,” Eline began. “I wanted to find you on social media again and see what you were up to, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It didn’t seem fair at first because I’d asked you to give me time, but you were all I could think about, Arlowe.
It took everything in me to unfollow and unfriend you the first time, and I didn’t want to know what you were doing back at home because I worried that you’d meet someone else, and I couldn’t watch you fall in love with whomever that might be. ”
“But that’s not what I asked, Eline. Why didn’t you ever tell me that you wanted to hear from me? I wanted to respect your space and your wishes, so I never reached out, but–”
“Arlowe, I thought you didn’t want to hear from me,” Eline interjected.
“I know what I put in that letter. I read it a hundred times before I left it under your door. I know it said that I didn’t want you to reach out, but I thought you would eventually.
I maybe unfairly waited for you to call, or at least, send me a message, asking how I was doing, and when you didn’t, I thought you’d decided against it and that you didn’t want me in your life. I wanted to respect that.”
“You had to know that I’d want to talk to you, Eline.”
“No, I didn’t. Arlowe, you left. And I know we agreed to break up, but I loved you. I wanted to try to figure it out.”
“You said you didn’t.”
“No, I never said that. I told you I wanted to be with you, and you told me you couldn’t see how, when I didn’t want to move to America, and you didn’t want to live in Holland. I was pulling up information on my phone to share with you on both of those things.”
“We talked about it, yes, but it would’ve been too hard and a lot of pressure, Eline. What if I’d moved there, assuming we could’ve even made it happen, and it didn’t work out, or vice versa? We decided together.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to lose you completely. I needed time.”
“I was giving you that time,” Arlowe argued.
“For twelve years, I’ve been giving you that time.
My friends have wondered since the beginning why I never tried to look you up online; why I didn’t try to get in touch, even to just get some kind of closure after all that time.
I thought you’d moved on, didn’t want to hear from me at all, and then, I get this email after all these years. ”
“Arlowe, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking we might find our way back to each other, but then, that didn’t happen. You didn’t call or anything, and eventually, I…”
Arlowe swallowed because she knew where Eline was going with this. She wasn’t sure that she was prepared to hear it, but she’d come to meet her, which meant that she had to force herself to be ready for this.
“When was eventually?” she asked gently.
“It was five years later,” Eline replied.
“Are you still with her?”
“What? No,” Eline said quickly.
“How long?”
“About a year,” Eline told her, nodding solemnly.
“You’ve got me beat,” she said and leaned back in her chair.
“I do?”
“I can’t manage to make it work with anyone for more than a few months.”
“When was your eventually?”
“Depends on what you mean by that.”
“I don’t–”
“I slept with someone for the first time after you about a year later.”
“Oh,” Eline said. “A year?”
“I was drunk that night. I met her at a bar, and we went back to her place. I left before she woke up, and I honestly don’t remember much of what happened. I’m not proud of it.” She paused. “I didn’t go on a date for another year or so after that, and it went nowhere. I’ve dated some since.”
Arlowe chose to leave out the fact that she’d probably kissed more women in the past twelve years than most people do in a lifetime or even two lifetimes.
“I’m sorry,” Eline said.
“For what?”
“For never reaching out. I should’ve known you’d wait for me to be the one to do that, but I couldn’t help thinking that you just didn’t want to.
The longer it went on, the easier it got to imagine you living your life however you wanted and not thinking about me at all.
I mean, we had an amazing relationship, Arlowe, but when it started, we convinced ourselves that it was just one of those college things that would end on its own.
I decided that it must have been that for you after all, and I didn’t want to face that if it were the case. ”
“What do you mean?” Arlowe asked.
“I mean, had I contacted you and you told me that you were happy without me, it would’ve broken me then.”
“So, you emailed me now because it wouldn’t break you anymore?”
“Technically, you emailed me first,” Eline argued before she gave Arlowe a soft smile.
“I had no idea who you were.”
“And I had no idea you worked there, let alone founded the company. When I figured it out, I thought I at least owed it to you to tell you who you were talking to.”
“So, that was it?” Arlowe asked.
“No, I’m here now. I wasn’t sure how, or even if you’d respond, but we’re both in the same place at the same time. I thought maybe we could get some closure now that it’s been a long time and we’ve both… well, moved on with our lives, I suppose.”
Arlowe wanted to tell her that she hadn’t moved on with her life because she really hadn’t, but she didn’t want to get into that here, or maybe ever, because it felt like if they took things much further right now, she would have to tear her heart open again, and she wasn’t sure that she could handle it.
“Would you have told me it was you if you still lived in Amsterdam and found the bug?”
“I don’t know. I think so, but I might have taken a little more time to decide.”
“Why?”
“Because this way, I thought I might get to see you again, and with me there, I probably wouldn’t have.” Eline looked out the window then and added, “I don’t know how to do this, Arlowe. I’ve wanted to talk to you again since the moment we said goodbye, but this feels…”
“Weird?” Arlowe finished.
“Like we’ve lost our–”
“Spark?”
Eline smiled softly and turned back to her.
“We did have one of those, didn’t we?”
“Oh, yeah,” Arlowe replied. “Lots of them.”
“Remember the time we were at your dorm, and I told you I was going to take a shower? You–”
“Let you go but followed you in, like, a minute later?” she said. “Yeah, I remember. One of my favorite times.”
Eline’s smile widened, and she said, “Mine too.”
Arlowe’s phone dinged, but she didn’t pull it out of her blazer pocket, where she had it resting against Eline’s letter.
“Do you need to get that? It’s okay if you do.”
“It’s probably one of my friends,” she said right before her phone dinged again.
“It’s really okay, Arlowe.”
“I’m technically on call at work. I’m in charge of support, too, which is why I was the one who responded to your bug email. Just give me a sec, okay?”
“I get it,” Eline replied.
Arlowe pulled her phone out, careful not to pull the letter out with it, and checked the two messages.
Sarai Kaplan: Just breathe. It’s going to be okay.
Arlowe smiled a little at that. She’d messaged her friends while in line because she hadn’t been sure how to handle things after the initial awkwardness.
Mitchell Herbert: Hey, everything’s fine, but I wanted to let you know that Travis didn’t show up today. I’m staying to cover for him, but he didn’t call out, and I can’t get ahold of him. It’s the second time he’s done that now, I think, so I thought you should know.
“Shit,” she said.
“Something wrong?” Eline asked.
“Someone didn’t show up for work. He’s a junior engineer, only been with us for about six months, and has a habit of being late or not showing up at all. I need to fire him, but he’s really talented, so I hoped he’d get out of this phase.”
“What phase?”
“Being twenty-three and a guy.”
Eline laughed at that.
“I need to–”
“It’s okay. I get it. It’s work.”
“Get what?” Arlowe asked.
“That you have to go.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” She held up her phone. “I just need to text someone back.”
“Oh,” Eline said. “I thought you…”
“No,” Arlowe replied. “Just give me a second.”
She sent Mitchell a text that she would try to call Travis herself in a few minutes and that she’d deal with him later and thanked him for staying to cover. Then, she looked back up and saw Eline watching her.
“You look good, Arlowe,” Eline said with a smile.
Arlowe smiled back and replied, “You do, too.”
“I recognize that shirt, you know?”
“I thought you might.”
“You stole it?”
“No, you gave it to me,” she argued.
“I let you borrow it; there’s a difference.”
“You want it back right now? I can take it off.”
She said that specifically to see Eline’s reaction, which was to look down at her chest and back up into her eyes.
“I think you’d get arrested for taking off your clothes in a public place. This isn’t Amsterdam, you know?”
Arlowe laughed a little just as another text came in, and she sighed when she looked down and read it to herself.
“Well, I do have to go now. The guy just showed up at the office, and he’s apparently drunk or hungover and asking for me. I need to go fire him. Really wish we already had that HR role Vi wants hired.”
“He’s drunk?”
“Maybe. Michell’s text said it was either that or something else that’s at least equally as bad. I’m sorry. I took the day off, but I’m in charge, and–”
“I understand.”
“I really am sorry. I–”
“Arlowe, it’s okay. I manage people, too. I know how it goes.”
“I don’t know what the protocol is here.”
“What do you mean?” Eline said.
Arlowe put her phone back into her pocket and asked, “What do we do now? I have to go, but I don’t want this to be the last time we see each other.”
“I don’t want that, either.”
“Can I call you?”
“Of course, you can call me.”
“Okay. Well, I should go, then. I don’t want him trying to leave and get in a car or something.”
“I’ll sit here and finish my coffee,” Eline said. “Thank you for this, by the way.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Arlowe stood up. “Eline, I–” She swallowed hard. “Just… I’ll call you.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Eline replied with a smile.
Arlowe didn’t want to leave her there, but she couldn’t stay right now, either, so she smiled back, turned, and left for the office.
When she got there, she quickly handled the Travis issue, making sure he had a ride home since he was at least drunk, if not also high, and after that was all done, she found her three best friends sitting in her office, eagerly waiting for a report.
“Well?” Enya asked.
“She’s still beautiful and makes my heart dance,” she revealed, flopping back in her chair.
“And?” Sarai asked.
“And what?”
“And is she married? In a relationship? Dating? Single?” Violet asked.
“I–” Arlowe stopped. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?!” Sarai questioned.
“I don’t think she is. She said she lives in an apartment – by herself, I believe – and she didn’t mention moving with anyone or having anyone back in Holland.”
“But you didn’t confirm?” Violet asked.
“No. We… got caught up, I guess.”
“Idiot,” Sarai said with a little laugh.
“Well, what happens now?” Enya asked.
“I told her I’d call her. I would’ve stayed, but fucking Travis.”
“When are you going to call her?” Violet asked.
“Is now too soon?” she asked back.