Four
Liem
Bri?
It is her. Sitting alone at a table, staring right at me. I swear she’s like the car you just stole in Grand Theft Auto. I see her everywhere I go, again and again, there for me in case I crash and burn.
“Liem!” the worker calls out. My order is ready, and it isn’t to go.
Shit. There’s no leaving now. I glance at Bri again, and she waves me over.
Timidly, I go to her. There is no chance to explain myself before her teasing begins. “You’re following me.”
“I’d say no, but it’s not looking good for me right now.”
I linger awkwardly, unsure of what to do next. She must read it on my face because she moves the chair next to her with a foot and says, “Sit.”
I comply like a trained puppy, never breaking eye contact while hoping for her approval. “I promise I didn’t know you were here.”
“Let me guess. You needed coffee and saw the sign for the croissants?”
“How did you—?” I end my stupid sentence when I realize I’m holding one and she has the remnants of another on the plate beside her.
She leans her chin onto a fist and grins. “They’re mid, by the way.”
“Damn. Really?” Remaining hopeful, I dip the croissant into the mug of melted chocolate. The first bite gives me dense pastry and the overpowering taste of oil. “Shit, you’re right.”
“I always am.” After a sip of her coffee, she asks, “On your way to the airport?”
“Coming back, actually.”
“Oh no. What happened?”
“What didn’t happen?” Every complaint people have about LaGuardia is true.
It took me an hour to get to the airport, then drama happened in the security line that made it pause for twenty minutes.
I stressed about missing the flight I didn’t technically have a seat on, only to find out the flight was delayed by an hour. Then two.
Foolishly, I stayed at the gate, anxiously waiting to hear if I would make it on, even though I was eighth on the standby list, hoping a slew of people would decide they didn’t need to get back in time to go to work Monday morning.
No one did. I got my crotch frisked for nothing.
“The next available flight is seven hours from now. I figured I’d come back to the city and find something to do in the meantime.”
“You mean find me.”
Warmth rushes to my cheeks, and I hope she can’t see it. Okay, yes, I did come back to the hotel hoping to run into her, but I stopped before going inside because I realized that would have been creepy. Then I immediately went to the same coffee place as her by accident.
“Well . . . yeah.” Why did I say that? “I was hoping to run into you, but I swear I wasn’t stalking you or anything.”
“That’s what stalkers always say.” She smirks behind her mug, easing my worries about her being weirded out by me. “I’m glad you found me.”
Like always, she pulls me back in as if she’s known me for years. If I’m an awkward people-pleasing clinger, she’s either my babysitter or my guardian angel. Maybe both.
“Did you find a flight yet?” I ask.
“No. I came here to look but got sidetracked.”
“By me?”
Her chuckle sounds like she’s hiding a yes. “No, my best friend. She’s married to David’s best friend.”
“Oh, shit. Did either of them know what he was doing?”
“For the sake of her safety and my lack of desire to have a criminal record, I’m going to believe her when she said she didn’t.”
Nothing fazes her. I’ve been in shambles for two days, and she’s here grinning and not hating the world and everyone in it. “How are you so optimistic about everything?”
“Am I optimistic or am I patiently waiting for a meteor to release me from the pressures of society and capitalism?”
I snort out a laugh. “That’s still optimism.”
“I’m happy you’re back.” She loops her arm through mine and leans her head onto my shoulder. “I missed my breakup buddy.”
Bri is touchy. Reaching for me like a brace when she’s nervous, gripping me in some way when she wants her words to sink in, wanting a hug—that intimate chest-to-chest contact—when she suspects my heart is aching.
I’ve never been around touchy-feely people, but with her, it’s comfortable, never making me flinch or want to shy away.
I’m not sure she knows she does it at all.
She uses touch in a positive, anxiety-soothing way that is new to me. I like it. A lot.
“I missed you too,” I embarrassingly admit.
She leans up from my shoulder. “Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re stalking me.”
“I’m not—”
She tucks her phone away in her bag and stands. “We should go to the park or something. Get some sun before you go back to the airport. You can leave your luggage in my room.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
At this point, she could’ve invited me to swim in the sewer with her and I would have said yes.
~
Central Park is cool, I guess. The weather is still nice, sun shining, couples out enjoying their weekend. Couples. Ugh.
I sit on a stone ledge beside the stairs, waiting for Bri to fetch us some ice cream from a cart she spotted on the way here.
We’ve been walking around for a few hours now, seeing the sights, so it’s snack time in her opinion.
I’m never going to turn down food, but in her brief absence, all the reasons to smile went with her, and my gloom festers in the shade of the tree above me.
I want answers. I want a reason. I want to know why I couldn’t be the man Natalie wanted. Why a year ago we were making heavy life decisions together, and now she doesn’t want me to be part of her future at all.
Tears sting at my eyes and nose, annoying me to no end. Where the fuck is—
“Vanilla!” Bri holds the cone of soft serve in front of my face, some of it already melting onto her finger. Her smile beams as bright as the sunshine, chasing my melancholy back into the shadows again.
“Thank you.”
Bri hums, “No problem,” while shoving the milky goodness into her mouth. She has priorities.
She sits beside me on the wall, facing me, folding one leg on top while the other dangles off the side. I mimic her position, my knee resting against hers, giving me the same comfort as if she were holding my hand again. This way will be less sticky.
“I don’t know why I agreed to this,” I say.
“Because it’s a little harder to be sad while eating ice cream?”
That’s true. Though sitting next to the human version of sunshine helps more. “No, I mean I’m lactose intolerant.”
“So am I, but why let that stop me?” She takes a generous lick from her cone. Spotting something beside her, she grins. “You look amazing in that dress,” Bri compliments a woman passing by, taking her by surprise as well. “That color is perfection on your skin.”
“Oh my god, thank you! It’s from a boutique on Fifth!”
“Well, they need to pull it from the shelves because it was made for you.”
The woman leaves with a smile beaming from her face. Bri looks like she asked for the time rather than making a stranger’s entire day.
People like her are enigmas. It’s not the nice people.
Anyone can pretend to be nice for a while.
It’s the kind people. Those who give out light whenever darkness is around, not because it feels good to them or because it’s the social expectation.
It simply occurs to them that they can help, so they do.
“How are you so happy?” I ask, still mesmerized.
“I’m happy?”
“Maybe not happy, but bright and sunny. I’m still wanting to scream and cry, and you’re acting like it’s just another day.”
With a smirk, she says, “I lost my mom as a teenager. I’m pretty sure I’ll survive a boy not liking me.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”
“That wasn’t to get sympathy,” she says. “My superpower is cutting people off. When I love, I love hard. When I’m done, I’m done. David is dead to me. It’s my shit that I’m struggling with.”
“Like what?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“More or less embarrassing than how we met?”
She acknowledges my point with a laugh. “It’s .
. . life. David was making a lot more than me and was paying most of the bills.
Without him or without a better job, I’m not in a great place.
” If I hadn’t spent the weekend crying with her, I wouldn’t recognize the way she avoids my eyes when she doesn’t want to see pity.
“I thought I would have my shit together by now, and it’s like I’m stuck in the same place I was five years ago. ”
“You don’t have your shit together?” I ask incredulously. “You know who you are, what you need to be okay, how to pick yourself up a second after someone knocks you down and shove them right back. If that’s not what having your shit together looks like, what is?”
“How can you even say that? With all your degrees and your financial stability.”
“That’s what I’m saying. I did everything ‘right,’ and I’m not any better for it. My relationship wasn’t real, and I’ve worked my life away in the same office for years, never making friendships that exist outside of those walls. I don’t even know what I want in life. Like, who am I?”
“You have plenty of time to figure that out. You’re a baby.”
“A baby? I’m twenty-six.”
“That’s still a baby. I turn thirty in six months.”
“I get along better with people older than me. Natalie is thirty-five.” Bri fails to hide the look on her face. “What?”
“That’s almost a decade older than you.”
“Yes, I can do math.”
“How did you two even meet?”
Embarrassed, I admit, “She was a professor at my university.”
“Liem!”
“It’s not like that. She wasn’t my professor. She was an adjunct in the journalism college. I met her while working as a graduate assistant, and . . .”
“You started fucking?”
Warmth rises to my face. “I was going to say I fell for her, but . . . I guess you’re right.
” Funny how you only see the subliminal shit when someone else points it out.
This must be what it’s like to have friends.
“I thought she was in it with me. We just got through the—uh . . .” I stop myself from going to the least sunny place imaginable.
“We went through some real-life shit, and I thought we were on the same page with our relationship. Apparently, I was way off.”