Twenty-four
Bri
We’ve only been apart for two weeks, but it feels like months. Change is hard, but California is my home. This is the place that should feel familiar, and yet it feels like I left home to come back here. I can’t remember it being this difficult to exist in LA.
Still no job, still no leads. And my period came. When it rains, it pours.
It hit me hard again, likely because of all the walking I’ve been doing through downtown Los Angeles, searching for now hiring signs while waiting for Keisha to get off work.
Feeling like I had pulled every muscle in my pelvic region gave me a glimpse of how bad it used to be, and a reminder that my body puts limits on the jobs I can take.
Crossing off full-time positions that require consecutive days of physical labor narrows my job search even more. This stupid disease, even at its most controlled, will never let me live my life outside of its painful shadow.
The cramps weren’t nearly as bad as the disappointment I feel in myself right now. How am I still backsliding? I still need help. Why can I not feel okay like I did in Brooklyn? Because Liem isn’t here.
I don’t want Liem’s financial support again—I would refuse it if he ever offered—but his emotional support? I fear being next to him may be everything I need.
After he sent me his floor plan, I’ve been full of ideas I can’t wait to get together for him. Even if I gave him a pink polka dot theme, he would pretend to love it. He wants to see me as much as I want to see him.
Junie hired me to bring her lunch at her office again. She set me as her preferred shopper in her app and tips me the maximum fifty percent every time, even though she almost always orders enough food to feed us both. I love her, truly.
Junie works in a high-rise in DTLA, a long but doable bike ride from Keisha’s office and the courthouse. With most of my dog walks in Keisha’s neighborhood, I can make it without a car for a while. I’ll save money quicker this way anyway.
Junie’s assistant acknowledges my presence with a nod, letting me go back to Junie’s office without having to partake in uncomfortable small talk.
Inside, she scowls at her monitor until I open the door, then her face lights up. I’m not sure if her excitement is for me or the poke bowls in my hand.
“Hi, baby!” she greets me. “Thank you for bringing my food.”
I plop myself into a chair. “I would do it without you paying me, you know.”
“Blah, blah. Tell me what’s up. Keke says you’re going to see your man in Seattle.”
Always telling my business. “Yes. He hired me to do something for him.”
“To fuck him?”
That’s technically a profession. One I’m considering if no other jobs pan out. “To decorate his new apartment.”
“Sure.” Everyone wants me to get laid. “You rearrange his furniture and then he rearranges your guts. Fair trade.”
“Junie, please.” I laugh.
Another big bite isn’t enough to keep her from talking more shit. “He’s going to tear that kitty up, girl, and you deserve it.”
I do deserve it, but that’s not the point. I just want to be near him again and make sure he’s okay before I get my hopes up that we’ll have sex again.
Liem: I get to see you tomorrow :)
“He texted you, didn’t he?” Junie asks, wriggling her shoulders as if she knows she’s right. “Got you grinning and shit.”
“Shut up and eat.”
“That’s what you’re gonna tell him.” I toss a piece of corn at her. “Why can’t you move to Seattle and find a job out there? It’s expensive and hard everywhere, at least you could live with him while doing it.”
“You want me to chase after a boy?”
“I didn’t say that.” We stare each other down over our bowls. “Have fun this weekend. You deserve it.”
Do I?
~
People are taking their sweet time getting off this damn plane.
I’ve been counting down the minutes since I finished packing last night.
We should be at zero, but these people are taking forever.
In all fairness to them, I’m in the inconvenient part of my cycle where I stop hurting and start yearning.
Patience does not exist for me right now.
I want everything, and I want it immediately.
I need to be near him again, to feel something other than the disappointment radiating from everyone around me.
To say I don’t want to touch him again would be a bigger lie than everything I told Junie before I came here.
Finally off the plane, I follow the signs to the exit, gripping my phone tight in my hand in case I get lost and have to wait two additional minutes to find him.
But there he is. Waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator, wrapped in a black hoodie, smile splitting his cheeks.
Warmth washes over me, like I had been holding my breath under cold water for nearly a month, now finally coming up for air on a perfectly sunny day.
I’ve missed him—the camaraderie we have, the absence of looming dread for a weekend.
I run to him and nearly leap into his open arms. Barely on the ground, I hang from his neck, my energy recharging more every second he is against me, breathing life back into me like I’m regaining a missing piece of my soul.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he says into my neck. His grip hasn’t loosened one bit. I don’t want it to.
“I’ve missed you more.”
As much as my body wants the opposite, I try not to remember what happened the last time we touched in an airport. The kiss I couldn’t resist while thinking I wouldn’t see him again. Had the suitcase exchange not happened, that kiss could have been the end of everything.
Finally, we let go. I look into his eyes, and for a moment, it’s there—the hesitancy, wondering if a kiss is appropriate. It’s not.
“Ready to show me your hospital room?” I joke, tapping his chest to gently force myself away from his gravitational pull.
“Yes. Please don’t laugh when you see it.”
My arm around his waist, his around mine while he pulls his suitcase in his other hand. We’re glued together again, and it feels so right.
But I’m sad. Because it’s going to hurt like hell when I leave him again after this weekend.