AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Abigail pulls away and starts digging through her bag. She produces a beat up paperback barely clinging to its pages. A tattered bookmark juts out.
“Here,” she says. “It’s my favorite and I know you’ve never read it. You’ll need it for the plane.”
I take the book gingerly. This isn’t merely her favorite. Abi has read this book dozens of times. The pages are yellow. A map of a fantasy world almost falls out of the book when I clutch it. I hug the book to my chest, and fresh tears burn the backs of my eyes.
“Abi, are you sure?”
She nods, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.
I hug her tightly. “Thank you. I’ll read it. I promise. I’ll message you the second I finish it.”
“You could message while you read,” she suggests timidly. “If you think of anything.”
“Then I’ll do that.”
She nods and seems just slightly less likely to burst into tears.
I can’t say the same for myself. I endure one more round of hugs, then Diego softly reminds me that we have a plane to catch. And that’s it. I turn away and roll mysuitcase toward the TSA security lines, trying my hardest not to look back. By the time I give up and do it, my family has left the airport.
Diego rubs circles on my back. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m alright, I think.” I swallow down the tears, saving them for later, but my breath is shuddery and I still haven’t released the book Abigail handed me. The memory of her fingers carefully turning the pages over and over lingers on every page.
We shuffle through the security line, taking off shoes and hoodies and belts, dropping all our belongings into bins for scans that probably don’t even do much more than make getting to your flight a hassle. We make it to the other side, redress, gather our belongings and search the departures board for our gate. International flights are a shuttle ride away, so it’s a good twenty or thirty minutes before we finally reach a terminal that says “London” on it with a departure time that’s less than an hour away.
Holy shit. This is real.
A giddy thrill races through me, clashing with the lingering sadness of saying goodbye to my family for the next several months. Diego asks if I want anything to eat or drink, but my stomach can’t handle that. I sit with our bags while he heads to an airport coffee stand, returning with two coffees and some baked goods anyway.
“It’s not exactly your Boyfriend Café, but if you need to talk, I’m here,” he says as he sets the food and drinks onthe table before us.
We’re sitting on high stools facing the gate, watching the airline employees deal with fussy travelers, observing the people we’re about to spend eight or so hours with during a trans-Atlantic flight. Are any of them already as homesick as me? Or maybe some of them are headed home instead of jetting off into the unknown. It’s impossible to tell from the roller bags and ereaders and handheld gaming consoles they carry.
“I’m going to miss them,” I finally say. I sip on my coffee, except it’s not coffee at all. “They had jasmine tea?”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like it better.”
“You’re more cut out for the Boyfriend Café than you give yourself credit for, Diego.”
He chuckles shortly. “I guess I learned a thing or two. But really, are you alright? We can turn around and walk away.”
“No way,” I say quickly. As much as it was hard to say goodbye, the second he proposes abandoning our plans I push back. “We’re doing this. And it’s going to be amazing. I just haven’t been away from my family for so long before. We’ve always been close.”
“Me neither,” Diego says. “It wasn’t much better on my end, if that makes you feel better.”
Having met his family, I can easily imagine that they were as emotional and broken up as my own, especially his mother. But I also know she would have encouragedDiego more strongly than anyone to stick with this, to go out and experience the world.
“I never imagined when I got to Montridge that I’d ever decide to go even farther away than that,” Diego says.
I chuckle, recalling the terrified man who called Montridge a city when he first arrived.
“Sorry for messing up your life,” I say, joking.
Diego smirks at me. “Yeah, you’ve really ruined my plans of being a sheltered hermit who studies my own community from afar. How dare you?”
“I guess I’m a bad influence.”
The joking lightens the mood. I find that I do actually want my tea, and the chocolate-filled scone Diego selected for me too.
