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“You’re the best influence,” Diego says, turning serious. “If I hadn’t met you, I probably wouldn’t even have made it through my time in Montridge, let alone taken such a huge leap to go live across the world.”
“I wouldn’t have either, though,” I say. “I wasn’t going to continue studying. I was probably going to stay in New Jersey and work some office job. You’re the reason I’m sitting here today. You might not want to give yourself credit for that, but it’s true.”
Diego arrived in Montridge terrified, wanting to turn around and run right back to his small town out in Wisconsin. But together we discovered a hunger to travel, to explore, to dive into scary new things as long as we doit together. I might have been more bold to start with, but I wouldn’t be sitting in this airport waiting for an international flight if I didn’t have Diego next to me.
The PA system crackles with static and an airline employee starts rattling off instructions they’ve probably said a hundred times. “Boarding will begin shortly. Please check your ticket for your boarding group,” they finish.
Diego and I startle up to our feet. Diego gathers our trash while I make sure we have everything we need back in our bags. We roll our luggage into the line, but as we stand there waiting for our boarding group, Diego grabs my hand. His is shaky and a bit too warm, and boy, can I ever relate. We’re about to do this. The moment we step into that tunnel, we’ll be walking onto an airplane that will take us across an entire ocean and far from everything we know.
But now that the moment’s here, I couldn’t be more excited.
“You okay?” Diego says when the line starts to move, ushering us toward the plane.
“Yeah,” I say, and I really mean it this time.
I beam over at him, and my enthusiasm must be apparent, because he smiles as well, soft and genuine and relaxed. His hand is steady in mine, but I give it a squeeze anyway. We’re about to walk away from everything we know, everything that’s safe, everything that’s familiar. We’re about to leave it behind to go on a grand adventure,and we have no idea what the end result will be or what the future holds for us.
But we’re both okay with that.
We step into the tunnel leading to the airplane, and our lives change forever.
Epilogue
Diego
Two years later...
THE STOREFRONT IS nondescript. It could be a convenience store. It could be a hotel. The windows offer a view of a sedate foyer where a single employee in black mills around aimlessly. I check my phone, but it claims this is the place.
What the hell have you dragged me into this time, Avery?
I stuff my phone in my back pocket and creep into the shop. Wood and vanilla wraps around me, a warmth that chases away the gray drizzle awaiting me outside on London’s streets. I had to take the tube after work at a university across town to get here. In all my and Avery’s two years here, I haven’t yet ventured to this part of the sprawling city, and I feel the way I did when we first arrivedtwo years ago: Completely lost and tremendously overwhelmed.
A lot has changed in those years. I found teaching work in gender studies, and I even get to continue doing research as part of my job. Avery is finishing up their degree, but when they do, we’re thinking of staying here. We’ve come to love London. We’ve settled into a cute apartment near Avery’s university, met a circle of friends in and outside of academia, and carved out a life for ourselves. Even the distance from our families has become manageable. I call home once a week and fly back whenever there’s a break from classes.
But something that has never changed in all that time is Avery’s propensity for dragging me off on some new adventure I never could have fathomed.
Today, it’s this strange little shop in a strange corner of town.
“Hello, sir,” the only employee says when I enter. “Do you need help finding something?”
She gestures around the room, which is empty of any apparent product. There’s shelves bearing dishware and a desk that might be for the staff. That’s it.
“No,” I say. “I have a reservation, I think.”
“Ah,” she brightens as though I’ve uttered a magic password. “Last name?”
“It would be under Aaron.”
She finds Avery’s reservation on a program on her tablet,then motions for me to follow her. She takes me down a staircase set to the side of the room. At the bottom, a door awaits us. She actually pauses to knock on it before pushing it open and leading me inside. I’m either about to get murdered or step into Narnia.
We enter a room that’s all dark, stained wood. Small tables sit spaced out in the center of the room. The same shelves as upstairs line the walls, these bearing even more elegant dishware, glasses in various sizes, clear teapots with flowers blooming inside them. There’s also tins, and I can guess from the fragrance of earth and grass and vanilla and jasmine flowers what they contain.
So, Narnia, I suppose.
Avery stands up from a chair and rushes to greet me.
“You made it,” they say. “I was worried you’d be late.”
