Page 58 of Date and Switch

“Esther is already in the process of contacting the airlines to get us booked. Based on the din of activity in the hallway, I can only imagine what their customer service desks look like.”

“So, we’re all leaving tomorrow? Not just me?”

Her eyes were puffy. She’d cried in the few minutes I stood out in the hallway. Already all of her toiletries were out of the bathroom and most of those small items that marked a space as lived in were already packed away.

Seeing that took my voice away, again. I nodded, trying to force a few words out.

“There’s concern about an illness or an outbreak which started in the east. From what Teddy said, they’re erring on the side of caution and sending us all home.”

* * *

Esther: No London to Boston flights. I have you both booked London to NYC at 8:40 p.m. on Virgin Atlantic.

* * *

“We’re booked to New York. Tomorrow night, eight thirty.”

To my surprise when we boarded our flight, she was no longer booked next to me. I spent the eight hours to New York alone. My flight attendant was able to locate her on the flight manifold. 52E. Nearly at the ass end of the plane, sandwiched between two people in the middle seat. She’d rather suffer through an eight-hour flight between two strangers with no personal space, than spend it sitting next to me. That was the level of disgust I’d created from being unable to say definitely that yes I loved her or no I didn’t.

“Could you give this to my friend in 52E before she gets off the plane?” I asked the flight attendant who’d provided me with her seat number. She smiled at me like I was some nerdy kid asking the pretty girl to the school dance.

“It will work out.” She said as she tucked the note into her apron. “I have a sixth sense about these things.”

She must have seen on the manifold that Sera’s ticket originally was booked in first class with me, and it had been changed to economy at the last minute. That alone loudly broadcast lover’s quarrel. Though we weren’t lovers. We were ending this vacation even further apart than we’d been when we started it.

thirty-eight

“Please don’t take a job with the cruise line.” His note said. “That is where careers go to die. You have way too much talent to be squirreling it away with people who talk too loudly and don’t think you’re anything other than background noise. You earned your moniker in spades, sweet one. I hope you can believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.”

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, elegant handwriting that looked debonair even though it’s scrawled on a damn cocktail napkin. Fuck him for writing something that screamed he still cared when he was the one who said we existed in an unsustainable bubble. And fuck him for taking every last molecule of air with him.

I didn’t even bother having anyone collect me at the airport. I couldn’t deal with an hour and half of questions on the ride back to my brother’s place. Of course, randomly showing up at your brother’s place when they all expect you to still be in Europe doesn’t exactly make for a quiet reacquaintance with the real world.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The second I stumbled into Rex’s condo, Felicity wrapped herself around me like a rhesus monkey.

“I’m so glad you’re here but also why are you here?” She sobbed into my hair, still refusing to even give me an inch of personal space.

“Where’s Rex?”

“You and I literally share DNA. We haven’t been separated for this long in our entire lives and the first thing you ask is where’s Rex? Hello? Big sister here. Has been missing and needing you for weeks.”

“I asked because if I’m going to have to explain why I’m here I’d rather I only do it once. Is he at work?”

“It’s Saturday, Sera. He’ll be right back. He went to grab dinner.”

It felt like she just told me he was coming back and suddenly he appeared. It had been a while since I’d seen Rex—life getting in the way and all—but he was definitely a sight for sore eyes. Seeing the excitement in his face when he realized both of his sisters sat at his kitchen island dripped little beads of glue into my cracked and bleeding heart.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that you’re here. But what are you doing here?” he asked as he set down their takeout order.

The question was ridiculously straight forward, so matter of fact that there should literally be zero reason for me to start crying. But it was as if the realization I was home-ish, amongst people that loved me, released the valve holding in every emotion I’d kept bottled up for the last forty-eight hours. Exploding into water works was too soft a phrase for the propulsion of tears, snot, and watery words swallowed by my spasming diaphragm.

Rex had never been the touchy feely type. Not while we were growing up anyway. We were always the annoyance, the tag alongs, the anchor of responsibility. In college, especially because we both went to East Coast schools and he’d already moved to New York, he personally tasked himself with making sure we were studying, not partying, had enough to eat, money for laundry, and we were staying on top of paying our cell phone bills.

Comfort over broken hearts? Never his thing. Protective big brother with a scorched earth hair-trigger? First time I’d seen him surface too. Having heard all the horror stories about how Rex read Xander the riot act—multiple times—I could only imagine what he’d do if he had to deal with a second misbehaving man treating his other sister badly. Of course, that isn’t what happened with us anyway.

Eventually I told them about how we’d started as friends and it developed into something more but they’d sent us home and we didn’t really know where to leave things. I left out the part about being broken up over his ex-fiancé. It was too complicated an issue to get into anyway.

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