Again, But Better(104)

Pilot: I just heard someone use the word ravish at work. Can I pull off the word ravish? Or is it like knackered? =P

I drop the phone in my purse and zip it away. Tracey doesn’t give me a task until 2:30. She hands me a bag of mail to drop off and tells me I can leave for the day. I feel like a popped balloon as I trudge down the road to the Tube station. I check my texts.

Pilot: Is everything okay?

Pilot: I’m back early today, so find me when you get home!

Pilot: I hope everything’s okay.

I drop it back into my purse.

On the train, I shove in earbuds and close my eyes. Now I get to go home and pack for Edinburgh. We leave tomorrow at twelve. Pilot’s out early today. We can go get shawarma when I get back.

I walk home to the Karlston on autopilot. The conversation I had with Wendy won’t stop rewinding and playing back in excruciatingly slow motion across my brain. I’m tromping numbly down the basement steps when I catch sight of a dark-haired girl in a tan leather jacket, standing where my carry-on landed when I dropped it my first day here. She’s fiddling with an iPhone, and there’s a suitcase by her feet. Is she lost? I pull out my earbuds and take another step down. She spins to look up at me.

I freeze like a deer in the headlights, eight steps from the ground. My heart falls out of my chest and smashes right through the staircase under my feet.

The girl eyes me hesitantly. She doesn’t know me. She’s never even seen me because I’ve been neglecting Facebook altogether.

“Um,” she starts in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry. I just got here, and I’m trying to visit someone. I can’t get on the Wi-Fi to tell them I’m here, and I’m not sure where in the building he lives. I mean, I know it’s in the basement … Do you think you could help me? I’m looking for my boyfriend, Pilot. Do you know him?”

I nod.

“Could you show me?” she asks.

I jog down the last eight steps and start down the corridor. At the end of the hall, I point to his door like the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Amy shoots me a funny look. “Thanks.”

I step toward my own room and put the key in the lock. When Pilot’s door opens, I twist to face them just as she yells, “Surprise!” and hurls herself at him. He quickly breaks from her lips and takes a step back. I watch as he catches sight of me over her shoulder.

I’m sinking. His face is a spattering of shock as he looks from me to her, and then back at me. I rip open my door and slam it shut behind me. That’s not how someone greets you after you’ve broken up with them. That wasn’t a broken-up-with girl.

No one’s in the room. I pace back and forth across the carpeted floor. He either didn’t break up with her or she flew across the Atlantic Ocean to try and mend their relationship after he broke up with her and still calls him her boyfriend.

I drop to the floor and push up into downward dog. My mind is spinning in a hundred different directions. I stand, throw open Sawyer, and try to distract myself with Twitter. That lasts about half a second before I abandon the computer on a chair. Everything’s falling apart.

I pace until there’s a knock at the door.

How much time has gone by? Half an hour? I whip it open so fast a breeze crashes into me. Pilot stands in front of me, looking frantic.

“Shane! Can we talk?” I step aside, so he can come in and let the door fall closed.

“Where’d she go?” I ask.

“She’s in my room.”

“In your room?” I yell in disbelief.

He runs his hands up over his head.

I explode. “How could you lie to me about breaking up with her?” I try to keep my voice level, but I’m so mad, it won’t stay down. “What the hell is going on?” I ram my hands over my hair. “Holy crap, I want to throw things right now! Were you just using me? Was this all bullshit to you?”

His sad bay-water eyes pierce mine for a long moment before he says, “Shane, I swear to god, I broke up with her.”

I swallow hard and grind out, “Then what is she doing here?”

“It’s gonna sound ridiculous.”

I cross my arms. “I’m listening.”

He pulls a chair from the table and drops into it. “I haven’t talked to Amy since the day I made the call to break up with her … I tried to get her on Skype, but she wasn’t available, and then I called her cell using Skype, and I got her voicemail. I was so ready and so prepped with what I needed to say, and I needed to say it right then. I just needed to get the words out, and I left it all in a message.”

My head swivels back and forth in disbelief. “Oh my god.” I start to pace again. “You broke up with her via voicemail?” I sputter.

He pops up off the chair. “We had just gotten here and it felt surreal, like it didn’t really matter! At the time it was like, this was all just a weird magical trip!”

I stop moving. “What about now? Is it all still just a weird magical trip for you?”

“No!”

“If you broke up with her, then why is she here?”

He exhales a breath and closes his eyes. “She never got the message.” He looks at the floor. There’s a beat of silence while I process this.

My next question is slow and deliberate: “Figuratively or literally?”