We Were Never Here(34)
“If you’re tired, I’m still happy to take you to your grandparents’,” I said. “We can get together after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Ugh, no—I’m putting that reunion off as long as possible.” She turned and grinned at me. “What, you trying to get rid of me?”
Well, yes. “God, no! Just wanted to give you an out. That’s a lot of travel.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not too sleep-deprived to get a read on this new boyfriend of yours.”
She’s going to meet Aaron. What will she think of Aaron? The thought was so loud I almost zoomed through an intersection, slamming on the brakes when I registered Kristen chanting, “Red light, red light, red light!”
I’d texted Aaron while Kristen was in the shower, so when he spotted us from the restaurant’s front window his face registered delight, not surprise. He waved and I forced a grin.
“Is that him?” Kristen clutched my arm and I flinched.
Surely she recognized him. Surely she’d found him on social media—she’d found Priya, after all. “Yep, that’s the guy!” With every ounce of energy inside me, I managed to make my voice cheery.
There were handshakes and hugs, and when Aaron kissed me, heat plumed across my cheeks. A hostess led us to a spot inside a bay window. The café, a farm-to-table joint in a refurbished home, was noisy and bustling, diners speaking louder and louder to be heard over one another.
“So Emily didn’t tell me why you’re here!” Aaron scraped his seat toward the table. I leaned forward—I hadn’t gotten an answer yet either.
“Yeah, so, I got made redundant. So now everything’s up in the air. My former boss, the one here in Milwaukee from before I transferred—she’s fighting hard for them to find me another role in the company, so who knows what’ll happen. But for now, I had all these airline miles and I realized I wanted to be here. Near the people who matter to me.” She beamed a radiant smile my way.
“Woof, I’m sorry,” Aaron said.
“That’s awful! Kristen, I’m so sorry.” I felt my eyebrows stretching toward my hairline, eased them back down. “So you might be home for good?”
“I don’t know yet. It all depends. I can’t live in Australia without a work visa, obviously.”
Wow. My insides did something complicated. On the one hand, this was exactly what I’d been hoping for: I could Have It All, the new relationship and the best friend I could confide in and cry with and hug as I worked through the horror of Chile. Someone to whom I could voice my fears of being caught—speaking without censorship and basking in her confidence, her care, the way she made me feel like my most badass self.
And yet—something was off. She’d only been here an hour, but I felt it, like we were broadcasting on different wavelengths.
But it was probably just her jet lag bumping up against my insecurities. “I’m really sorry you got laid off.” I reached out and grabbed her hand. “That sucks, even though you hated that job.”
She shrugged. “Thanks. But you’re right, I did hate it. Maybe this is the best possible outcome.”
“When did it happen?” I asked. A child shrieked behind me. A pulse of paranoia: Did her boss find out what we did? Did something give us away? “You were just talking about taking a sabbatical at work.”
“I know! It just happened. So now that whole plan is up in the air.” She turned to Aaron and said brightly, “Although I don’t know why she’d even think about leaving you! Aaron, Emily only told me a tiny bit about you. You met at the coffee shop where you work, right?”
The waitress appeared, a red-cheeked teenager with her hair in a pretty French braid. She took our orders and sloshed coffee into our mugs—mismatched china on patterned saucers.
Aaron poured cream into his and two fat white dots splattered onto the table. He told Kristen the story, smiling and relaxed, and then she asked him what else kept him busy, and he good-naturedly told her about his freelance graphic-design projects, and I smiled and looked proud but internally I cringed. I felt foolish for keeping him secret for so long—how could I not see that would hurt him?
Kristen sat up straight. “So I’m sure Emily told you all about our trip to Chile.”
My fingers jolted—just enough for the glass inside them to slip through and crash to the table. Rivulets of orange juice streamed toward the table’s edges and dropped directly in Aaron’s lap. The glass rolled away and shattered on the floor, a jangly crash. We jumped up and pressed our napkins on the puddle, and a waiter rushed over with a dishrag, and the entire restaurant turned to stare at us, silent, judging.
“So sorry,” I murmured as we scraped our seats back up to the table.
“I was just talking about Chile,” Kristen prompted. “I assume Emily told you about our adventures?”
Someone came by with a dustpan, and I apologized again as he crouched and swept.
Denial was one thing—denial was one way of dealing with trauma. But to actively bring it up?
“Oh yeah.” Aaron’s eyes flicked to me. “Seemed like you guys had a little too much fun. She was out cold for, like, five days after.”
“I imagine she would be,” Kristen said.