Drive(3)

“I did, thank you.”

“Where are you headed today?”

“I need a car to the airport.” I realized I hadn’t answered his question, but I could not, for the life of me, bring myself to care.

“The bellman outside will get you a car. Do you have any more bags?”

I shook my head slowly and reverted my gaze back on Buddha while my phone rattled on in my backpack.

“Looks like a busy day for both of us.”

My eyes found his again before he looked past my shoulder to the line that was forming behind me.

Married? Of course, he got married. Why wouldn’t he?

“Have a great flight.”

The front desk clerk carefully dismissed me. That desk clerk had no answers for me. Neither did Buddha. I pulled myself together enough to make it to the curb, where a heavily-coated bellman greeted me.

“Airport?”

“Yes, please.”

“How was your stay?”

A gust of the North’s version of spring air hit my face as I remained guarded behind a new set of eyes and forcefully collected myself to speak.

“It was great, thank you.”

The older man studied my features, and I averted my gaze, the tension heavy in my body and oozing into my frame. Shoulders slumped and head swirling, I knew he could see the rip in me. I was sure of it. My mother always told me my facial expressions gave me away. But could that bellman see my shame? I had no right to feel the way I did. Absolutely no right. But it didn’t matter. I felt it anyway—the jealousy, the ache, the sharp twist of the knife that repeatedly dug in my chest and refused to be ignored.

His wedding.

I choked on another gust of freezing wind as the bellman stepped off the curb into a patch of dirty snow and opened the cab door for me. The driver took the bag from my hand, and in seconds, we were speeding toward the airport, while the skyscrapers disappeared out of the foggy window.

“Where are you going today?”

My phone erupted again in several distinct chimes, and I reached into my purse to silence it.

“Home.”

He eyed me in the rearview briefly before he took the hint. I was unapologetically rude. My face was burning, my chest on fire.

Get a grip, Stella.

I unbuttoned my tweed coat, suddenly in need of more brisk air. I wanted to be covered in it. I wanted to numb myself, but even in sub-zero temperatures, I knew I would still feel the burn.

Minutes later, at the airport entrance, I studied the people rushing past me to take cover from the bone-chilling wind. Moving at a snail’s pace, I walked through the sliding doors and stood in the center of the chaos. A wave of noise pulsed through the air: voices, the click of heels next to me, the beep of the baggage scanners. I focused on one of the flight attendants, who was whizzing past the chaos, her stride long, her hair in a tidy bun on top of her head. Her perfectly packed luggage glided alongside her. I wondered briefly where she was going as she beat the strollers to the checkpoint. At least fifty people were waiting to be screened, and I didn’t want them to look at me. Any of them. I was incapable of smiling, incapable of polite conversation. Eyes down, I took a step forward and then forced another.

He’s married. Good for him.

Keep walking, Stella.

I pushed out a deep breath, kicked my shoulders back, and figuratively brushed off the dust. I was so incredibly good at doing that. I’d done it my whole life.

Lexi had been right. The coincidences, the happenstance, the cruelty of life, and fate’s sick sense of humor had always played a huge part of everything that had to do with him. With them both. Maybe it was life’s way of letting me know that on this day of all days, I was in the right place in my journey.

So why did it sting so damn much?

I’d come so far from the place where every one of those signs mattered. Where I’d analyzed and overanalyzed to the point that I drove myself insane, until, finally, I just let things be as they were.

And I could do it again. I could do it again so easily if I could just push past this. The life I lived was my consolation.

Because Lexi was right.

I was happy.

Satisfied that I may have been through the worst of it, and no doubt slightly overdramatic, I reached into my purse for my ID. And that’s when I heard the first few notes of the song ring out over the airport speaker.

“MOTHERF—” Stopping myself, I cupped my mouth in horror. Every single head in the line was turned in my direction, as hundreds of eyes swept over me in scrutiny. A few mothers gripped their children tight with disgusted faces, and I saw the smirk of a few guys grouped in front of me. Paralyzed as the song drifted into my ears and detonated in my chest, I mouthed a quick “I’m sorry” before I gripped the handle of my suitcase and scurried away like I’d just screamed “Bomb!”

Humiliated and unwilling to subject myself to any more stares, I wheeled back to the lobby of the airport, my eyes on the floor. Some miles later, with my flight safely in the air without me, sweat poured from my forehead as I scrambled to keep up with my rambling brain. Uncomfortably bundled in my winter coat, I wandered aimlessly through the airport, rolling the burden of my lightweight suitcase, which felt like a case of bricks, with no destination.

It was always the music that hurt me most. It did the most damage. For every single day of my life, I had a song to coincide with it. Some days were repeats. Some days I woke up to the lyrics circling in my head. The lyrics sometimes set the tone for my day, and as a slave, I followed. But some songs were like a sharp fingernail poking into open-wounded thoughts. Because music is the heart’s greatest librarian. A few notes had the ability to transport me back in time, and to the most painful of places. Take any song from the Rolodex of your life, and you can pin it to a memory. It translates, resonates, and there it will remain. And no matter how many of those Rolodex cards you want to rip out and burn like an old phone number to make room for new ones, those songs remain and threaten to repeat.