ADELE: THE LONG DRIVE HOME

His memory came back to me like splinters, small, obscure and unnerving. Such that they sat wedged beneath my skin, intimate yet unreachable, unalterable in the same frustrating way as nightmares when-waking up and realizing it was just a dream- you mourn that you didn’t do better, react better.

 I wanted to call him, reach out to him in some off-handed way that didn't reek of desperation, but I knew he would see right through it like a paper thin veil. He knew me, and with that knowing was a lack of a place to hide.

I scrolled through my contact list nevertheless. There were acquaintances and colleagues and family and just a handful of friends, because anyone who really mattered had their number memorized, which was ironic because there his name was sitting between my travel agent and my accountant, there he was unofficiously, yet he mattered still, and mattered a lot.

I won't have you calling me that. He said one spring morning as a regally restrained ray of sunlight cut across the sky.I find it pretentious, and frankly, not quite you.

I see, and you've suddenly become the expert on just who exactly I am? I said teasingly, hands propped on shoulders, smile on my face, an expectation of joy, because joy was all that ever became of our pseudo-philosophical arguments.

I'd like to think so. He responded matter of factly. Let’s say if you ever for some reason stared into a mirror that's been cracked and-having a million different reflections- wondered which was truly yours. I'd be  able to tell you.

Quite hauteur isn't it? To insist that looking through your eyes and not mine is the only way in which I'd see the true image of myself? My hands were in his now, fitting perfectly, being.

He looked at our hands together, seemed to reach my conclusion about them, smiled and said. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder not the beheld, then who you are is who you are perceived to be, and who better to perceive you than I? I who have loved you, sensed you, breathed you.

Now you just sound like a serial killer. I said pulling my hand playfully and abruptly from his.

Do you love me? He asked, sincerely.

I guffawed. Wow, all this just because I called you munchkin?

He got on his arms now, so that we were facing each other, head to head, chin to chin. If you trust me enough to love me, then you must know that I see you, the you that is you that is you. He said and squeezed my nose.

That's how he was; able to vacillate from graveness to levity in the blink of an eye. I loved him for this. It made our dark moments easier to bear. And now here I was, pining over him, the butt of the joke, the punch line.

What if he didn't think of me as often, or at all? What if, in my wistfulness I had painted a picture of him that was just as invested and intrigued by the relationship as I was? What if he had forgotten, was I to take so bold a step? Why did I have to be the one to feel regret so strongly? He always used to say that mutual feelings bred mutual actions. So that if one leaned in for a kiss, the other leaned in as well. Where was his leaning now? Surely he still had my number. I'd kept it and guarded it for just that reason. Made myself very accessible so that on the day he decided to turn around, he would find the road back to me quite encouraging, road map, arrows and all.

I felt alone in my longing, and with that lonesomeness came a sense of betrayal. How could he move on so suddenly? Move to another state, get with another woman, co-habit with her? It seemed chimerical to believe anything else of him. To believe he was waiting.

I tossed the phone aside then and decided I wouldn't give in, not if it killed me, which was likely. I would die with my pride firmly grasped in my hands. The woman is to be pursued and not be the pursuer after all.  My independence was relevant only as far as it was mine and not subservient to unrequited feelings.

My phone that usually buzzed incessantly didn't ring for the entirety of that night. As if the universe had decided to call my bluff.

You will do no such thing my mother stated the following morning when I told her I was driving down to Charlottesville to see him. At the very least take a flight, buy two tickets now! One to and another fro, she said when she saw I was unrelenting. Don't stay too long, really you deserve better.

Thing is I didn't want better, I wanted him. So I called to give him a heads up.

His voice was groggy; it seemed I had woken him up. I should’ve considered the time difference. Nevertheless I could hear him sit up in bed when he heard my voice.

Oh my god, it's so good to hear your voice. It's been so long, are you in town? He said, a little enthusiastically, perhaps even hopeful.

No, but I will be. I paused, swallowed hard. I'm coming, I'm coming for you.

There was a long silence, as though he was taken aback. The silence lasted long enough to make me nervous. Hello, are you there?

Yeah, sorry, I was just trying to make sure this wasn't a dream. I've had many like it. When are you coming?

Now.

Okay. He said and I could feel him clutch the phone, reaching for me. Adele?

Yeah?

I never stopped loving you.

And that was all I needed to hear, to make the long drive home.

 “For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.” 

― Stephanie Perkins

 “Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.” 

― Dan Brown