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“Uh,” Russell said, looking a little thrown by this change of subject as he put on his turn signal for the exit that would take us to the airport. “Two years, I think? Why?”
“It just kind of seems like they were having some trouble keeping things going.”
“What are you saying?” There was a red light at the intersection of Aviation and Century, and Russell looked over at me.
“Just that… a potential long-distance thing is hard enough when you have some kind of foundation. And we would have a day.”
“Not a normal day, though,” he pointed out, shaking his head. “Come on.”
“No, I know,” I said, nodding.
There was a honk behind us, and we both looked to see that the light had turned green. Russell drove forward, and I moved a little closer to him on the bench seat. “It’s just… I’m going to have to get settled at school, and see what things look like with Gillian. And you’re either going to be starting school or writing the next Great American Musical.” A smile flitted across Russell’s face, and then it was gone. “And that’s a lot of pressure to put on something really new.”
“So, what,” Russell asked, moving into the right lane for the airport entrance. “This is just… over? Right now?”
“I don’t know,” I said unhappily, my heart clenching at the thought of it. “I’m just not sure what the right thing to do here is.” I didn’t know if I could take the idea that I would never see him or talk to him again. However, I also had a feeling that if we tried to stretch our time together—our one day—over weeks and months, it would all start to fall apart and taint the memory of what we’d had. I wanted there to be some other solution—I just wasn’t sure that I could see one.
When we’d first started driving, Russell had asked me what airline I was flying—JetBlue. And as we made our way through the warren of terminals at LAX, I’d expected he would just drop me off. But he signaled to turn into short-term parking, right across from the terminal. “You don’t have to park. I can just get off at the curb.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted someone at the airport to watch you go, and be sad you were leaving?”
I smiled at that, and Russell found parking on the second level of the structure. He lifted my roller-bag suitcase out of the car easily, which was impressive because it was not light. I reached out to take it, but he just smiled as he raised up the handle. “Let me be gallant for just a little while longer.”
I nodded and gave him a smile that couldn’t help but turn sad at the edges. “Thank you.”
We took the elevator down, along with a bickering couple and their small dog, and when we stepped out to walk across the street to the terminal, he reached over and took my hand in his.
I realized, as we stood there holding hands, waiting for the light to change, that this was the first time we’d done this. Just held hands, walking next to each other. It felt so simple, and so right, our palms lining up perfectly and fitting together so easily. I gave his hand a squeeze just as the light changed and we walked across the crosswalk together.
For a second, I wondered how we would look to someone else. Probably just like a normal couple, saying goodbye at the airport. Probably nobody would have guessed we’d only met a day and change ago. That we’d been through so much together and had somehow ended up here, in a crowd of travelers, everyone else flying off as well—to their own adventures or weddings or business trips or funerals. Just one story among so many.
We walked together through the automatic doors and were hit with a blast of air-conditioning. The lines to check in and drop off bags thankfully weren’t terrible—which was good, since I had a feeling I was nearing the cutoff time.
I had expected that this was where Russell and I would say goodbye, but he just stepped into the line with me. When we reached the front of the line, he hung back as I approached the counter and handed them my ID and heaved my bag onto the scale.
“Red-eye to JFK?” the woman behind the counter asked, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “You just made it for checked bags.”
“That’s great,” I said, breathing out a sigh of relief.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me a boarding pass and my license back. “Boarding in half an hour.”
“Thank you,” I said as I walked away from the counter.
“No problems?” Russell asked.
“We made it under the wire.”
“Oh good.”
We stood there for a second—very much in the way and not where we were supposed to be standing. When a guy in a sweat suit, pulling a rolling suitcase, sighed very loudly as he went around us, I knew we had to find someplace else to be.
I nodded toward the area that led to the security line—there were a few little benches, tucked away in a darkened corner, and that seemed like as good a place as any to have an un-fun conversation.
“Fun fact,” Russell said. He gave me a smile, but I could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. “Back in the olden days, you used to be able to go with people right up to their gates and say goodbye. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
I nodded. It really did. I could barely picture it, but it truly would have been better to have this conversation sitting in chairs by a gate, maybe with a Jamba Juice, knowing that we could talk up until the minute my flight was called, not having to try to calculate how long the security line would be and how far away my gate was. Or maybe not. Maybe this was going to be hard no matter where we were and if we had smoothies or not.
“Do you—regret what happened?” he asked, his brow furrowed as he looked down at me.
