I’m in my car, with a Brazilian song playing on the radio.There isn’t a single Brazilian song that doesn’t make me want to wave my arms around and pretend I’m on stage performing a concert.Whether exciting and jumpy or intense and sorrowful, there’s always so much emotion in a Brazilian song.It’s perhaps not the most suitable thing to listen to while I’m behind the wheel, and I didn’t catch the name of the song when the radio host announced it a few minutes ago, but it just feels like the right soundtrack for this beautiful, serene evening.
I’m singing to myself, pretending to be singing to my million spectators, when suddenly, just as my car leaves the traffic circle, fate seems to pull the rug out from under my feet.Or bigger: take the floor out from under me.
I turn my head to the left, following the movement of that body, and the world seems to slow down.The car keeps rolling forward, the music continues to play, but the air becomes almost unbreathable.Those few seconds stretch into a slow-motion moment that feels like it will never end.
Miles, in profile, on the steps of the sidewalk, walks up that street just as I drive down it.
“Am I seeing things?”I ask myself.But I can’t answer.My body is too perplexed, too paralyzed.
I get home, park outside, and start walking to the front door after closing my gate.But instead of going inside, I decide to lie down on my improvised outdoor couch, made of wooden pallets and topped with a comfortable outdoor blue cushion I’d picked out two years ago, with Miss Amara.
I remember sitting here with her: we saw butterflies fly by, the wind through our hair tickled our skin, the sunlight hit the leavesjust right, and everything made sense.
Sitting in her garden with her and Miles had been some of the moments I cherish most from my adolescence.
I’m happy to have had the opportunity to sit with her inmygarden.
A certain sadness settles in me when I think that we won’t ever repeat that moment, the three of us, in whichever garden it may be.
That moment somehow felt like it missed Miles.
A white butterfly flies by.My eyes follow its entire path.
“We’ll see each other again after our lastgoodbye,” I tell my flowers.
I wonder how he feels about Miss Amara.
I wonder how he feels about us.
We didn’t leave angry, but suddenly, we weren’t ourselves anymore.We still talked.We still felt each other’s company.But he was so…still.And I was so shaken by all the feelings dancing in me.
Miles seemed so apathetic when we hugged goodbye, not knowing for how long that goodbye would last.
I kept wondering about the possibility of not seeing him again.Maybe for another nine years.Maybe forever.How dramatic of me.Adramatic overthinker, I would call myself during my long solo conversations.
Until today came along, and the Universe silenced me.Three months after I started this spiral of thoughts.
He must have known about Miss Amara’s passing somehow.Maybe his mom still has friends here, heard about it, called him, and he decided to come for the funeral.Of course he would come.
“Hey Ella, are you there?”my sister yells from the other side of the closed gate, peeking through the bushes next to it, interrupting my thoughts.
“Hey, I’m here!”I shout back.“Wait, I’ll let you in.”
Mira is happy to have me here.I’m happy to be here with her.We’re doing it just like when we were younger, showing up at each other’s bedrooms for no reason.But now, it’s each other’s houses, and, as she said yesterday, it isn’t as easy for her to steal my clothes this way.
“How was your day with Philia and Cara?”
“Really good.We—”
“What happened?”she cuts in, in a straightforward way, looking at me seriously.
I still forget she’s the one who will always know me better than I know myself.
“I saw Miles.”I don’t even try to dance around the subject.For the last three months, I thought I didn’t really need to talk about it.But right now, I feel the need to share it.So she gives me a window, and I jump.
“Today, just minutes ago.But not just that.I saw him about three months ago, too.In New York.”
She stands there, taken by surprise.“I haven’t heard that name in forever.I have so many questions.”
