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“It’s a lot to take in,” her tone was dry, and it snapped me out of the thought spiral of dread I was in.
“No,” I insisted, “as long as you’re happy, I’m happy. I just figured you’d find some mild-mannered stockbroker to settle down with or something.”
She teased me, “Not a bad boy with tattoos and a troubled past?”
Even though she wasn’t talking about me, her words struck a chord deep inside me. I cleared my throat and forced myself not to get lost in the past or thoughts of Bennett. It wasn’t easy to do as questions swirled through my mind.
Is he the same boy he was back then? Has he changed? Is he happy? Is he with someone?
Those questions still aren’t answered. Maybe I’ll never find out and that makes me a little sad.
I shake my head as I pull up to the coffee shop where I’m meeting Lennon. I wasn’t sure if we could be friends again when I moved back. I wasn’t even sure if she would want to hear from me. I was surprised when she reached out to me on social media a few months ago.
It was like meeting a stranger with a strong sense of déjà vu at first, but we’ve found our footing now and I’m glad she’s back in my life. We don’t talk about our high school days and I’m curious why she doesn’t bring it up while feeling grateful that it’s in the past, where it belongs, at the same time.
She never blamed me for leaving and I never went into detail about what pushed me to move so far away. I think she knows I needed to find myself. And I did. I grew into the woman I was trying to become, and my skin doesn’t feel foreign anymore.
I feel eyes on me as I get out of my car and walk toward the coffee shop. It’s an odd sensation, one that isn’t entirely unwelcome. It feels familiar, like that old sweatshirt you can’t bring yourself to throw away because it’s just the right amount of cozy.
I’ve only ever felt that way when I had one person’s eyes on me.
I push away the thought because there is no way it’shimwatching me. That would be ridiculous. There’s just no way.
When I enter the cafe, Lennon is already sitting at a table with two drinks in front of her. She flashes me a bright smile as I give her a quick hug before I sit down.
“How are you?” She looks a little frazzled and I have a sinking feeling I know why. “You look a little off,” I gently prod.
Lennon huffs and rolls her eyes. “Mom keeps trying to pressure me to move down to Phoenix, but I don’t want to go.”
I reach over and give her hand a squeeze. She doesn’t talk a lot about what she does for work, but I know she did go to school and got a business degree. I also know her mom met some man who swept her off her feet and then swept her right on off to Phoenix. Lennon has never visited but knows the man her mom married owns a very successful business—real estate, I think—down there.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. This is your life,” I remind her even though I don’t have to.
My friend changed in some ways, most notably she has a lot of tattoos now, but she’s still the same person she was in high school. She does what she wants and doesn’t apologize for being who she is. After she finished school, she traveled a little bit around the country—New Orleans, Tampa, Charleston.
She doesn’t talk about the details a lot, but I think it was her way of trying to find herself. And avoid moving down to Phoenix. Apparently, she has a trio of stepbrothers she’s never met who run their father’s business now and Lennon is not interested in stepping on anyone’s toes.
I get it.
I get it more than I’m even willing to tell her.
She waves her hand dismissively in the way she always has when she doesn’t want to dwell anymore and is looking for a change in subject. Her assessing eyes look me over and I know she’s going to shift the spotlight right onto me. Deflection 101.
“How’s work going for you? Are you still enjoying it?”
I smile at her and think about my patients. I’m a home health nurse and I do love it. It’s not always easy, but I like being able to help people outside of a hospital setting. That doesn’t mean all my patients are easy to deal with, they aren’t. Not all of them are happy to see me, but I do think they’re glad to not be in a hospital when I visit them.
“It’s good.” I smile at her while thinking about my morning and giggle softly. When Lennon arches her perfectly groomed eyebrow at me in question, I roll my eyes. “One of my patients this morning is an elderly man in his 80s. He’s a hoot. He tells me all these stories about meeting his wife when they were only sixteen and how he knew she was the girl for him.”
Lennon’s smile grows and she leans forward as we sip our drinks and I tell her the stories my patient entertained me with. My heart hurts for him since his kids don’t live anywhere close to him and his wife passed away a few years ago.
That is one of the reasons why I love my job. Not all my patients are elderly, but the ones who are have a special place in my heart. Some of them are surrounded by love and others are all alone. I hope I bring them a little bit of peace and companionship while I help to take care of them.
“He sounds like a hoot,” Lennon giggles.
I nod enthusiastically. “Today he told me his grandson is moving to Seattle to go to school after deferring the first semester for some reason. He said he would ‘hook us up’ and then asked if that’s what the kids are calling it these days.”
I laugh as I remember the expression on my patient’s face. He was so serious, not just about me meeting his grandson, but also because he wanted to get the lingo right. He’s not the first patient who has tried to make a love connection between a family member and me. I’m sure he won’t be the last either.
