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“You’ve got to be kidding me,”I’d said with my eyes darting around the sky. I don’t know if I was saying it to the stars, the universe, or Jamie herself. “Fucking-A,” I grumbled, unceremoniously scuffling out of my metal chair.
I don’t believe in this shit…right.
Long story short, about thirty seconds later, I followed the howler-monkey screaming to its origins where the universe unceremoniously introduced me to Melanie. The genius had been walking around on the beach in the dark and cut her foot on a broken bottle. I begrudgingly took her back to my boat and patched her up, all the while finding out that she was about as eager to make a new friend as I was. Despite that, we seemed to cancel each other out and forged a weird friendship based on mutual irritation.
All joking aside, we had a kindred connection; both of us having left our lives worlds away and currently living in solitude. And while we didn’t plan it, we ended up leaning on each other which kick started some kind of a healing process. The damp coldness inside me began to warm, though just slightly, but enough to give me a shred of hope that I might be able to live again, rather than just simply exist.
In the end, however, she and her love were given another chance, giving her a turbo boost into fully recuperating while I stayed here, half healed, halfway to something resembling human again.
I’m happy as hell for Melanie, don’t get me wrong. She’s been the friend to me I never knew I needed, and she deserves to no longer feel the way we were both feeling. She deserves every bit of the happily ever after she got, and Matt, besides being the bassist for one my favorite bands, is an all-around good guy that loves her with all he is. While I haven’t met him, I know it’s true, just by the way Melanie sounds on the phone whenever she’s called. Matt’s taking good care of her.
As for me, while my friend moving back home stings a little and makes me have to regain my bearings, I know I can’t look at it as a reason to slip back into limbo. I may have misread that shooting star a little bit, but Melanie was still meant to come into my life, just not in the way I thought. Turns out, it was just to give me a nudge (violent shove) forward, to show me that life can be livable again.
I ponder this as I sit on the deck of my boat, the same way I do every night, a cold beer in my hand and my eyes cast up to the canopy of stars.
By the time I found myself here on this island, I was so used to being alone that it was comfortable, and therefore I had no interest in making any connections, friendly or otherwise. All I needed was myself and my new boat/home. And then along came Melanie, in a similar emotional place I was; only her feelings were still raw while mine had dulled over time. By allowing me to exist alongside her without pushing for me to share anything about my past or my feelings, she unwittingly opened a door back to the living world. For the first time in years, I had a friend; a person. One who accepted who I was and let me share things on my own terms and expected nothing from me. And it made me want to venture further out of my dark cave into the light - just a little - but enough to give me a glimpse of what was possible.
“Fuck,” I mutter out loud to myself as I realize this.
Am I still a cranky recluse that prefers his own company, and wishes the rest of the world would politely fuck off?
Damn right.
But the door to my lair is now open, just a crack… and it feels good. Comforting, even. It’s like when you’re a broody adolescent, stewing in your room about something and your mom or dad comes in, gives you a heart-to-heart and then leaves but doesn’t close your bedroom door, signaling for you to come out when you’re ready. Melanie did that for me. Only in this case, it was a fellow crab-ass that plowed in, hung out in silence with me for a bit, before realizing she had somewhere to be after all and bolted without shutting the door. Either way, same result. And I owe her for making that small but significant change in my life. And all she’s asking of me is to come to her damn wedding. Okay, hop on what is likely to be two or three flights and spend probably two days traveling, andthenshow up to her wedding.
Sighing, I pick up the phone she insisted I have and tap on the internet app. After web searching airline and travel sites for about a half hour, I finally realize that the most mainstream way to the states is through a connection in Dubai, and all flights are full.Because of course they are.
Well, no one can say I didn’t try.
I let out another heavy sigh; this one surprisingly laced with a hint of disappointment, and toss my phone on the rickety table beside my chair and exchange it for my beer. As I’m tilting my head back and taking a pull, I once again find myself scanning the dark canopy smattered with thousands of bright white dots and immediately roll my eyes when I realize what I’m doing. I shake my head at myself as I swallow the hoppy liquid. The whole meeting Melanie thing was a fluke. Content with this idea, I sit back in my chair and resume enjoying my beer. I don’t think ten minutes go by when I’m grabbing another beer out of my cooler, and I hear the sound of a female voice, anxiously yammering in a thick accent, and getting closer. I stand and turn to find Melanie’s friend, Sasha, who she’d come to Flores with from Thailand.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I will be there,” she says into her phone as she approaches my boat. “I just have to switch my flight. I will call later. Bye.”
“Hey,” I greet her casually.
“Mr. Personality,” she addresses me cheerfully as she steps aboard, and I don’t even blink at the name she dubbed me with over a year ago.
“What’s up Sasha?” I ask, cracking my second beer open.
“You going to Melanie wedding?”
“No,” I reach for my phone and bring up the screen of booked flights. “No seats on any of the flights left for me to make it on time.”
“Ah. Well, one will open momentarily,” she informs me while furiously tapping away at her phone screen.
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t go. My grandmother, she break her hip. I have to go back to Thailand and take care of her.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I tell her, trying to school my tone to be compassionate; I’m a bit rusty. “Melanie will be crushed too.”
“That why you should go,” she says without looking up. “You be there for both of us. There. Cancelled flight. Grab your ticket before it sell out again. You hug Mel for me. Bye, Ben.” And off she goes again, which I kind of appreciate. Even Sasha knows I’m not a social being and keeps her interactions with me short and to the point. The crazy thing is, in the last couple years, I’d gotten so comfortable with my way of living that I didn’t feel the loneliness I feel now since Mel left. With the one person I got used to conversing with gone, I’m feeling a vague need, deep down inside.
Kasey
“Do you want to join Girl Scouts?” I cautiously ask, looking down at the flyer.
Say no, say no.
