Sunsets and storms ✓

Chapter 5

MEGAN

Spending the night with my friends after not seeing them for all those months was great. We spent hours chatting, laughing and playing games. It was far past midnight when I came home. I'm surprised I was quiet enough to not wake anyone up, especially since I was rather drunk last night.

Having fun and getting drunk at night also means waking up with a huge headache. I drank a few glasses of water last night and I drink some more now. I scrub my teeth to get the taste of alcohol out of my mouth and take a quick shower. I try my best to look somewhat decent in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, my everyday wear when I'm here.

I'm getting grumpy as fuck. Not only do I have a major headache, I'm also very hungry, I missed my midnight snack when I came home.

I walk to the kitchen while trying to think of what I want to eat. It's Sunday so Adele will be at the church most of the day. She always goes to the service on Sunday morning an after some of the ladies get together to have lunch. And share the island gossip of course.

I'm surprised when I hear sounds coming from somewhere in the house. I don't question it and continue my way. I'm looking through the fridge when I hear some kitchen cabinets close. Without looking behind me I ask the person to be quiet but they don't listen and close the next cabinet even harder. Safe to say that I'm annoyed.

I exchange some words with the stranger, problem is, this is not a stranger. From the moment I turned around I recognised him.

***

November, three years ago I was going through a rough time. I started university a few months before, it was a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be. I was struggling to keep up with course work and finals were quickly approaching.

At the time I hadn't had contact with my father since my birthday in spring and that contact was him transferring money to my account as a gift. Usually he would at least have his secretary send me something. One day somewhere before summer started I received a coupon for a plane ticket to Greece and that's all I heard from him. We've never had a good relationship but slowly it was starting to break me. I heard all these people talking about going home for Christmas while I was coming up with reasons not to go home, not that dad would have noticed anyway.

What really fucked me up that autumn was the message that my grandmother had died. It had been less than two months since I last saw here and there I was on a plane to attend her funeral. For a bit I was afraid my mother would show up, but she didn't. How typical.

Later I was diagnosed with depression, at the time I only knew I wasn't doing well. So when someone invited me to a party, I declined. Fortunately, they didn't give up and I ended up going to the party anyway. I realised I couldn't stay in my room forever if I wanted to feel better.

I talked to some people but I wasn't really feeling it. That was until I saw him. a bunch of guys were playing beer pong, he just stood on the side looking bored. Like in any other teen-movie, we made eye contact and smiled at each other. That was all that happened until half an hour later I got back from getting another drink and he was sitting in the spot where I was just a minute before.

Being bold for the first time in my life, I went to sit next to him and we started talking. About the party, our universities, student life. We talked for hours without there being a silence between us. Over the hours he had gotten closer to each other and my legs ended up in his lap. I don't know where things would have gone if we weren't interrupted.

Someone came to ask me if I could take a girl that lived in my street home. Fifteen minutes later I was walking a drunk girl home with him still on my mind. Realising I would never be able to see where things could have led to. In all those hours we never exchanged names or anything.

Without knowing it he saved me that night. He made me feel good about myself and in the end that's what made me go to a therapist to work on my depression.

***

Looking at the guy in front of my everything that happened all those years ago comes crashing back. How broken I was back then. How I slowly started to get back to being myself. But I never went back to being the old me. And maybe that's for the best. Grandma would always say that we learn something from everything we go through. That autumn I discovered who I was and who I wanted to be. I learned how to be that person without taking bullshit from other people.

Unfortunately, my life also changed after that. With my grandmother passing away, I didn't expect to go back to Greece for the summers to come. I would always stay with my grandmother, but that was no longer an option. Late that winter I received the first letter from Adele. I had met her a few times over the previous years. She was grandma's best friend. She asked me to come for the summer, and offered to let me stay in her house. It turned out that grandma asked her to look after me and to make sure Greece would be a home for me, even when grandma was no longer there.

That next summer is the first time I stayed in this house. Adele was in the middle of renewing everything to be able to rent some of the downstairs rooms and it became our little project. She let me do my room myself, telling me that I would be welcome to stay whenever I wanted to.

I was completely lost in my own thoughts until the guy across from me clears his throat. I look back up to find him looking at me with a questioning look in his eyes. I must look like a complete fool, staring at the floor, seconds after seeing someone again after three years. Now comes the most awkward thing, I don't even know his name. Do is just ask him or is that stupid?

"It's Meg, right?"