Easing Heimweh (Completed)

9: To Ease My Longing

"Are you alright?"

I couldn't process his question right away. Partly because at some point, this day felt like a fever dream.

And it was fitting, now that I was in a hospital right after that awfully long flight that only gave me three hours of rest. I might actually have a fever right now, but this didn't feel real.

Nothing about this very minute felt real. After that fiasco with Dad, someone just happened to be here with me, asking if I was alright. Despite the obvious answer, I was torn between rejecting his concern and showing vulnerability to someone I had a small chance of seeing again.

"No," I managed to say. There was no point in lying to a stranger that meant well. I hoped he meant well. I couldn't deal with any more misfortunes now.

Then silence took over. I'd expected him to have a reply ready, only realizing just now that it was stupid. I hardly knew the guy.

"Would it make you feel a little better if I had the same response to that question?"

I fought the urge to laugh. "Maybe. I don't know."

"That's fine."

"Tell me, though."

"Yes?"

I refused to look at anything other than the view of San Francisco's city lights in front of us, a landscape I would've appreciated more had my head not been suffering with a plague of problems that couldn't seem to go away and leave me be. I assumed the stranger was doing the same. "Why are you not alright?" I asked.

"Ah." He shifted on the metal bench we opted to sit on some time ago. It creaked under his weight. "I...don't have just one answer to that."

"I understand." I feel the same.

I decided not to say the rest.

"I wasn't supposed to be here," he continued, then paused, as if realizing he didn't think his words through. "Actually, I was. But things happened. Priorities. I was stupido. Molto stupido. I should've thought sooner that my family is more important than anything."

That's where our thoughts differ. "Maybe," I replied instead.

He nodded, then sighed, and I imagined that one word from me added to his growing disappointment in himself. "My cousin got into an accident recently. He still hasn't woken up yet."

Accident? "What accident?"

"A truck hit his car," he said, and I froze.

"A truck?"

The man nodded.

"What's your cousin's name?"

"Lucius."

Lucius. The same name I saw on the news.

Oh, gods.

"And there was someone else involved. Word got around that the victim is also admitted here."

Everen.

"The man driving the truck is in jail now after the other victim's family demanded he spend the rest of his life behind bars," he added, running his fingers through his unruly hair. "Which is a good thing, I guess, but I can't focus on that. My cousin is still unconscious. That's much harder to take in than what happened to that criminal."

"I know," I ended up confessing. "I could care less about that driver. My sister, she's—" I caught myself from shedding fresh tears for the nth time tonight. Taking in a sharp breath, I continued. "She's the other victim."

Part of me wanted to turn back time, to return to the fiasco from an hour ago, even to seek shelter back in Cagayan, anything to stop me from saying anything about the accident. I knew that was far too impossible, and that I had no choice but to do what I did best: to suck it up. Get through this, and finish the damn conversation.

"I—I'm sorry."

I managed a smile. "Don't be."

"So..."

"Yeah?"

"You're an Alonzo?"

Should've seen this coming.

"Yes."

"Oh." He didn't seem uncomfortable with the sudden revelation, but the brief silence and the anticipation that he wouldn't treat me any differently came along with it. "Your family paid for Lucius' hospital bills. They didn't have to do that because I had no problem with money anyway, but Signor Ellis insisted. Didn't even let me protest because he left with his wife right away. I haven't thanked them yet," he said, a smile now grazing his lips. He looked better than he was a while ago. "Please let them know of my gratitude. Grazie, grazie davvero."

No, I almost said in return. They didn't deserve this stranger's genuine thanks. It was all for show; an act of grace to feed the media. They could care less about anyone that didn't benefit us. What mattered most was the picture-perfect Alonzo reputation we were conditioned to uphold more than anything and anyone—even lives.

So I was left with no choice. "Okay."

His shoulders dropped as he breathed a sigh of relief, nodding once, twice, then it all disappeared. Like he wasn't supposed to feel that in the first place. "I should've taken him with me so I could keep a close watch," he muttered, and I thought maybe my hunch was correct. He wasn't relieved. Not at all.

"Like you said," I started, "things happened. Bad things. But they already happened. There's no use in letting yourself hold on to regret. It will do nothing."

But I knew I should be saying that to myself. I was stuck; the familiarity of this country, the career I poured my blood, sweat, and tears for, and the comfort it brought had shown itself to me yet again, but for some sick, twisted reason, I was seeking something else: the thrill. A sense of unfamiliarity but promising peace. Cagayan. Oasis. A certain someone who was waiting for me in a place we both came to 'just because'.

A home to ease my longing.

I was stuck, left wondering if I really could do nothing for myself. I could almost feel regret seeping through my veins, threatening to burst and destroy me from the inside, begging me to let go.

And it was beyond me. I didn't know how, because I was still here. I couldn't go.

"I guess you're right," he said after I fell silent. "I will talk to him as soon as he wakes up. Pray that no mistakes will be made this time."

"I don't pray." I couldn't remember the last time I cried to whoever was up there, ruling over measly mortals. "I'm not a strong believer in God. Gods. Whoever's watching."

He shrugged at that. "Hope for my success anyway."

I bit back a chuckle. "Will do."

"Mille grazie," he replied. "Oh, and...I'm Achilles."

Achilles. Another name. Another friend. Might be another foreign ground I shouldn't be crossing, but here I was, landing on it still.

I was a pilot, after all.