The Summer Reunion (unedited version)

21| Getting Somewhere

I sat beside him in the passenger's seat as he took a deep breath and steadied himself, preparing for the explosion of a fight that was about to demolish the world we've created around us. No more passive conversation and snarky remarks. We were doing this now. After this we would be friends, or we would be nothing. We both knew the feelings and turmoil that had bubbled to the surface over the last couple months, and now it was spilling over the edge of the fine line we were dancing.

He gripped the wheel, his brows pinched in frustration as he unclipped his seatbelt. 

He spoke more calmly than I anticipated, "You told me you were leaving after you had already packed your suitcases. How did you think I was going to take the news?"

"If I had time for goodbyes don't you think I would have told you sooner?" I shifted in my seat to face him.

It's not as if I had time to even decide what to say or how to say it. When my mom caught my dad she blew up and booked a flight for the next morning. I had to pack up my life in no time at all, including him. There wasn't the privilege of declarations and heartfelt conversations. I was leaving, and he only needed to know that. Not why.

He sighed and leaned his head back on the seat, "It's not about the goodbye. It's about how long it took you to say hello again."

"You could have called me too."

Relationships and communication go both ways. Why was I the one who was supposed to reach out. My family just moved abruptly and I uprooted my entire life, and I was expected to check up on everyone else?

"You left me Andie!" his voice grew in the small space of the car, "You sprung it on me completely out of the blue! Sorry if I needed some time to process the fact that my best friend and most important person in my life was moving to a different continent with no plans of returning!"

"It's not like I had a choice Gray! And I'm here now, aren't I?"

My face was growing hot in the still air of the car. I brushed my hair off my neck in an attempt to cool myself off. 

"You didn't have a choice?" he scoffed. "Andie, you expect all of us to be honest with you when you walk around lying to everyone."

I froze at his accusation.

"What?" 

"You said you didn't have a choice, that your dad got a new job in Paris, and he had to move their immediately, right?" he asked me, even though he knew what the answer was.

"That wasn't my dec-"

"I went to a fundraiser Izzie's father was holding," he looked me straight in the eye, "I saw Mitch there."

He saw my dad? Did everyone else notice he was there?

His anger was resurfacing more as we drudged up the past, "You say you didn't have a choice, but clearly you did." He looked into my eyes, pleading. "Why didn't you just stay with him? With me? Were you so sick of me that you had to jump on a plane to Europe just to get away?

"No...that's not it."

"Then what is it?" he asked me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, frustrated and tired of arguing. "It doesn't matter Grayson."

"It matters to me." He looked out the window, dejected from the conversation. "I thought-I thought we were... getting somewhere."

I stopped staring at my hands and shifted my gaze to him, "Getting somewhere?"