Illicit Affair ||Pedro Pascal||

You're Not Here

We woke up to his alarm at 5 am. He told me his flight was at 7am, so we got up early that way he'd have time to get there and go through security and such. I could have stayed asleep, but I knew this was the last time I'd see him in a while and I wanted to savor every last moment. We brushed our teeth in the bathroom together, sleep still in our eyes. I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to just crawl back into bed with me. Pedro grabbed the rest of his toiletries, packed them into a pouch, and placed it in his luggage. It was almost 5:30 by the time he finished doing some last minute packing.

He stood by the front door, his suitcase next to him and his duffle hung on his shoulder. It stung, seeing him all ready to go. He cupped my face, and kissed me deeply, like it'd be the last time. He pulled away to look at me, his expression soft. "I want you to stay here while I'm gone." He suggested. I gave him a puzzled look. "Someone needs to take care of Oj." I smiled, and kissed him again. "I'll call you when I'm settled and everything."

And just like that, he was gone.

I went back to bed and tried to catch a couple more hours of sleep until I had to go onto set, but it was hard. I got used to sleeping next to Pedro, the comfort, the intimacy. Now that it was gone, I couldn't even close my eyes because I found myself waiting for him to poke my nose just to bother me.

He called me when I was relaxing in my trailer in between scenes, we talked on the phone for almost 30 minutes. He told me how his flight went, awful even though it was first class. He hated long flights, and this one happened to be 8 hours straight. Pedro said he was bored out of his mind.

He was staying at a hotel for the entirety of his trip, a very nice one at that. He sent me pictures of all the beautiful things he had seen along his journey. At the time of his call, he was finally in bed, it was almost 2 am where he was, and it was only 8pm for me. He sounded exhausted, so we said goodbye and I let him get some sleep.

I went to Pedro's like he insisted after work, and I ordered takeout for dinner. Oj was sprawled out on the couch next to me as I ate my Chinese food and watched Love Island. I figured trashy reality dating shows would help take my mind off of missing Pedro. But it was nearly impossible, everywhere I looked I was reminded of him somehow. I was in his house for gods sake. I looked at the kitchen and remembered how we slow danced to his favorite song, and smiled to myself.

I threw away the takeout boxes in the trash and went to lay in bed. The smell of him still fresh on the sheets. Oj didn't leave my side that night, which I felt helped a lot. He was like a piece of Pedro. My phone rang all of a sudden, and I jolted at the sound. It was him, my heart jumped with excitement as I pressed 'answer'. A moment later, his face was on my screen, along with a little rectangle on the corner with my face. This was our first video call. "Hi!" I greeted.

Pedro's eyes were bloodshot, but he smiled ear to ear when he saw me. "Hey."

"You look exhausted, Pedro. Did you get any sleep on the plane?" I asked.

He sighed. "Not really, but I tried." He stared at me for a second, and my eyebrows twitched. Before I could ask him why he was looking at me, he had already begun to answer, as if he read my mind. "What about you? You look like you haven't slept either."

"I didn't last night..."

"Why not?"

I hesitated for a second, I didn't want to come off too cheesy. "Probably because you're not here."

A sincere smile crossed his lips. He asked me how my day had been, and I asked him how his flight was and what he was doing tomorrow. I put Oj up to the camera so that Pedro could see him.

We both decided to try and get some sleep, and he said he'd call me the same time tomorrow. I knew these next couple weeks were going to be excruciatingly slow.

Work seemed to drag on, the days felt longer and I found myself longing for the day to be over so that I could go home and wait for Pedro to call me. We were close to wrapping up filming. By the time Pedro got back to the States, we'd be just about done. I realized that meant I'd get to go back to LA, but I questioned whether or not if I wanted to. Sure, that's where my friends are, where all my belongings were left. But it wasn't ever really my home. I wasn't sure if New York was my home either, all I knew was that I wanted to be closer to Pedro, wherever that was.

Before I knew it, my birthday had rolled around. Chloe flew in to town and I called up Oliver to celebrate with us since I hadn't seen him in a while. We went to a bar downtown that Oliver suggested, I didn't want to do anything too crazy, I stopped having outrageous birthday parties when I turned 26. They take a lot out of me.

Although I was thankful for my friends being there with me, I felt like the third wheel. I had no idea how well Oliver and Chloe would hit it off, so when my birthday cake arrived at our table and everyone around us sang me happy birthday, all I could think about was how much I wish Pedro was here. That was my wish when I blew out the candles.

We called it a night and I went straight to bed as soon as I got home, waiting for Pedro to call. When he finally did, I couldn't help but tear up when his beautiful face appeared. I didn't let the tears fall, though. I didn't want him to worry. He wished me a hearty happy birthday and asked me what I did. I told him I had a great time, when in reality I would've had a better time at home.

A few days later it had already been a week since he left. There was one more to go, and I couldn't wait for it to be over with.