It Had to Be You

The Thing Is

The thing about Walker Andrews is that he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. And that really, really bothered her. He was everywhere she didn't expect him and was never there when she wanted him to be. It was like the universe was saying "haha, nice try. We're going to keep you on your toes."

For instance, when Eliza expected him to be somewhere she dressed cute. She put on makeup. She tried. But inevitably she would show up and be disappointed because he was always off somewhere else like Egypt, Tasmania, skiing in the Swiss Alps. His life always made her life seem small.

When she wasn't trying or didn't expect him, there he was. She would be in last night's sweatpants that had the Thai food stain on them. She would have dirty hair or walk in overheated from the subway with no AC. In short, she would be a mess. And there he would be looking amused and somehow endeared by her. But the moment he said hi, she went into armadillo mode.

Armadillo mode was a term Eliza had coined long ago to explain why she shut down in certain settings. She used to think there was something wrong with her but an ADHD inattentive diagnosis and suspected neurodivergence led her to the conclusion that she was not strange or weird. She was unable to make sense of it. In Eliza's world, not everything made sense in the way other people existed. She didn't quite get social cues. She had difficulty in large groups and struggled to track conversations in loud, crowded bars. She often lost her train of thought or hyper-fixated on something so much it made other people uncomfortable.

Thus, she had learned armadillo mode. It was her was of shutting down in order to not come across as overstimulated but more aloof. It kept people at an arms distance and she was just fine with that. In her experience, when she was really, truly, herself she rarely got a positive reaction. After Eliza first met Walker he seemed to pop up everywhere. She hadn't learned armadillo mode yet. So she was just out in the world existing and allowing herself to feel the bitter taste of rejection each time she said something out of turn or felt like she put her foot in her mouth and she was met with uncharacteristic silence. She was used to it. In fact, she could predict it. She'd "say something weird" as Millie would say or "take things too far" as her mother put it. Eliza knew what they were talking about but she couldn't help it. Her brain lacked the "socially appropriate" setting. She always jumped to the shock, horror, dismay side of the spectrum and the awkward silences that followed continued to sting but much less after how many years she had been feeling them.

Yes, Eliza had gotten used to the fact that she was different and when Walker noticed that, she was confused by his response.

---

It wasn't long after Millie's birthday party that Eliza ran into Walker for the second time. She had run over to Millie's to help her clean out her closet. A task both Eliza and Millie both knew would never actually go to plan. Millie had this habit of tugging on Eliza's heart strings and asking for favors that Millie had no intention of completing. It was fine. Eliza had gotten used to the relationship and enjoyed the time with her sister. But what she never enjoyed was that Millie never gave her a heads up.

On this particular day, Eliza had just finished bagging the fourth trash bag of clothes for donation and brushed a dust bunny from her sweaty forehead. Millie and Tim's one bedroom was cozy but warm. It was the first apartment they lived in together and the place was filled with mementos from their life so far. Eliza loved that. What she did not love was Millie's lack of cleanliness. Every inch of her closet, her shelves, her floor were chalk full of dust bunnies just begging to escape. And it wasn't for Tim's lack of trying to clean. No, Millie was unique in the sense that everything on her side of the room seemed to be wrapped in a fine layer of dust which Eliza now wore as her own suit of armor.

"That should be it." Millie called over her shoulder as Eliza hauled yet another garbage bag to the front door. The donation part of this journey would be Tim's responsibility.