The Vacation

Complete faith and knowing each other forever

When she woke up, the morning was already halfway over. She could hardly believe she had slept in. For the first time it felt like a vacation, or something as close as you can get to a vacation without Derek. The sun was shining brightly through the colourful thin curtains and she sat up on her bed. It was the first single bed she had asked for in a hotel in the past forty-five years. She wondered how long these revelations would continue to hit her the moment she woke up every morning in the future. She hoped it would stop soon; she hated starting the morning with a sense of loss. She put her feet down on the floor and the carpet felt foreign; she wished it was sand. She was falling in love with Hawaii. Its beauty wasn't something unusual. It wasn't that she hadn't ever seen a sea like that before or a beach like that but with everything mixed in together, Hawaii had a charm she had never experienced before. Somehow, here, she felt much closer to Derek. She might have gone to some place where they had been together before but she knew that with time every place changed and it would have hurt her not to be able to associate the changes with her memories. It had been a smart choice to come to a place where they had history but hadn't ever come before. They had always wanted to come to Hawaii but never managed to time their longing with each other's and they ended up not coming here at all.

She dressed in a loose ill-fitting top with pants like the ones Neel wore to bed. Sam was waiting for her in front of his room, wearing dark shades and she knew the moment she laid eyes on him that he hadn't slept the night before. She smiled at him.

"I didn't sleep last night. The light hurts my eyes. Please speak softly or my head might burst. God! I am never doing this ever again!"

"You could have fitted that entire speech in three words- 'I'm hung over.'"

"Yes! Yes, I am! Please let's just go, grab something to eat and leave."

"Yes, please."

They walked along the sea in the direction opposite to the one they had followed the evening before. The road was more crowded this morning but soon they found a place that a teenager was recommending for 'the best brunch in all of Hawaii'. The girl reminded her of Shania in her French Fries costume of her first job when she was about fourteen. Sam didn't like the place much but reluctantly went in when she did. She ordered a Hawaiian French Toast and traditional iced Kona coffee. He ordered the same with strong black coffee instead.

"You know what, Sam? I think I'll make it a thing to keep on coming back here every few months. I have fallen in love with Hawaii."

"Give me a call every time you come. I'll come too...that might be a little difficult now, wouldn't it? Me joining the new job and all that!"

"Yeah! Taking a break every few months will be next to impossible."

"What was your first job like?"

"Working my ass off. Getting my boss to like me. Failing at it miserably, I don't do well with people of authority. I remember the entire first week, I didn't do anything except going to work. My apartment was a mess, the dishes weren't done, and the clothes weren't washed. I used to come home and go to bed wearing the same clothes I'd been in the entire day. The next morning I would wash up, change my clothes and again go to work. The routine continued for about a week after which my elder sister came to help me and got a more sensible routine set up for me!"

"You are freaking me out before I even start!"

"Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to do that. I was just saying..."

"And I can't even call my elder sister. I am having a fight with my mother and she always sides with her."

"Sam, why are you and your mom fighting, anyway?"