Dear Dad

February 21st

February 21st,

            February break had finally come.  It was around noon and Andy’s flight had just landed.  I stood in the airport with Anabella and my mom.  Anabella looked as if she was going to Antarctica.  She was wrapped up in a thick coat with a striped scarf wrapped around her neck and my blue beanie hat on her head. 

            Most girls steal their boyfriend’s jacket to wear but, Anabella insisted on stealing my hats.  She wore a different one of my hats every day now.  It was sort of her way of saying ‘Hey look, this is my boyfriend.  He cares about me, but giving me his jacket is cliché.  So he gave me his hat.’  Knowing Anabella, she would go around saying that to everyone.

            I looked around the busy airport for Andy or his dad.  I couldn’t find either of them.  But, I was now aware of the fact that the airport was packed.  My first instinct was to grab Anabella’s hand.  I didn’t want to lose her (she’s really tiny and it’s easy to lose her in crowds).  I squeezed her hand tight and she wrapped her other arm around my arm so now she was hugging my left arm.  I could tell she was afraid.  Large crowds make her nervous, people in general make her nervous. 

            I finally spotted Andy’s spiked hair in the distance.  “I see him!”  I shouted to my mom which was no help because she was on her phone.  Most likely a work call, I’m guessing someone was trampled getting off their plane and had to be rushed off to the hospital, just a guess. 

            I held onto Anabella as tight as I could and fought the crowd to get to Andy.  We finally made our way over to him and Anabella let go of me so I could hug him, but she stayed very, very close to me.  I hugged him and he shouted, “I missed ya bro.”  I could barely hear him over the noise.

 “I missed you too.”  I replied.  He looked from me over to Anabella.  “This must be the girl my bro’s crazy bout.”  He leaned over and whispered to me, “dude she’s hot.  Nice!”  I jokingly pushed him away.  I introduced Anabella to him and they shook hands.  Anabella kept looking back between me and him.  She didn’t look too happy to be meeting him.

            We brought Andy and his dad to their hotel.  After they put their things in their room, as promised, Andy treated Anabella and me to coffee.  We went to a little coffee shop in the middle of town.  It was a quiet little place with little tabled and benches.  It was decorated with paintings from street artists and various plants.  The lighting was all natural; you could not find one light bulb in that place.  It was lit by the sunlight from the many windows lining the shop.

             We got our drinks and sat down at a table.  Anabella got a hot chocolate since she didn’t drink coffee or tea.  “So,” Andy started the conversation, “tell me how you met.”

“At school, my locker was being stupid and all my stuff fell everywhere and Anabella,” I looked over at her, “was the only one in the entire school nice enough to help me.”

“Cute, Hallmark moment,” Andy said sarcastically.

“So, umm...” Andy continued, “you take her on any dates?”

“Not like official dates, but we’ve hung out a couple of times.”

‘What about when we went to the park?’  Anabella signed.

“Oh yah, we went hiking in the park.  It was nice; the park here’s really beautiful.”

“Oh so, you do know sign language.”  Andy said.

“Yah, did you think I was joking?”

“Nah bro, It’s just, whatever.  So anyways, you kiss her yet?”

“Dude!”  I said angrily.  This was Andy being a jerk and you could clearly see Anabella was starting to get annoyed with him.  “What?”  He questioned.  He didn’t think he had done anything wrong.  Anabella signed to me, ‘What’s wrong with him?  You don’t ask someone that right away.  Is he always a jerk?  What’s next?  Is he going to ask when the wedding is or what we’re planning to name our children?’  She was clearly mad.  I signed back to her, ‘He’s not usually this much of a jerk.  Personally I just think he’s jealous because you’re so beautiful and great and he doesn’t have a girlfriend.’

 ‘Oh, stop it.’  She signed back and then crossed her arms.

“What she sayin?”

“She asked how we met and I said you spilled your juice on me at snack time.”  A total lie about what we were talking about.

“Oh, good times, good times.  So you kissed?”  He was relentless.  He wasn’t leaving this place without an answer.  “None of your business,” I replied and then turned to Anabella.  I grabbed her hand in an attempt to calm her down.  “Okay, sorry.”  He said finally backing down.  Anabella let it go.  She smiled and rolled her eyes.  Then she discretely nodded her head yes.  Andy smiled; he had now taken a liking to Anabella. 

            They became friends quickly.  We had fun talking, when Andy wasn’t being a total jerk.  We talked about movies and music and old times back in Florida.  The time seemed to fly.  Before we knew it, it was already six.  We walked Andy to his hotel, which was only about a mile away.  It was a small hotel right outside of town.  Then I walked home with Anabella.  She didn’t have much to say on the way home.  You could tell she was tired.  She was walking slow and leaned on me when I had my arm around her.

            We finally arrived at her house and I walked her up to her door.  I kissed her goodbye and she opened the door.  Her parents we not home, which happened often.  She told me that half the time she didn’t know where they went, they were just, gone.  She invited me inside but I declined.  She was obviously tired so I told her to go inside and go to bed early.  I left and walked home.