One For The Road ✔ | A short novella |

19. London

Chapter Nineteen

London - Home

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"Oh darling it's so lonely to think of us apart." Cults - Jessie

London Heathrow, UK, 12.05pm, September 7th

Jessie

We land with a hard thump and a large dose of rainy, grey reality.

Ellis glances down at the middle seat between us that's been empty the whole flight and he quietly sighs. He looks as sad as I feel, though I can't let on that I want to grip onto the seat and never let go. Because once I'm off this plane and back out into a world I'd been so happy to leave behind it will all just be a memory.

At arrivals my mum cheers us on, as if we've completed a torturous trek up Mount Everest or a complex space mission and all I can think is please, get me out of here.

She yaps on about Ellis's parents being so excited to see him and to hear all about our adventures and they've got some lunch ready and on and on and on, until I ask for them to stop so I can go to the toilet.

Inside the cubicle I take deep breaths. I can't explain it, least of all to them but everything feels wrong and out of place. I hate it.

All the ride home I feign a migraine and my mum eventually relents and allows Ellis to close his eyes too after rounds of intense questioning. I'm pretty sure she can sense something is up, or in our case over.

When we arrive back in Newton Berry and our street that looks comically tiny compared to the great American highways and sweeping suburbs, mum says, "We'll take your stuff in, leave you two to say goodbye."

Which leaves us both outside, either side of the small fence that's always separated our families front gardens.

I know we don't have long. It's tipping buckets and Ellis's parents are curtain twitching, waiting for him to enter back into their lives again, just as he'll leave mine.

He reaches for my hand, even though it's slippery and wet. And he whispers, "I love you too, Jessie."

I nod and then Daniel opens the front door and interrupts by jokily grumbling at my return. I give Ellis a wave, which I know is lame and stupid and just plain awful but then that's how I feel.

After lunch, once my mum's finished fussing and asking questions, I pull out the jet-lag card and retreat to my bedroom. It's the only place that feels remotely normal and not so surreal like it had been to eat beans on toast at a real diner table or watch the BBC news.

Ignoring my suitcase, close to bursting at the seams and all the nicknacks stuffed into my backpack, I push them to the far end of the room and climb into bed. The covers are cold and they smell fresh, unlike most of the beds we'd slept in for the past month.

We. I keep saying or thinking this. But their is no we now, even if Ellis is probably in his room too, just a flimsy wall away and yet it might as well be the other side of the world.

When my eyes can barely stay open, I take my phone and I send a message that my fingers type out and send before I can think about how it might not be what he wants me to say.

I hear the small ding of his phone and I wait. Maybe he'll text to say goodnight too. Maybe he's feeling really out of sorts too.

Maybe my message will give him some small hope, like maybe I'm realising that I don't want to be apart from him. I want to still be his friend, even if we can't be anymore than that.