Connection: An Esteban Granero story

Part IV: I feel you (Sam Roberts)

All or nothing, love is war

Take everything, want more

Ebb and flow, steady beat

No surrender, no retreat

All or nothing, love is war

                The man with the hastily made sign yawned and felt a tidbit foolish as he gazed around the airport trying to identify the girl he had come to pick up. He had been standing there by the gate well nigh an hour now, watching other happily reunited families come and go, and yet there was no sign of her. He fished out the tiny photo he was given and frowned. The photo showed a grinning toddler and had obviously been taken many years ago. The only things he had to go by, if any, were her raven black hair and dark eyes. He sneaked a look inside the tunnel and as there didn’t seem to be anyone there he propped the sign against the railing and went to get himself a cup of coffee.

                Lorelei grimaced as she hoisted her duffle carry on over her shoulder and grappled with the straps on her new suitcase. Her ribs were still sore despite the hours of physiotherapy she had gone through at the hospital, but she had gritted her teeth and lied about her condition in the hopes that they would let her out early to see Stephen. She remembered thinking how everything would be all right if only she could convince him not to leave, but everything had not been all right. He had just walked out of her life like it was no big deal, the second person in her life to do so. And now like some sick cosmic joke she is going to spend the rest of the summer with the only other person who had ever hurt her to the same extent, her aunt.

Remember who you're fighting for

Never get what you came for

I feel you, life is short

                Sipping his coffee, the man observed curiously as a young woman in Ray Bans and a cropped beige jacket came into view in the arrivals. She was obviously having trouble with her luggage because the straps kept unravelling and getting tangled in the wheels. He was about to get up and offer her help when a sleazy skinhead in an Ed Hardy tee shirt beat him to it.

                “What is a pretty young thing like you doing all alone in an airport?” He heard him say.

                Lorelei brushed the hair impatiently from her face as she bent down to retie the straps. She did not fully understand what the man had said but could tell from his tone that he was trying to pick her up. Now, he was playing with one of her straps and staring boldly down at her. She knew the wise thing to do would be to just untie the rest of the straps and leave without causing a scene, especially since she didn’t know enough Spanish to be able to explain adequately to the authorities what had occurred, but she didn’t feel like she would be getting off on the right foot by not staying true to her style, even in a foreign country.

                The man nearly spat out his coffee as he watched the woman whip her end of the strap at the skinhead’s face. It had happened so quickly that the man was taken entirely by surprise, whacked squarely between the eyes by the thin metal bar of the strap. The man staggered backwards and tripped over the suitcase, landing on his back with his legs in the air like an oversized turtle.

                Lorelei didn’t skip a beat as she tied the strap around her waist and walked away from the commotion she had caused with her duffle over a shoulder and the suitcase in tow. She paused by a sign left propped by the end railing, seeming to recognize her name hastily scrawled across the board in spidery block letters. That was when it finally hit him that she was the girl he was looking for.