Meet Me In The Hallway

Angel Flight

"Could you make it out to H? And maybe sign it Angel, please?" 

I didn't have to look up to see who the voice belonged to. The sound of it was embedded in my brain and written on my bones.

The book signing was my last. And it was the end of the day. I was ashamed to say that I had taken to just looking at the book and doing the signing, before summoning a smile and 'thank you' with a brief glance as my reader walked away. But, I was tired, it had been a long day, a long 2.5 years since I'd heard his voice, other than recorded.

I'd been traveling around a bit with the book, my parents' love story with heaping amounts of drama and a better first husband for my mom thrown in. A fictionalized story of their lives.

I'd been so surprised when it got published, and become a tiny bestseller in Australia and England. My publisher had sights set on the States as well. Traveling around a much smaller version of the world and being the principal terrier trotted out at the dog and pony shows was exhausting. It would be a lie to say that I didn't think about Harry and have a new empathy for him and how tired he must have been. I only had to sit and sign something, share a smile and a few words. Harry and the boys went through full days of press, two hours of jumping around like idiots on a stage where I knew at least Harry really tried to connect with the fans, and then sometimes wrote all night or recorded. It made me feel guiltier for the selfish moments I had when we were on tour and for how much I craved his call. He probably didn't want to see anybody on his off time. Even me. I had a new found sympathy.

I was totally willing to see no one after a night at the bookstore. I liked talking about my characters, especially because they were essentially my parents, but I was a pretty classic introvert and going back to the hotels to quiet was lovely. It didn't always happen, because sometimes Kara was with me. But Kara was always allowed to invade my bubble of one.

If she could intrude on my solitude and I'd be happier for it, why couldn't I on Harry's?

That thought was almost three years cold. Maybe nearly six. But he was right out of my eyeline, and I was afraid to look up at him, like looking at an eclipse. It was a once in a lifetime type of thing, but you have to be properly prepared. At this signing at a independent bookstore in north London, he was the last thing I was expecting. I didn't have filtered glasses or anything.

I'm sure he came late, and waited for the crowd to die down on purpose. He seemed to be the last person in line. Maybe he just saw the placard for my appearance and decided to pop round. I vaguely remember the house we had made a very brief love nest being nearby. But I didn't know London well, and we had spent more time in LA. It's not like we went out much. We rarely left the bedroom to catch up on sleep and other things when we made it to a place he's endeavored to call home.

Harry was still just out of my eyeline, but I could see he was wearing track pants and a white t-shirt. I wondered if he came from the gym, but I couldn't see his feet. I knew he used to go to the gym a lot from the late night stalks I still indulged in. It was safe to say I wasn't over it, losing him, or him not giving us a second chance. Well, we may have been on our ninth life, like the cat that wandered round, the bookstore in Paris I'd loved. 

He hadn't come.

And I didn't know where to go. I had waited for what felt like forever in my little room in Jamaica. I waited a whole year before I decided he wasn't coming. If I had thought it had hurt to run from him, I once again found a new empathy for him when I waited for him to come to me. If he had written the album as bait that I did not take and he had waited seven months to see me only to have a non-reaction than an angry one, his apparent lack of interest or impression for the book I had written him felt like I had mounted an expedition to lure our Nessie and she just liked The Loch better than anything I had to offer.My offering had been me, all of my words, and our story, and my heart.