Chapter 21
Darren
The week was going by so slowly once Bailey and I had decided to fly to Memphis together. Work was torture. The clock seemed to be moving sluggishly.
Although each shift was unnaturally long, I was grateful to Garrett for willingly taking my Friday shift and agreeing to feed and walk Bo. My boss was happy to let me have the next week off since I never took breaks or vacations. He was even happier when I said I would be visiting Memphis with a girl that I really liked.
I arrived at work on Thursday to see Garrett relaxing in the break room.
“No calls or appointments?” I asked him.
“Nah, it’s dead right now,” Garrett said. “There are a few jobs for today, but they’ve already got guys on it. It’ll probably pick up later.”
I sat down with him, scrolling through my phone to pass the time.
“How’s Bailey doing?” he asked me.
“She’s good,” I replied. “She’s pretty excited about tomorrow. She’s stoked to show me the places she goes to.”
“And, how long are you actually staying there?”
“I leave tomorrow morning, and I return next Saturday. So eight days, I guess.”
“That’s a lot of time,” he said.
“Really?” I said. “If you moved somewhere else, say you moved to Mobile, and I’m coming to visit and crash at your place, I’d like to stay for a while. I want to make the most of my time off, right?”
“Right, but you’re not in love with me,” said Garrett.
“What makes you so sure, handsome?” I said teasingly.
He chuckled. “So, what are you guys gonna do? Just check out the town and hookup?”
“I guess so.” I laughed.
“Hmm,” he went. “Not a bad way to spend a vacation. I hope you have a good time. Really, I hope you have the time of your life.”
I could sense a bitter sarcasm in his voice.
“I hope you two have an amazing week because then you both get to be completely miserable for the rest of your lives,” he continued. “Really, I hope it’s the best week of your entire life. No bullshit.”
“What are you really saying?” I asked in annoyance. “Don’t be a girl.”
“I’m saying that I’m still against the idea of you trying to make this thing work that isn’t going to work,” he said. “She’s never coming back to this fucking city once she leaves, so that’s strike one. You’re not going to change your mind about moving to a city like Memphis, right?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed.
“Boy, this chick has got a spell on you.” He chuckled with an icy tone. “For real though, answer wholeheartedly. Would you really move to a big city?”
“I know I’ve always been against it,” I admitted. “But, that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. I could adapt. Or, it might not be as bad as I think it’ll be. I’ve been wrong about things before.”
“If she asks you to move in with her, don’t just say yes,” he said. “Know if you really want to do it. You’ve said no to this girl before, so don’t forget how.”
“Thank you, Garrett.”
“You wouldn’t live in a big city,” he said dismissively. “If it actually happened— like, if she asked you to move to Memphis with her tomorrow— I think you’d say no. You were messed up over this girl once already. I think you know you can’t just open yourself up to get fucked up again, man. They don’t change, dude.”
“I just want to spend more time with Bailey,” I said. “She’s my friend.”
“She hasn’t been your friend for six years,” he interjected. “And be real, Darren. You can’t say you’re going because you’re friends. We both know damn well.”
“If we both know so well, why do you keep prodding, Garrett?”
He softened slightly, looking away from me before he continued.
“She’s stubborn about staying away from Rome. You’re stubborn about staying close to it,” he said. “You guys are gonna get hurt, one way or another. You’re high right now off the fantasy. Once it gets real, you both will end up in separate directions. I don’t want you to hurt yourself like that.”
I was touched by the thought he’d put into what he said, but it didn’t change what I was going to do. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything that Garrett or anyone else could say to me that could’ve talked me out of it. I had imagined a time like this frequently in the past.
Garrett was right about one thing: I usually fantasized and romanticized whenever it came to Bailey. She was the only girl that I ever loved, so she always dipped in and out of my imagination, which was already out of control to begin with.
The way I saw it play out in one scenario was that we’d spend the time together, explore, and by the end of it, we would either be confessing our love to each other or running away from it. I told her exactly how I felt, and then I would either move to Memphis and buy a house or return to Rome and hope she would return to my door one day and kiss me.
Sometimes, I imagined that we merely let our bodies do the talking. We’d have nothing but raw passion powered by an undying fire. Then, we would return to “back to normal.” In this case, I’d go back to Rome, work at Mel’s, and drink beer with Garrett, leaving Bailey back in Memphis. She would eventually sign a record deal and either move to Los Angeles or New York, two other big cities.
I wasn’t sure what trajectory our trip was going to take emotionally, but I was antsy with anticipation.
I went back to the house after work. Bailey had ordered us Chinese, and we planned to watch a movie and casually pack for the trip throughout the night.
“Honey, I’m home,” I said more humiliated with each syllable.
“Oh good, dear!” she said in a funny voice. “Dinner’s ready! Come get it while it’s still hot.”
“It’s always hot when you’re around,” I said.
“Ha. Get us drinks, will you? I’ll have water.”
I joined her by the TV with her water and my soda. We sat close together, eating our delicious meals and staring at the screen in front of us without watching.
“I so cannot wait for tomorrow,” Bailey eventually said.
I squeezed her shoulders. “Me neither.”
“This might be like weird or whatever,” she said with caution. “But were there ever times when you thought of what it would be like to come see me in Tennessee? Like did you ever daydream about what it would be like?”
“Of course, I would.” I laughed. “You know me— absolutely I did. How could I not? I thought about what it would be like if you came back. I imagined what it’d be like if we’d met again in some other faraway place.”
“Like where?” she asked in an amused tone.
“Oh, no one place in particular over another,” I said. “I’d go to Panama City Beach and run into you one day when I walk down the shore. Or I’d go somewhere in Europe, be taking pictures, and then I’d see you on my travels.”
“You would go to Europe?” she said skeptically.
“I would visit Europe,” I clarified. “Same as I would visit Memphis or Nashville.”
“Don’t tempt me to take us up to Nashville for a day, because I will,” she said. “When I know for sure that I’m going to be a famous singer, I’ll probably want to move to Nashville. Have you ever been?”
“Can’t say I have. I’ve always wanted to go though.”
“Maybe we could go up this weekend! I doubt I’ll need to be doing anything on Sunday. We’ll wake up early and spend the day there.”
“Sounds terrific.” I smiled.
She clapped her hands quickly and bounced in her seat. “I’m so excited for tomorrow.”
“So, what about you?” I shot back.
“What about me?”
“Did you ever imagine what it would be like if we saw each other again out in the world?” I specified.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Sometimes.”
“Care to share?”
“Not really,” she said as her cheeks began reddening.
“Aw, that’s not fair,” I said. “After I told you about what I thought about? We both need to give, Bailey Wright.”
She stuck out her cheeks as if she was pouting. Her hair fell slightly over her eyes, and so I moved it with my hand. We looked into each other’s eyes for several silent moments, beaming.
“We need to make a vow,” said Bailey.
“And, what would that be?”
“We need to promise each other we’re not going to over-think things,” she said. “We’re spending time together. You’re on vacation. I’m your tour guide, and we’re just going to be Darren and Bailey.”
“If you’re trying to say we shouldn’t go catching feelings, I agree.” I laughed.
“I don’t want to come off like a bitch.”
“You’re not a bitch,” I assured her. “You want us both on the same sentence on the same page. I won’t complicate your life, I promise.”
“Awesome,” she said. “Yeah. We’re not allowed to fall in love, so let’s just have a good, fun time.”
“Well, you can’t exactly put a rule on that,” I said.
“A rule on what?”
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” I said. “Stuff with the heart is usually out of our control. We can’t say we can’t fall in love.”
“Sure, we can,” she said. “Don’t let yourself get carried away.”
“But you see, you’re missing the point of ‘getting carried away.’ If you’re getting carried away, there’s probably little you can do to stop it. You’re being carried away.”
“You know what I’m saying, Darren,” she said, slugging me in the shoulder. “You’re such a dork.”
“You know how to bring it out of me,” I said tilting my head.
“I don’t want to have a conversation like this when you’re in Tennessee,” she said. “I know sometimes we both say we’re cool when we’re not. I want to get a sense of what you feel about all of this.”
“I feel a lot of things about you,” I said. “Just like I always have. That’s not going to change, whether I go to Memphis or not. I told you—you’re not like the other girls. I think more when it comes to you.”
“So, I guess we are going to over-think things, aren’t we?” she asked rhetorically.
“That was going to happen whether I came with you or not, also,” I said. “How about this: If I fall in love with you, I promise I won’t tell you. I won’t complicate your life. But, same goes for you. If you fall in love with me—”
“What makes you think I’d fall in love with you?” she interrupted.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“For the record, most of why I wanted to have this talk was because of what you said before,” she said. “About how you never stopped loving me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“The point is, I don’t know where you are or how you’re feeling, and I’m nervous,” she said frowning. “I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t mislead you in any way.”
“Bailey, I swear you have nothing to worry about. There will always be a part of me that belongs to you. But, I know what’s going on, and I know where we are. Besides, I haven’t seen you in years. Even though in a lot of ways it feels like old times, in a lot of ways it’s foreign. I mean; we’ve grown, and we’ve changed. I just want to spend time with you. You also should understand that I’m still cool with doing anything you want to do. My feelings will only be hurt if I lose you for good again.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, kissing my forehead. “You’re still my best friend.”
“You’re still mine, Bailey.”