o i long to feel your arms around me, father john misty
DECEMBER 20TH, 2014
SEVENTEEN YEARS

Jaime drove me to the airport.

The rain pounded mercilessly on the glass as we drove to Heathrow. The sky was a deep grey, the clouds dark and somber, the fields of grass that passed us caked in heavy layers of thick, sticky mud. People hadn't woken up yet, so the world was quiet. We were the only people on the motorway, the engine roaring as Jaime cranked up the speed in his small Toyota, the one his mum gave him on his seventeeth only a week ago, and let the fields of grass turn into buildings of industrialisation.

"You sure about this?" He asked, eyes keeping on the road ahead. In the darkness of the sky they appeared a ferocious blue, luminous like a lantern in a tunnel of darkness. I could see them jittering about, wanting to stare at me but keeping to the road—because it was easier to delay pain than confront it. I didn't blame him, however. If it were Jaime that was leaving, I would be the exact same way.

We were, of course, best friends.

"Yeah." And although it was confidence I wished to exuberate, my voice fell short, scratching at my throat as it clambered it's way up and out of my mouth. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"New York, huh?" The disbelief in his voice was clear, more clear than anything had been before. "You're really going to New York."

"That was the plan, wasn't it?" I asked him softly, staring out the window. My hand fumbled with a loose piece of string that dangled from my jeans. "Leave this shit hole, start fresh, get our shit together."

"Yeah, but that was in another six or seven months, Perce." I remembered him sounding exasperated—trying to see reason in his voice and not his words. Again, it was that delay: the delaying of pain to avoid a crushing confrontation. "I mean it's only December! We . . . We were meant to have until June!" His grip tightened on the wheel. "We were meant to go together."

I couldn't get my eyes to leave the window. "You can always come in six months, Jaime. No one is stopping you."

"That's not what this is about and you know that." His voice was like steel, ice cold. The warmth that I'd associated with his crackling, bright blue eyes was gone. There was nothing warm about the tension within the car, at our stances—so close yet so far. I could feel the fraying of our thread already, ever so slowly, gradually increasing until it became too late to prevent. "You can't just run away from your problems."

I shrugged, letting my gaze fall upon my hands. "I'm not running away from them."

"Oh really?" He scoffed and laughed, shaking his head loosely. For a second, his eyes fell upon me: skimming, scanning, registering. The next, they were back on the road. "Then what are you doing, Perce?"

"Delaying."

"That's bullshit."

I let out a light laugh. Jaime wasn't exactly wrong. It was bullshit—all of it was. I'd broken up with Seth the night before, my flight booked from a month in advance. In the month of December, I had told him, you will finally be free. I told him that sometime in October, around our two year anniversary. I texted him about leaving, not even bothering to read his replies. So yes, Jaime was right. I wasn't delaying anything, because I had no intention of confronting it. I was running away.

Willingly.

"Do you love him?" Jaime asked, steering the car left. We were near now, the exit off the motorway appearing closer by the second. In an hour, I would be fully checked in. In three hours, I would be boarding the plane, and in around thirteen hours I would be in New York. A fresh start, a new name.

"Do I have to answer?"

"Yes." He paused. "This is non negotiable."

I remember sighing. "Can I lie, then?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the rain pounding against the car. "You'll know the truth if I lie, right?"

From the corner of his eye, Jaime looked over to me. I didn't dare to meet his eyes, for they had grown critical. He wasn't the same kid from four years before. He was more logical now, but I cherished him the same. Still, though, I couldn't help but feel weird beneath his gaze.

"I'll know." He said, coming to a consensus. "In fact, I think I already know. No matter what you claim to be the truth, I think I already know it."

I shut my eyes and imagined blue skies and the sun. And then I imagined Seth: the pair of us beneath his sheets, laughing and crying and talking all night long. And then the grey skies became more appealing and I opened them once more. "Go on then."

"You love him." The words tumbled from his lips instantly. "You always have, and you always will."

I didn't respond as the indicator signalled and the car lurched left at the first exit, but I knew that Jaime was correct. And somewhere within that silence, he knew that he was right, too.

—

All flights boarding for New York, Manhattan, please come to check out eleven!

We had talked for almost three hours in attempt to fill the void. Jaime rambling on about pointless things: his childlike self appearing every now and again before his more analytical persona invaded our jovial atmosphere, and myself chipping in here and there—mostly laughing erratically, tears falling from my eyes. For three hours, it felt like reality was a farce, like I wasn't about to leave my best friend, like I hadn't broken up with my boyfriend, like I wasn't going to America. For three hours, I had managed to relive some of the best moments of my life before it was all about to change.

And then that intercom filled the airport, and our smiles fell at once.

All flights boarding for New York, Manhattan, please come to check out eleven!

It rang again through the empty corridors and airport mall. Apart from Jaime and I, there were only a few people—maybe twenty, thirty—that filled the airport. No-one in their right mind, of course, would board a plane at one in the morning. Then again, I was far from the right state of mind. Jaime too. Neither of us wanted to admit it, but we were a mess. And just when I thought being a mess couldn't have gotten any messier, I heard it.

His voice.

Seth's voice.

We were at the check out by then. My passport was in my hand, flimsy and careless. It was about to drop when I heard his voice. Jaime was sitting, I remember, on one of the chairs at the back, watching me with these sad, paining eyes. They were blue, really very blue, like a bolt of lightning flashing across the Earth. I had looked at them for the last time, biting my lip, holding back my tears—and then I heard it.

"AINSLEY!"

My heart stopped.

"JASPER AINSLEY YOU BITCH!"

I looked towards him.

"YOU FUCKING, FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT, YOU—YOU!"

I collapsed on the floor.

"MOTHER-FUCKING JASPER AINSLEY, GODDAMIT, I LOVE YOU, YOU DIC—!"

I cried, and his voice fell silent.

From then, it was fragments. Seth holding me, rocking back and forth, a light kiss of my forehead, Jamie's hug, tears smudging my clothing, wet cheeks pressed against mine, blue eyes against brown, the soft sound of silent sobbing, my legs moving, the passport secure in my hand, a few mumbled words, I love you, before being escorted by the pair of them to my seat on the near empty plane, hysterical and distraught.

That was the last time I saw Seth with his hair. The last time I saw him healthy, even though he was broken. The last time I saw Jaime smile, saw Jaime cry, saw Jaime at all. That was the last time I sat with the two most important people in my life, in England, on a plane on my way to New York. In that moment, it's appeal shrank. The dream I once had had become a nightmare, a hellish, dark nightmare. There was no guarantee that Jaime would follow. There was no guarantee that Seth would follow. There was only the guarantee that I would be alone.

I was never good at being alone.

I remember kissing Seth. His lips were cold from the rain outside, wet already with our tears merging and our hands running through each other's hair. I remember hugging Jaime, refusing to let go until the pilot came to break it up. I've got a plane to fly, he said. Get it over with.

There was this moment, as Seth and Jaime walked out, that always stuck with me. This moment where Seth turned to me, his hair askew from my hands in his hair, his eyes of sunlight bright with passion, his hands trembling from sadness. This moment where his mouth opened, and a promise was made.

In the month of December, I will see you again. I don't know how it will happen, or when it will happen, but it will. And I can guarantee you, it will be the day we reclaim what we lost.