She couldn’t have been serious, I remind myself. Although there’s a nagging voice in my brain again asking me:Why not?
Chapter 29
Murphy pees on the garage floor when he sees me, which makes me laugh and breaks my heart. How have I survived being away from him for so long? My mom sighs theatrically, but I don’t care. I almost peed when I saw him too. I feel immense relief to wrap my arms around his shaggy body, to have my face covered in his sloppy kisses.
When we’re inside, my dad starts laughing at how hard Murphy’s tail is wagging. ‘You’d think we tortured him all week!’ he exclaims, picking up a glass before Murphy’s tail knocks it off the coffee table.
I pet Murphy behind the ears. ‘I missed you so much, buddy,’ I whisper.
I shower and halfway unpack, throwing clothes in the laundry. When Millie gets home tomorrow, I want to stay at my parents’ with her, so there’s no point in schlepping my stuff back to my place, or confusing Murphy by bringing him home and making him leave again. There’s just one problem with being at my parents’ – I feel like I’m already regressing, turning into the person I was before I left to go on the trip. It’s all starting to feel like a fever dream.
We go see Millie during afternoon visiting hours, where she tells me all about the episode I missed onThe Bachelor(he’s down to six contestants now and we hate two of them) and we strategise a way to tell her work what happened. Eventually, we compromise on a strategy: Millie agrees to tell her boss that she couldn’t go on the trip but that she kept in touch with some divers who did go and is hoping to use some of their findings.
By the time we head home it’s hard for me to remember that the last night of sleep I had was on a tiny boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
But I remember Hugh. I remember everything about him. His smell, the way his lips taste, the way the hair on his forearm is so lightened from the sun that it practically glows. I remember how the name Millie sounds in his mouth and the way his eyes look when he’s staring at the ocean. I remember how he made me feel – simultaneously like I was on the most exciting terrifying roller coaster of my life and also like I had finally found a place to call home.
I keep expecting time to take away the sting of not hearing from him, but with every passing hour it cuts me deeper. Pippa texts me to ask about my sister and the scrap of pride I have left is the only thing that keeps me from asking if Hugh ended up on the waterfall tour with them.
I miss Australia. I miss the accents and the smell of the ocean and the bright, long, sunny days. I miss the spirit of the place, the feeling that people were living for more than just their next pay cheque.
I get into bed as soon as we get home from visiting Millie and even though I’m exhausted, I can’t fall asleep. I toss and turn, missing the rocking of the boat beneath me. Missing Hugh’s gentle breathing from the bed below mine.
When Millie gets discharged the next afternoon, we bring her home together, all four of us loaded into the Highlander, Millie and I in the back seat. For the next few days, our family operates in orbit around Millie. We are at her beck and call, helping her get comfortable and ensuring she stays off her feet, welcoming in the home health nurse around the clock, and convincing Millie that her boss will be understanding when she calls her to ask for medical leave.
By the end of the week, Millie’s request for full medical leave has been approved, and she won’t be back at work for another month. She’s heard from her co-workers, who inform her that before everyone left for the Christmas break, the lab was drowning without her. It got so bad, they said, that their boss wanted to hire an additional lab tech for benchwork.
Saturday is Christmas. We celebrate Millie’s rebounding health. I donate to the turtle sanctuary on her behalf, and she loves it. Millie gets me a simple golden chain with a wave symbol engraved on the clasp. ‘I don’t want you to forget what you’re capable of,’ she writes in loopy script on a note she leaves in the box.
Somewhere in the middle of watching reruns of reality TV, I tell Millie I fell for somebody. I don’t tell her it’s Hugh yet. But I do tell her that he lives in Australia, that I miss him, and that I really screwed it up, and I don’t know what to do.
‘Ohmygod,’ she starts talking so fast all her words run together. ‘Who? Does he know you were me? I mean does he know you are you? Is he cute? Did you hook up? I knew it!’ she cries, ending her barrage of questions on a triumphant note. ‘I told you that,’ she says, raising her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t I? I said you needed to get out of here. And now look – you met somebody!’
I roll my eyes at her. ‘And I told you I wasn’t ready. Now look . . . I met someone who lives literally as far away as possible.’
‘You said you didn’t want another Midwesterner,’ Millie teases. ‘Honestly,’ she says, scratching Murphy behind his ears, ‘I always thought you would end up with someone further from home anyways. I never thought you would be here forever.’
‘You didn’t?’ I’m incredulous. My whole life has felt like a narrative of:Of course, Andi will stay close to home. Was I the only one thinking that?
‘No,’ she says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Now tell me everything,’ she commands, but I’m saved by the bell because before I have to, our mom calls us down for dinner.
The antibiotics do the trick and Millie has no more hiccups on her road to recovery. We spend New Year’s together, all of us relieved that we haven’t had to go back to the hospital. I text Pippa, wishing her a happy holiday season, and she sends me back an adorable selfie of her and Andrew in what appears to be some kind of fake winter wonderland in the middle of London.
Before I know it, I’ve moved my life back to my apartment. My return to work approaches fast. I don’t know how over a week has passed since I returned from Australia, which already feels like a lifetime ago. I don’t know how I managed to survive each day, waiting for word from Hugh. With every hour that passes, my heart feels like it breaks a little more. I keep thinking the pain will lessen, but somehow my disappointment only deepens. I start to feel foolish. I don’t know why I ever thought someone like him would be interested in someone like me.
I retreat further into myself. At first, everyone thinks that I have the post-trip blues. My parents suggest I plan another vacation, but Millie realises quickly that there’s more to it.
‘This is about the guy, isn’t it?’ she asks after coming to my apartment for the third day in a row to find me in the same pair of sweats. She’s asked me about him over and over again, but even thinking about talking about him makes me want to cry, so I’ve shut her down each time.
All I can do is shake my head.
I think about Hugh constantly. Every time I drink coffee in the morning, I can hear his voice teasing, ‘You’re poisoning yourself with caffeine.’ I find myself compulsively checking to see what time it is in Australia. I pull up the Boston conference schedule and check over and over again that he’s still committed to present. I tell Murphy about him. I cry. I repeat the cycle.
Eventually, I’m ready to tell Millie. She comes over with takeout Chinese food and we sit on my couch, Murphy between us. Millie listens, open-mouthed, the entire time. Only when I’m finished does she interject.
‘Wow,’ she says when I finish. ‘Who would have thought . . .’
