I smile back at him as my fear starts to fade. “You and me.”
He bumps me again with his shoulder, then hops off the bed and pulls out his phone. Music fills the room, and immediately a feeling of familiar comfort washes over me.
We’ve spent a lot of time in here, with Levi’s music playing in the background as he works away at something he’s supposed to be doing while I just exist next to him.
I watch Levi as he finishes unpacking, talking the entire time about our summer plans and already setting them into motion as he texts his uncle and books campsites between putting things away.
Even though it feels like everything is changing… I know some things never will.
And I’m very thankful for that.
EIGHT
WE WERE TWENTY YEARS OLD
I shifton my feet and scan the crowd beyond the sliding doors, tracking each new group that steps through. Families, couples, people in suits… all swallowed up by the sea of people waiting to greet them.
The doors slide closed again, and I anxiously glance around the arrivals terminal of the giant Toronto airport. Until the whoosh of the doors snaps my attention back to another wave of people.
Then I see the backwards hat that’s frayed at the edges, with blond curls sticking out beneath it, and hazel eyes that immediately find mine.
A grin spreads across my face as Silas walks towards me, and I open my arms as he walks right into them. His arms loop around my back, and I hold him tight against me.
“How was the flight?” I ask, finally letting go.
“Hated it,” he says, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and glancing around the crowded airport as he shoots dirty looks at no one in particular.
I laugh. “Yeah, I figured. At least your first-ever flight was a short one. Mine was seven hours.”
“Sounds like a fucking nightmare,” Silas says with wide eyes, looking like that thought alone will haunt him for the rest of his life.
“This it?” I gesture to his backpack.
“Yeah. I wasn’t about to go through all this bullshit.” He waves towards the baggage claim, where a crowd gathers at the carousel, even though the bags haven’t started coming out yet. They all keep pressing in closer to the area where the bags will come out, like being first is some kind of victory.
“Don’t blame you,” I mutter, steering us away from the chaos.
We weave through the maze of people as some wander aimlessly, and others charge forward as if they’re the most important person here. It takes a while, but we finally reach the train platform.
“Jesus,” Silas mutters. “This airport’s bigger than PEI.”
I chuckle. “Feels like it.”
The platform’s packed, and the crowd inches forward despite the train not arriving yet. Someone bumps into Silas’s back, and he stiffens, glancing over his shoulder as he shifts closer to me. When he gets bumped again, I hook a hand around his elbow and pull him in even closer.
“Welcome to the big city.” I shrug. “The one thing you can’t escape here is people.”
“Hm,” he hums under his breath, clearly unimpressed.
The train pulls in, and the crowd shifts immediately as everyone rushes for the same set of doors. I grab Silas’s arm and lead him down the platform to slip into a car with a bit more breathing room.
As we sit, I finally exhale.
He’s really here. In Toronto.
It’s the first time he’s ever left PEI. I know he’s been nervous about coming here, even if he tried to play it off. I’ve beencounting down the days to this visit all year, even though I just saw him over Christmas a few weeks ago. But I’m excited to finally show him the life I have here. At the same time, though, I can’t ignore how different this place is from home. He thrives on space and quiet, and very little of either exists here. So I want this weekend to be good for him, and I want him to really enjoy himself so he’ll come back and see me again.
As the train pulls away from the airport, Silas stares out the window. The lines of highway stack and twist into a cluttered lattice of overpasses and looping exits, with traffic flowing in every direction and buildings closing in on every side.
