Chapter Five

Today

Oh, God.

He's here.

I close my eyes and exhale, crinkling the note in my hand. I wonder how long he's been here, if he's been watching me. I don't want to look at him, but I can't stop myself. I need to see him. I want to hear his voice. I want an explanation.

When I open my eyes, I see him where he's probably always been, sitting one row of seats away from me.

His right ankle rests on his left knee. His broad, tall body slinks into the chair, his arm slung on the top of the empty one beside him. A smirk lifts his mouth. Those very familiar, warm green eyes focus on mine. His rumpled dark hair is swept back from his golden, olive skin.

When we were teenagers, on a cruise with our families, a stranger commented that we made a nice-looking pair. His warm skin tone and strong features, and me with matching colored hair, pink cheeks and large, almost black eyes. I thought that meant we looked related. Gracie laughed when I told her.

"That means you look like a couple . Like a romantic couple," she explained.

I stare at Tucker now, from across a sea of people standing, holding their bags, and search him for signs that he's changed in seven years.

He has the same large frame and relaxed confidence. His usual clean, stylish white T-shirt and blue jeans. I flip through the different versions of him I have in my mind - five years old, ten years old, eighteen, twenty - and I only see this . He'll always be whatever image I have right in front of me.

He raises an eyebrow.

I reach into my bag and take out a pen. I scribble beside his words, Why are you here, stalker?? Then, I spit into the paper. I smile at a concerned woman in front of me, crumbling the paper into a ball, and when a little boy slides out of the way, I throw it back to Tucker.

The man who played baseball for his whole childhood and college career, catches it with one hand, only briefly tearing his eyes from mine.

The plane begins to board. An awful realization hits me as I watch Tucker open the paper.

If Johnny bought my ticket without telling me Tucker was coming, then he probably bought Tucker's ticket as well. He will have booked us seats together. He's trying to Parent Trap us into talking.

Without getting up, Tucker tosses the paper in the trash and settles into his seat, eyeing his phone.

What am I supposed to say to him for two hours on this flight?

I snap to my phone, ready to shoot Johnny an angry text when I receive one from Tucker.

Tucker: It's my birthday.

Ella: It's MY birthday.

Tucker: I didn't get you a present.

Ella: You've never once given me a birthday present.

Tucker: Not true.

Ella: That your mom didn't buy.

Tucker: Not true.

Ella: Liar.

I notice the blankness above our text exchange. I wonder what the last message I sent to him seven years ago would have been.

Probably, Why are you avoiding me?

In and out of the hospital, half-drugged on pain medication, I had zero pride when it came to bombarding his phone with needy messages.

An announcement is made about my boarding group, and I stand. Noticing Tucker's absence in my periphery, I search for him, finding him suddenly right beside me.

He looks down, casting his eyes over my hair, body and face, and swallows. "Hey, Beautiful. How are you?"

My eyes straight ahead.

I hate him. That's the only thought I want to entertain. He's a horrible, selfish person and you don't care about this bubbly, dizzying feeling you're suppressing right now. You don't care about the deep, smooth sound of his voice when he says:

"Your hair looks nice."

"Shut up," I mutter.

"You've got a little bit of gray in the back."

I gasp, "I do not!"

He nods. "Right here." He tugs at a strand of hair.

I reach back and smack his hand. "Stop touching me!"

I stare at the amusement in his eyes and my chest heaves. It's weird, this energy between us. We've done… questionable things together in our past that have put us in a weird energy, but this feels different.

I've hated him before, but not after a period of not hating him. I know the best of him now. I know what it feels like to crave his presence. That's what makes it hurt so much, now seeing the shitty human being he turned out to be.

He repeats, "How are you?"

"You already asked me that." I follow the crowd to check in, and Tucker falls in place by my side. "Stop following me."

"I'm not following you, we're going in the same direction."

"You can walk behind me."

"Well, that would look like we're not together."

"We're not together."

"No, I guess not." He raises his voice. "Not since you abandoned our family."

"Stop," I growl.

He asks, "You're not feeling too panicky about seeing me, are you? You're not going to do that thing where you strip off all your clothes, right? Because we're in public and I don't know what would happen if you got naked in an airport. That seems like a bigger violation than smuggling in eight ounces of lube."

The man in front of me does not appreciate the insistence of my closeness. I smile at his frown and tell Tucker, "I don't care about seeing you. As far as I'm concerned, you're invisible."

"You look the same. You haven't changed at all."

"It's been seven years, Tucker. That's a long time, but not long enough to need a face transplant."

He pokes my cheek. "Is this where you get your Botox?"

"Don't touch me!"

We reach the counter, and he smiles that charming, handsome smile that won him Homecoming King. He holds out his phone to be scanned.

The woman on the receiving end smiles back. She scans my ticket and tells us to have a nice day.

He wraps my arm around me. "We will. She's finally coming home to the children."

I grit, "Get away from me."

As I storm off into the tunnel, he tells a stranger, "I just don't want them to grow up without knowing their mother." His voice gets louder. "You'll never forgive yourself if you leave, honey. You're a farm girl, you can't take care of yourself in the big city!"

" Shut up ."

"Those dreams are not bigger than us, Baby! We can make it work, please ." He comes behind me and grapples for my hand. I ram my bag into his leg, and he laughs, letting me go. " Ow . Jesus, what do you have in there?"

"I would make a weapon joke, but I don't think it would be well-received in an airport," I snap. We're drawing some curious looks. "Why don't you have anything?"

He pats the front of his jeans. "Shit, I left my fanny pack in the car…" He throws his hands up and rolls his eyes. "I checked my bag."

"What if they lose your luggage? Don't you know anything about precautions?"

"Well, if my bag gets lost, then I will run around the streets of Florida butt naked like God intended. I prefer not to have tan-lines, anyway." Tucker gestures to my carry-on. "What do you have in there? Adult diapers?"

"I wish I had asshole spray so I could erase you from my sight."

"I bet you've got some hemorrhoid cream, at least. I know how constipated you get."

We approach the plane, and I reach out to touch it before crossing the threshold inside. Tucker laughs to himself.

He says, "Some things never change."

"It's a ritual. Rituals are not supposed to change," I argue, heading back to my seat.

"It's a superstition."

I tilt my head back. "You know, what? I just had a nice thought: if the plane does go down, at least it takes you down, too! Bittersweet. Rain, then rainbows, right?"

"You're a sick freak."

We reach our seats and I try to hoist my bag over my head, toppling back a little from the effort. Tucker snatches it from me, barking, "Good God, Ella - sit down." He shoves it into a compartment and settles into the seat beside me.

I'm pressed up against the window, and he lifts the armrest between us.

"I would like some separation," I say, pulling it back down.

"And I would like to keep blood circulating through my leg." He lifts it again.

"That's your own fault for being so damn tall."

He sets his hand on mine before I can move it. "Ella, I swear to God."

The warmth of his skin seeps into mine and the pressure of it, and his eye contact, forces to me blurt out, " Why are you here?"

It comes out just as I want: begging, pleading. Why would he suddenly try to reenter my life to ruin my thirtieth birthday?

Tucker's face softens, but he keeps his hand in place. He says gently, "I wanted to be with my friends."

"Won't I ruin it for you?"

"Seeing you is an added bonus. Like when you find a fingernail in your soup."

"That's disgusting." I move my hand. "And I'm not stupid, Tucker. I know you hang out with them."

He relaxes beside me. His leg stretches long into my space. I've had twenty-nine years of him taking up more room than he's allowed. "Well, maybe I wanted to see you too."

" Me, me, me ," I mock. "Everything's always about you. Did you ever think that I don't want to see you?"

"I've listened to a lifetime of you saying one thing and meaning something else." He sniffles. "I don't think you know what you want."

"Excuse me?"

He looks at me sideways. "If you don't want to be friends, that's fine. Then we can at least be old acquaintances who can be in the same room for the sake of our family and friends."

"Old acquaintances?" I repeat.

I think he stole that phrase from me at one point in our friendship.

His eyes dart between mine.

I close my eyes and replay the early days in the hospital, after the accident, when my friends came to see me. I stared at the door with tears in my eyes. I begged for Tucker, actually begged. Did anyone tell him that? I wanted him to walk through that door more than I wanted to see any other person.

Lori would wince, "He's really busy, baby," and his step-brother Jake told me, "You know, Tuck, he's not sure what your relationship is. I thought you guys weren't even friends."

I knew that was bullshit. No matter what Tucker and I told the world, he should have shown up.

I open my eyes and finally ask, "Did Johnny tell you to back off?"

"From…"

I swallow. "Me?"

Tucker's jaw clenches. He runs his hand through his hair and the strands fall perfectly back into place. "No. I just –"

"You just what?" I demand. "You just stopped answering text messages that include me and stopped going on group trips with your friends from college?" I ping of remorse hits me. "I mean, I'm the outsider. You should get to hang out with them all you want. I'm the one who went to a different school. These are your friends."

He rests his head back and gives me a look. "Come on. The only reason Johnny and I are even friends is because of you ." He rights himself. "In fact, if everything changed, you and I might be the only two in the group still friends."

"We are not friends," I stamp.

He pauses. "You know what I mean."

I do. Kind of.

If I didn't live beside Johnny, then he and I might not be friends. He and Tucker might not be friends. They might not have gone to Clemson together. I wouldn't know Serena, Callie, Wyatt or Ritchie. Our mothers claim to be soulmates. Whether we liked it or not, Tucker and I would always be acquainted.

I stare out the window at the preparations made on the tarmac. A woman sits next to Tucker, and he slides closer to me, squished in the middle seat. In my ear, he asks, "Can we switch seats?"

"No."

"Please?"

"You'll have the same amount of room in this seat," I point out.

His hand lands on my thigh. "I'm trying not to make the stranger on the other side of me uncomfortable."

I brush his hand away and lean over his body. I ask the middle-aged woman beside Tucker, "I'm sorry, is this man bothering you?"

She shakes her head fervently, and he gives her a pacifying smile.

" See ." I clip my seat belt as the flight attendant walks past to make sure we are buckled in.

Tucker and I are glued together at the sides, his hand landing again on my leg. When I push him away again, he argues, "I don't have room for my hands."

"That's not an excuse to grope me. If you would put the armrest down, you'd have a place for your King Kong hands."

" This is not a grope." He grips the sides of my leg above my kneecap and squeezes. My leg flies involuntarily into the seat in front of me.

He laughs, and I chide, "Grow up."

Tucker relaxes into his seat. That mouth – that mouth – closes, lips settling with ease, and his round eyes casually view the last few passengers straggling in. A flight attendant smiles at him. That mouth returns a gut-wrenching smile in her direction.

How can he relax? He might as well be in a smoky bar, waiting for women to flock to him, watching a baseball game and shooting the shit with his friends. I'm just that girl sitting beside him. Again . The one he promised his mom he'd always be nice to.

How can he just pretend like we're the same as we were – antagonistic, playful, touchy – and not feel strange about so much time apart?

We didn't end things on a happy note. Just before my accident, we ended from our siblings' wedding celebration with an uncomfortable hotel breakfast where I didn't look at or talk to him, and he didn't try to apologize or explain.

Tucker always explained.

He always apologized.

I never thought he would take that last encounter as a final ending to our…entanglement. Although we weren't friends, we were something , and I wanted him in that hospital with me. I needed him.

I force myself to look out of the window.

"So. How's dance?" he asks. His voice hits my right ear and prickles the skin. "Are you still in Atlanta?"

I inhale and exhale through my nose, wishing he could see smoke drifting from my nostrils and take that as a warning sign.

"Come on, Ell," he says, low and soft.

He's always physically closer to me than he should be. I forgot what it felt like to have his fingers on my skin and now his hand is touching my wrist. So familiar. Through the layers of hardened skin, my eleven-year-old self feels this touch, just like when he angrily dragged me around the Pine Place Barbeque Festival because our parents told him to keep an eye on me.

He continues, "At least talk to me. It's going to be a long fucking plane ride if we sit in silence."

Too bad for him, that's what I plan on doing.

"Tell me about your life. What do you like about Atlanta?" He waits.

I intend to keep him waiting. Maybe for the end of all time.

"What kind of stuff do you do on your free time?" he questions. Then: "You still got that rash behind your knees? How's your bunion journey? Can your bowels handle dairy again?"

"It's not a rash!" I snarl. "It's psoriasis. And I do not have bunions. And -"

" Gotcha ."

I listen to him sinking deeper into his seat.

"Was that so hard?" A laugh shoots from his nose. "You were going to tell me about your IBS, weren't you?"

" No ."

"You can keep yelling at me if that makes you comfortable."

"Yelling at you feels more comfortable than breathing. But not speaking to you feels as natural as existing."

I avoid his gaze, staring out of the window, and pick at the fabric of my jeans. It lifts and falls. In college, I wore a rubber band and snapped it when I felt anxiety ripple through my uncontrollable thoughts. Right now, my fingertips pull and release, but it does little to calm my mind, especially when he brushes a lock of my hair back behind my shoulder as says:

"We could learn to be cordial with each other."

Forehead glued to the glass, I mutter into my palm, "Why are your hands so rough?"

"Because I work in construction. I handle lumber and power tools and scoop up dead mice."

The hand on my shoulder doesn't drop as suddenly as I would like. It does what it always did – drops, slowly, along the length of my arm.

He's trying to bait me. He wants me to fight against his touch.

I should fight against his touch.

"Do you still live in Savannah?" I shoot, closing my eyes.

"Yes."

"Are you married?" I pry.

"No." His body and my body are officially separate now.

"Do you have any illegitimate children?"

He pauses. "…are you trying to tell me something?"

I spin my head, finding him an inch from my nose. I allow myself one second of soaking in his image and feeling it bloom in my heart. One second to be happy that he's this close before the happiness cracks into devastation.

I had to ask him if he was married and had children. I had to ask him that, a man I knew intimately for almost twenty-three years.

I spit, "I'm just being cordial ."

"Oh." He smiles, eyes casting over my face. Lowly, "Do I get to ask my questions now?"

"No." I turn back to the window. "Unless your question is: Ella, how did you possibly become so much more lovely and charming in the last seven years? Because you'd have to ask God about that, I don't know all the mysteries of the Universe."

"I told you, Beautiful, you look the same."

"Don't call me that."

"Am I supposed to not call the sky cloudy or this plane delayed?" After that, his voice comes out more distantly, he's scooted away from me, to mutter, "It's a fucking fact, Ella. I'm just stating facts."

Facts. Like how painful these next few days are going to be if he keeps acting as though everything is normal and fine and just as it was when we were teenagers.

At that moment, the plane begins to reverse, and I flinch, watching the outside environment shift. My stomach rolls. I exhale, breathing through the nervousness, and lay my head back on the seat. "Please don't talk to me anymore."

"Excuse me," he directs a flight attendant. "Do you have extra puke bags? My friend here is going to need it."

"I'm fine," I insist.

He says, "I know you, Ella, I know you're not fine. I don't want to start my birthday weekend covered in your vomit."

I feel the plane continue taxing down to the runway, but I'm focused on the blank screen in front of me. "You should have brought a carry-on bag then."

My arm moves when Tucker chuckles, rattling my seat. The plane has stopped. The sound of the engines picks up, and my heart thumps, hitting against my chest. I press my back into the seat, sewing my eyes shut as we begin to take off.

Warmth once more covers my thigh. Tucker flattens his hand and presses into my muscle. Out of instinct, I turn my face into his shoulder when the wheels lift off the runway and my right hand grips his wrist.

Tucker's steadiness always knew how to balance out my tears and fears and panicky disposition.

" Breathe , Beautiful," he whispers into my ear.