Statistically

Chapter Three

So here I am.  On a plane.  Flying blind into my worst nightmare.  I've got an hour until I land in LA and nothing but my thoughts and about ten years of guilt to keep me company.  I tell myself over and over again how stupid I have been.  That I should've done this a long time ago.  It makes me feel worse but I deserve it.

Lee didn't give me any details but he didn't need to.  The tone in his voice told me that this was a true put the bullshit behind us, come to Jesus, type of situation.  I'm trying not to think about what that might mean.

I'm trying not to think about her.

I know people don't understand.  Why I've had such a hard time getting over it, why I never got over it.  But they've never felt the way I feel, just being near her.  I could live to be a hundred and just standing in the general vicinity of Elle Evans could make my heart skip a beat.  She's Elle Flynn now, though, and don't think I haven't chuckled to myself at the cruel irony of that a time or two.  I knew someday she would have my last name, guess I was right about that, at least.

Believe it or not, I have gotten over it - in all of the big ways.  I don't want to punch a wall any time the thought of Elle and Lee cross my mind.  I don't fantasize about stepping off of this plane and winning her back.  I have accepted everything about the situation that I can accept.  I know I can't change anything and at this point I don't want to.

The only thing I can't get over is the way I still feel. 

At first, I didn't really recognize it for what it was.  It came on slow and before I knew what was happening, I was already in too deep.  One day I just realized that not only did Elle's laugh not annoy me, I kind of loved it.  That I really didn't mind when she and Lee hogged the TV in the living room, because it meant I could watch the expressions on her face as I complained about wanting to watch ESPN from the recliner.  All of a sudden I wanted to stretch out the random moments when she and I would find ourselves alone in the kitchen, or passing each other on the staircase.  All of a sudden, I was thinking up reasons to stay at home instead of going out, just incase she came by.  It was like being around her somehow turned up the focus for everything else in the world.  Made everything more intense.  I liked the way it made me feel, more alive.  Like everything that mattered, mattered more just because she existed.  Like gravity had shifted and it was pulling me towards her.

No one else has ever made me feel that way.  For a while, I tried to find it in someone else.  Eventually, I realized it wasn't there to find.  I don't know how I feel about soul mates, I don't know if I believe there is only one person out there for every person.  I just know that I could never go through the motions with someone else, not now that I know what I am capable of feeling.

Today is Saturday.  I could've gotten an earlier flight but I had to work out my possible prolonged absence with my job.  Which wasn't easy, considering Lee provided zero details when he called.  Other than a few texts about my flight, we haven't talked again.  It has been radio silence from my parents as well, which means they don't know I am coming.  Lee said they were okay but part of me wonders if he told me that because he wants to break the news to me in person.

I've toyed around with a few ideas.  An illness with my parents still tops the list.  Maybe Elle and Lee are having a baby.  Or maybe they're having marital problems.  Nothing seems to fit except my parents to be honest, because what else could be so bad that he would call me to come home, after all this time.

Again, I wish I hadn't answered his call. 

I wish I hadn't gotten on this plane. 

I wish that I could be the brother he still apparently thinks I am.

*

The lights of the city glow in the darkness, like a red and yellow mess of glitter in a black sea, as my plane begins its slow decent.  Up here, they almost look beautiful.  Up here, it is hard to believe that anything so borderline breathtaking could be such a chaotic mess up close.

I lean my forehead against the window and try to relax.  Try to enjoy these last few moments where my anxiety is still relatively easy to contain.  We swirl lower and lower and I feel myself sinking.  Down, down, into my fears.  Down, down, so much closer to the reality that I have tried to keep myself aloft from.

In a few minutes there will no ignoring that I have spent the best part of the last ten years living my life as if I were an orphan.  That I separated myself from all of the people that loved me, just because I couldn't face the one I loved most of all.

It is easy to see now, just how wrong I have been.  The years have gotten away from me and life has moved a lot faster than I thought it would when I was an angry twenty-something kid with a chip the size of Alaska on his shoulder.  Life has moved on at full speed and left me behind.

Before I know it, we have landed.  Before I am ready, I feel myself standing up.  Before I am ready, I am walking down the terminal.  Before I am ready, I am looking through the crowd of people waiting at the arrival gate.

When I see him, it really hits me just how long it has been.  His hair is shorter than it has been since we were little kids.  There are lines on his face in places I don't remember.  If I didn't know from the sign he was holding, I might walk right past him and not recognize him.

Our eyes meet and he doesn't smile at first, neither do I.  Then he holds up his sign and for a second it is like no time has passed at all.  We are still kids, suspended in the sometimes awful but blissfully naive land of high-school.  The years roll backwards and it's like I haven't been gone that long at all.

My asshole brother.

We stand and stare at each other for a minute and he is the first to crack a smile.  For a second I am alarmed to see tears in the corner of his eyes, but only for a second because mine are welling up, too.

Then we are hugging, laughing to cover our emotion.  Patting each other on the back a little too hard, anything to extend this moment a little longer to prevent the inevitable.  Whatever monster it is that he is hiding away.

We pull away from each other and he looks at me, no doubt sizing me up as I am him.

He shakes his head, reaching up to pull at my hair.  "Is that gray, I see?"

I beat his hand away and run my fingers through my hair to fix it.  "What can I say, we got old man."

And what was meant to be a light hearted jab at our age instead only underlines just how long I haven't been a tangible part of his life.  Our chuckles die off and there is nothing between us and the reality of the situation.

He nods his head and clears his throat and his eyes look misty again.  I wish there was a way to explain that I never meant to leave him.  That it was never him I was running from.

"I'm sorry, Lee."

He looks me in the eyes and for the first time I can see it.  The weight of whatever it is he has yet to tell me. 

He stares at me for a long second and then reaches out to grab one of my suitcases.  "I know."

So we walk out of LAX, in a not quite awkward silence.  I expect him to fill it by telling me about what he has been up to for the past ten years, but he doesn't.  I guess I will be finding out soon, anyway.