Day 7 - 477 Words

My plane left the Friday before Spring Break. Just like Elaine had done, I flew into Charles de Gaulle International Airport direct from Tallahassee Regional. Again, because of security measures, Elaine couldn’t meet me at my gate. She had to wait for me to deal with my baggage and go through customs and such. When I was finally through with all the hoopla an international flight requires, I started looking for her.

“Miles!” I heard her shout. My eyes scanned the crowd. Where was she? “Miles, over here!” And then I saw her. She had lost weight, a thing I would have told you was impossible before she left, she was so slender. More than that, though, she had cut her hair. What had been a waist-length cascade of dirty blonde hair was now a bob that just brushed her chin. I was shocked. I hadn’t seen her in almost four months. Now she stood before me, completely changed. I didn’t care. She was still Elaine and more than anything else I wanted to take her straight to the fancy hotel I had booked and not come out for the rest of the week. I knew that was entirely impractical, though, so instead I ran over to her and hugged her. When I tried to kiss her she pulled away a little and just kissed me on the cheek.

“You look... Amazing,” I told her.

“Thank you. It’s good to see you,” she said. That’s oddly formal, I thought. She won’t kiss me and now she talks like we don’t know each other. What is going on? I decided she was just being strange because we were in public. Once I got her back to the hotel, she would be as affectionate as ever. After all, it was bound to be awkward, seeing me after four months apart. Still, an inner voice nagged, shouldn’t she be as happy to see you as you are to see her? The voice sounded like Cassandra. “You probably want to shower after that flight, don’t you?” Elaine asked.

“Yes, a shower sounds very good,” I said, hoping she would catch my suggestive tone.

“Well, let’s get you to the hotel. You can get cleaned up and then we can start your whirlwind tour.”

She hadn’t seemed to pick up on it at all. “Great,” I agreed. This reunion was not at all going how I had imagined it would. In my imagination, I got off the plane and Elaine flung herself into my arms. She covered me with kisses, so much so that I had to pull her off of me just to be able to walk. I carried her across the threshold of the hotel suite I’d reserved, and we spent a week sitting in a whirlpool jacuzzi and eating breakfast in bed.

Definitely not how things were actually going.