Page 8 of Tomorrow Belongs to Us
I stare at him quietly. He clears his throat “You live around here as well?” He glances around the street.
“Yes.”
He’s quiet and seems to be waiting for me to say more, but I don’t. He doesn’t need to know my life story. He doesn’t need to be a part of my life.
“I moved here seven months ago,” he tells me.
From Nebraska? I’m tempted to ask, my mind buzzes with questions but I stop myself from asking them because I don't want him to know that I need answers. That for the longest time I wondered what had happened to him. It wouldn’t be cool to acknowledge that I'm pissed off with him, or let him know that I cared. Whatever it was that took place between us a long time ago, it’s in my past and my past is something I want to forget.
“Do you work? What do you do?” His gaze, soft and sweet like runny honey, trickles over me in my business clothes. I feel warm and fuzzy all over. “Of course you work.” A shiver rolls over me and I'm surprised by my reaction to him. All these years later, it suddenly seems normal, him walking into my life as if he's always been here. In a way he has. I carried him in my heart for those first few tough years, but then I learned to forget him. I lost myself in other men, and life, and trying to forge a future so that I didn't have to depend on a man like my mother had, or run the risk of falling apart like she did when he left her.
“I'm a management consultant.”
Another grin from him. “I'm not surprised. You ended up with a career crunching numbers.”
“I did. I work for Roseby and Flock.”
“Wow. You did very well.” He looks impressed. It’s a line that often impresses. They’re a big management consultancy firm, and I’ve worked my way up the career ladder. I’m proud of myself, but now I’m feeling deflated, because being defined by my place of work is a pitiful thing. I am a pitiful thing. Seeing Lance reminds me of who I used to be and what I’ve become. Somewhere in the middle my dreams disintegrated and I became jaded.
I swipe a hand across my neck. “I don’t know why I said that. It sounds … big headed—”
“It doesn’t—” He cuts me off.
“It’s pathetic.”
He looks at me quietly, as if he’s examining everything about me. It’s a look I know well. It’s how he was able to see right into me, and why I couldn’t hide so well from him in school.
We stand in awkward silence for a few more seconds. And then he says, “I never expected to see you again. I always hoped I would, but I wasn’t so sure I would.”
“Really?” He’s never called or emailed or written to me, and now he tells me that he hoped we'd meet again one day. I’m not going to fall for that again. I strengthen my arms around my grocery bag. “It's been good to see you but I should go.”
“Already?” He sounds disappointed.
“I'm in a rush.”
“Stay another few minutes, please Megan.” He almost reaches out to take my arm but moves his hand away before he touches me.
Stay a minute for what?
“Are you still mad at me?” he asks as if this has slowly dawned on him.
“Mad?” I’ve been busted. I force a smile trying hard not to make it so obvious, but I suck at hiding my emotions. “I’m not mad.” I try to casually brush off the remark.
“Not that I blame you. You have every right to be mad.”
“A note would have been nice,” I say, with ice in my voice. “A simple note to let me know that you were leaving.” He clears his throat, and I wonder if he's masking his guilt. “I understand your anger,” he replies, guardedly. “But I'm happy that we've met now and hopefully I can explain.”
It’s too late for explanations. Tell that to the teen who wondered where the heck he’d gone.
I have questions for him. I want to know how and why he became a professor, but questions would lead to more questions. Through he seems eager to explain the past, that sliver of time is a place I don’t want to dwell in. “It’s not important now.”
He clears his throat. Masking the guilt? “I’m really happy that we met again, Megan.”
“Are you still teaching math?” I ask, even though I know.
“Applied mathematics and dynamical systems, neural and behavioural modelling, neuromorphic technology … that’s what I teach now.”
He lost me at applied mathematics. This man has the face of a movie star, the eyes of a sinner and the body of an athlete and add to that, he has brains. Some people have all the luck, as Arla would say.
