The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara
Twenty-Three
June 3
It’s Monday afternoon when I finally land in San Francisco. The moment I turn on my phone I see I have two missed calls from David and two voicemails. I delete them without listening. If I don’t talk to him, he’ll get over it faster. Besides, this is too fresh for me to be strong about it. I worry about how I will react if I answer.
I get my suitcases onto a luggage cart and make my way to the front of the Arrivals building. It’s all so familiar. The last time I was here, things took an unexpected turn. And now, here I am again, things reversed. My life already took an unexpected turn.
There are so many rideshare cars in front of the airport and I can’t help but think back. And wonder. What if? Although I know that would be too much of a coincidence. I’m tempted to request a Lift to take me to Carmel, but when I open the app and see how much that costs, I change my mind. There’s a 0.01 percent chance he would be my driver, and I can’t spend money I don’t have on those odds. I’ve taken enough risks in twenty-four hours and spent a few hundred dollars of my limited funds—limited is a mild statement. I need to budget wisely for a place to stay while I’m here, eat and still have enough for the return ticket to New York.
I decide in favor of the bus. The same bus I took a year ago.
The three-hour drive to Carmel feels so incredibly long this time. I’m looking out the window, remembering last year and realizing how different it all is. I feel alone now. Not for a minute did I feel alone back then. Because he was there, somewhere, texting me every few minutes, seconds sometimes, making me smile, revealing himself to me slowly.
The timing of me being here so close to my birthday feels surreal. Maybe some things do happen on their own timeline and follow their own rules I don’t particularly understand.
I get my notebook out, open it and then close it again. Outside of work assignments and my manuscript, I haven’t been able to write anything this past year. Every time I saw someone and thought they could be a character in one of my stories, my next thought was, ‘but it will never work out, so what’s the point?’
For three-quarters of the way to my destination, I feel somewhat calm, but as it gets darker and Carmel is approaching, I’m starting to feel again those nerves I first felt when Alisa called me. That mix of disbelief and worry. He’s my ‘one that got away’. He truly is. And being back here, so close to him, about to meet him—hopefully—feels like breaking one of those unwritten rules that says you leave the ones that got away alone. They got away for a reason. It also goes against what I’ve always believed in, which is ‘what is meant to happen will happen no matter what you do’. Well, if I don’t stop in Carmel now and go looking for him, it won’t happen. I can’t believe I feel so torn, and I hesitate again. Where’s that confidence I felt on the plane? Where’s brave Maya? I’m a bundle of worries, nerves and what-ifs.
“Next stop, Carmel by the Sea,” announces the driver.
After going back and forth on my decision a few times, I know what I want to do.
“Anyone for Carmel?”
He looks in the mirror at all of us. There’s not that many people left—maybe six or so.
I raise my hand.