Page 156 of Only After We Met

I ran my hand through my hair and took a breath. “Remember where I used to live? On the same road as you, which leads out of town. House number fourteen. I was renting there. Well, I left something. I mean, after I left, a package arrived, and I never got it.”

“You’re kidding, right? You want me to go look for it?”

“I’d like you to go to that house, ring the doorbell, and if anyone’s living there, ask them about it, in case whoever came after me got it…”

Silence. A pause. He was thinking, I supposed. “What’s in the package?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“It was a birthday present.”

“Why’s it so important after all these years?”

“Axel, shit…” I was losing my patience. “It was a birthday gift, okay? From a girl. Someone special. When I met you to talk about the cover, you told me something. You said…we all have an anchor, maybe a person, maybe a place, maybe something else. Well, she’s my anchor.”

Axel sighed and dug his finger into the wound. “You can’t askthe girl who gave it to you?”

“I didn’t understand until it was too late.”

“I’ll go look for it. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days.”

He hung up. I stood there a few seconds longer clutching the phone to my ear, the sun soaking that empty living room, and I felt paralyzed when I saw my mom had called while I was talking, and I wasn’t sure I could call back. I took a deep breath. Tried to calm down. I really did.

I turned on the stereo and heard “Without You.” I lay on the wooden floor, feeling my chest rising and falling with every breath. After that came “Levels,” and then “Something Like This.” Every song took me away from the noise, from myself.

95

Ginger

I dropped the manuscript I was reading on the nightstand and took off the glasses I had started using a few months ago, especially toward the end of the day. For a few seconds, the silence in the room closed in on me. Then, for no reason, as I’d done many times before, I looked at my laptop in its case, resting against the feet of the nightstand. It would be so easy to reach out, open it, set it on my knees as I had for years, open the folder I’d forwarded all his messages to… I curled up and lay down. Sighed. Resisted temptation. I couldn’t go back. Not now, with everything hanging by a thread and me having no idea where my life was going. Not when I knew that he was still walking a straight line in the opposite direction, putting more and more distance between us. I had seen him. He was unavoidable. All I had to do was search for his name and look at all the results, photos of him at festivals, songs…

And yet still I fantasized that there was something left of that guy named Rhys who I had met one winter night in Paris and danced with by the Seine before eating cup noodles in his attic.

But that’s all it was: a fantasy.

96

Rhys

The new owners got the package while they were moving in. They didn’t know anyone named Ginger Davies, but they unwrapped it anyway, cut the ribbons, tore the tape, opened the box. After looking at the gift with a shrug, they gave it to their little daughter, but she was grown up now and wouldn’t miss it.

When I got the parcel from Axel, I waited a while before opening it. My head hurt. The day before, I found myself standing between two cars and vomiting, right there in the street, with Alec laughing beside me. We were both high on the same shit. A few hours later, I still hadn’t slept, my whole body ached, and I couldn’t get the bitter taste of cocaine off my tongue.

I hated opening the thing when I felt so out of it, but I did.

It was another book.Peter Pan.Illustrated, the edges of the pages gold, hardcover. I could feel the ink of the letters when I ran my hand over the cover. I did this a few times, then opened it, and froze when I recognized her handwriting.

For the boy who doesn’t need wings to fly to the moon.

I slammed it shut and poured myself a drink.

97

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies