The sun was setting on my final day in Japan. I was sitting in the airport, trying to think of something to look forward to. Honestly, I had planned to leave to study abroad and never come back. But I never came up with a way to follow through with that, and I was already in the airport.
I would need a friend when I got home. It would be winter break, and no one would be around other than Kelsie. I moved when I was in high school and didn’t really form a lasting friendship with anyone in the new town except for her.
The first night she had available was scheduled to be last night on Earth. Early the next morning, the Mayan Long Count calendar would complete its cycle, and people were concerned that the world would end in one way or another. Naturally, we decided to go see The Hobbit in theaters.
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When the time came, I had actually already been dragged to see it once, but it was after I got way too high with some of my old friends and I slept through pretty much the whole movie. I waited until we were on the way there to tell her that, though.
We were in her car and it was icy out. She told me that she had been planning on going ice skating, but she broke those plans because I had just got back from Japan and she saw those other people all the time.
She always drove when we hung out. I never liked driving, and she always liked driving. She told me about a dream she had about driving. She was on a highway, a one-way, late at night, and unsure of which way she was supposed to be going. It sounded more like a nightmare to me.
We joked around during the previews, and pretty much remained quiet through the movie. For 182 minutes, I sat, considering if I should go for her hand. She never postured herself in a way that seemed to invite it. I felt like this every time we hung out, both willing to see where things could go, but deeply afraid of where things could go.
The movie finished. We stayed through the end of the credits. I didn’t want our world to end. There had been almost no one in the theater, and we stepped outside into what appeared to be a deserted, frozen wasteland. We started talking about other movies and decided we’d go back to her mom’s place to watch Hanna.
I always liked her mom. She just seemed so authentic. She advised that we help ourselves to some beer and retired to her room shortly after we arrived. In the cold, we were soon next to each other, under a blanket. I struggled to pay attention to the movie; I was much more interested in the placement of her hands.
She dropped me off at my mom’s place after the movie. The world was supposed to end in about an hour. We hugged in her car and our ears aligned like a kiss. I had to go back in for another one, and for a moment I thought I should just kiss her mouth with my mouth. Instead, I said goodbye and stepped out of the car.
I went inside and stretched out in bed. I decided I would tell her how I felt or make a move the next time we hung out, for better or for worse. I drifted off the sleep peacefully.
Our free time did not align again for the rest of my time home from college. School wasn’t too far away, but I wouldn’t see her through the spring, either. And then late one summer night, she was on the highway, a one-way, unsure of which way to go.
One world did end that night in December 2012, I just didn’t know it at the time.
These days, I’m just tellin’ stories.