Bash & Hazel

Hazel- 2014

It's a Wednesday and for the first time in my life I am dreading the weekend. I'm dreading Saturday more specifically because Saturday is my birthday.

I'm sitting in one of our marketing team meetings and Carly keeps checking her phone which is distracting and so unlike her. Even more odd is the fact that I'm the only one bothered by it.

Finally I nudge her elbow and hiss, "stop? Okay? I can see you fidgeting with your phone out of the corner of my eye and it's distracting."

"can't stop, won't stop," she whispers back

What the hell is going on? What kind of an answer is that?

I'm about to attempt to find out what she means when the receptionist, Ann, pops her head in the door and says, "Hazel? You're needed at the front," and turns and walks away before I can ask why she's acting so unprofessional in our meeting.

I look at Carly and she shrugs, not looking at me and instead studying her phone with an odd amount of intensity.

Fine, be that way.

I walk to the front and I'm so distracted by the fact that Carly was so rude and so vague it takes me a full minute to register what's in front of me.

Bash.

Leaning against the reception desk, with two suitcases at his feet.

I shake my head, wondering if this is a dream and when he and the luggage are still in front of my eyes I somehow manage to ask, "what's going on?"

He's smiling and clearly proud of himself. I turn around and Carly is behind me, smiling like the cat who caught the canary and now I somewhat understand why she was acting so weird.

Bash extends his hand for me to take and says, "let's go, we're going to be late."

"Late? Late for what?" I croak. I hate surprises, they make me nervous and sweaty.

Bash knows this and is enjoying the fact that I'm thoroughly squirming.

"You'll see," he says with a wink.

Carly taps me on the shoulder and hands me my purse.

"Have fun," she says with a huge smile on her face.

"But, but what about our plans?" Truth be told I wasn't that excited at the idea of spending Saturday night at Carly's, complete with take out, wine, face masks and enough sugar to put me into a coma. But it was what she suggested.

"Oh," she says waving her hand in front of her face, "we were never going to do that, that was just to make you think I hadn't forgotten about your birthday. You're going to have way more fun with Ryley." And with that she gives me a hug and says, "happy birthday, we'll celebrate for real next week. Get ready to get dressed up and go dancing," she says this sternly as if she's scolding me and my punishment is a night out with my best friend. Well, one of my best friends.

I hug her tightly back and all I can say is, "I love you,"

"Me too, now get out of here, you don't want to miss it."

"Miss what?"

"If we miss it, you'll never find out, come on, let's go." Bash mock-exasperatedly says

At this we're running towards the elevator bank, each dragging a suitcase behind us, hoping to make the elevator which is just about to close. We make it, and we tumble into the elevator breathless, me internally begging the car to go faster. We both ready ourselves for the doors to open and the minute they do, we're off, bounding across the lobby like a couple of toddlers who are racing towards the park. We throw our suitcases in the back of a car Bash already has waiting and he says, "go, go, go!" as if we're part of a getaway scene in a movie and our driver looks back at us and gives us a, "are you serious?" look of bored exasperation before slowly turning around to drive us wherever it is we're going.

Bash and I fall to pieces and this is the most I've laughed in a month. The remembrance of Declan haunts me like a ghost I can't get rid of and I immediately fall silent. Bash notices my change in demeanor, but he doesn't say anything.

We ride in silence until I start seeing the familiar signs for the airport.

It's not that big of a leap based on the suitcases. Both Bash and Carly have keys to my place, they could have easily gotten in and packed this morning after I left for work. We still could have been driving somewhere close, so clearly, we're going somewhere far. Far away from here. Which, even though I don't know where we're going sounds already sounds like the perfect present. Absolutely zero chance of running into Declan, nothing to remind me of Declan, and definitely not sitting around the apartment thinking about my three years with Declan.

We get our tickets, Bash hides the destination from me, but I'll find out where we're going soon enough, this is already the best surprise and I find that instead of being nervous about the reveal, I want to savor it instead. We go through security and then we walk to our gate. Before I can read the sign Bash stops me, turns my back away from the sign and says, "remember when we talked about the one place we both really wanted to go?"

The wheels of my long-term memory start turning. Bash and I have had so many conversations this one takes me a minute to locate. But I do. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon during the first weeks of our friendship. It was Fall. We were laying on a blanket in the park, we both brought books but were no longer reading them, because we were laying on our backs and trying to find shapes in the clouds. Delighting in the process of getting to know each other, discovering how the other person thought, giving each other tidbits of what made us who we are.

A cloud passed by overhead that looked like a palm tree, so we started talking about vacations. I said my dream was to stay in one of those over the water bungalows in Bora Bora. Bash said his dream vacation was the Costa Del Sol in Spain, with a daytrip to Morocco.

"We're going to Tahiti?!" I yell loudly, so much so that people stop talking and stare at me.

Bash laughs before saying, "ha! No, sorry, I couldn't spring for that type of trip, but it's somewhere similar and also beautiful and coincidentally also starts with a T..." he turns me around and my eyes zero in on the name of the destination on the board.

Turks and Caicos. He's taking me to Turks and Caicos.