The Reunion (Part 1)

chapter 28

- "more than most of us"

- "you... You could have said hello to me"

- "I wasn't ready to feel my heart break again"

- "so, we, we've been living in the same city for several weeks?"

- "yes"

- "and does anyone know?"

- "Taryn but you haven't kept in touch... And I work with Jo and Amelia, well in the same company. But you don't talk to them either... I mean, I think. And Taryn, and Andrea, work with us too."

- "and... And you, you have, you have someone?"

- "my last, 'someone' was Charles. Since Charlie came into my life, I dedicated five years of my life to him... And then, after he was gone I, I just, ceased... Ceased to exist. I'm working, waiting to get back to him."

- "and now?"

- "you... Aren't you with that girl?"

- "no, that was..."

-"like before..."

- "like before you... You, you didn't recognize her?"

- "who was that girl? Should I have?"

- "Tacoma..."

- "ha... She finally got what she wanted" Carina said as she shifted on the seat of the diner.

- "all this to say, no, I'm... Alone."

There had been a slight gap between them.

- "Will you be my friend, Maya?"

- "your friend?"

- "yes, I need, I need, a friend"

- "of course Carina, I will be the person you need me to be".

The brunette had wiped her eyes again and picked up her phone again.

- "so that was in Italy, Charles had come, it was our first and last vacation... In... Family.

He, he really had a beautiful smile... He didn't remember that time when he was older but, but I really knew moments of happiness when he was very small. When I showed him the picture of you and he said he'd never seen me smile like that, it was... It's just that he didn't remember, but I was happy, after he was born, there was a void in me, there was a place to go, but as soon as I looked at him... For a moment it was as if the discussion in a luxury hotel in London had become reality, and you were at work or... Out for a run... But it was just him and me...

Charles, Charles was a good father, and Charlie and I were fused, so instead of taking it like divorced-couples do, Charles would come over every weekend to spend time with my little cosmonaut.

He was a self-proclaimed astronaut because he had lived his life more often with a cannula or oxygen mask than without, and he had seen in a book that spacemen, when they went into space, needed to be on oxygen... He could have become literally anything he wanted. He was so smart."

-"He seemed like a great kid".

- "Let's be clear, becoming a mother at twenty-two was not my dream. But the first time I felt him... Moving, I can't explain the effect it had on me."

- "and he... He, he's in London?"

-"Some of his ashes are in London, some of them are... Where I grew up and a very small part is, with me. I think having to have my son cremated was one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing I've had to do in my life. But I didn't really have a reason to stay in London anymore, and at the same time, I wanted him to be where I grew up, I wanted him to be there for Charles, and I wanted to keep him with me forever."