The Adventures of a Scrawny Musician and a Compulsive Liar

20. Goodbye

It’s weird how easy it is for people to leave. By morning, she got her bags all packed and ready to say her goodbyes as if this was the last time she’d see us for the rest of her life. She gave us sad-eyed, awkward hugs and kissed our cheeks like we were kids. It was terrible. Isobel doesn’t hug. Isobel isn’t sad. Isobel smacks us on the shoulder and cusses us out if we even consider being anything out of the list above. She might even mutter a derogatory sexist remark afterwards for good measure. I don’t like this new Isobel.

By noon, we’ve driven to the nearest airport on the border of Arizona to drop her off. 

“Well, guys.” We stood in front of the gate to the terminal and shuffled our feet on the worn gray carpet, trying to avert our gaze to the multiple ceiling-to-floor windows that made up the walls of the airport. Isobel dropped her bags on the floor and turned around to look at us all. She came up to us each and gave us all goddamn hugs again and patted Nathaniel’s cheek before she started towards the gate. “Have a safe trip, bitches!” 

There was collective awkward laughter at the artificial tone of her obviously forced cheer, but it did help somewhat to relieve the tension. We waved until we couldn’t see her anymore and then watched her plane leave. I looked over to Natalie beside me and was surprised to find her lower lip wobbling and her lips turned downwards in a frown. It looked unnatural on her.

“Are you ok?” I asked her quietly. 

She shrugged and her lip trembled harder. “I don’t like it when people leave.”

I didn’t ask her any questions after that. Any more and it looked like she would cry. So I just put my arm around her and hoped she took comfort in my awkward one-armed Laurie hug like I took comfort in her head leaning on my shoulder and her hair tickling my chin.

Nathaniel clapped his hands, making us all snap our heads into his direction in response. “Alright kids, let’s get going,” he said and started heading towards the escalators. I turned to look at Evan who just looked tired and sad.

He gave me a weak smile and said, “All good things must come to an end, right?” Then he turned away and walked after Nathaniel. Natalie shrugged off my arm and walked after the both of them. 

I’m starting to get tired of being sad.

After numerous days of being on the road, finally getting to the Grand Canyon was a bit anticlimactic. We arrived in the late afternoon, paid for our ticket, and kept on driving. Nathaniel wouldn’t tell us where we were driving to and none of us could be bothered to ask. The tension was suffocating. 

After a half hour of driving, he parked and just sat there for a few seconds, taking shallow breaths. 

“You alright?” I asked. 

He nodded shakily.

Once a couple of minutes passed, Nathaniel flung open the car door and started running to the edge of the cliff where all the sightseeing tourists were. He looked strangely out of place in his polo and jeans while the tourists around him were decked out in hiking boots and khaki shorts. We stood a couple feet back to give him some space.

The sun was starting to set so Nathaniel stuck out like a blade of grass in a desert against the orange-pink of the sky and the marbled red of the dramatic cliffs. Before I could really get into admiring the scenery too much I noticed Nathaniel was holding something in his hands. And when I saw what it was, it felt like my chest was splitting in two.

“Ple-e-ease, can you get it for me?” I heard Eric’s whining voice from around the corridor. Soon enough, Nathaniel’s annoyed face appeared shortly thereafter with Eric’s tiny head bobbing up and down by his waist trying to keep up with his strides.