When you have a lot of energy and frustration churning inside you, there's nothing like the throaty growl of a 1969 Nova SS with a 396 big block under the hood to speak for you. You couldn't miss that beast coming, and I wanted Mist to know that not only was I coming for her, but I was in a mood.
As soon as Mist had run out of my party, I'd tried to catch up to her, but she'd hustled into a waiting Uber and took off. Of course, as luck would have it, my car was blocked in so I couldn't follow Mist to her apartment right away. Running back into the house, I demanded that people move their cars so I could get out.
Yvette, maybe not realizing just how pissed I was, rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Izan, you're going to let her ruin your birthday party with her high-school dramatics? Take you away from your family and friends who are actually here to celebrate you? You're going to go chasing after someone who pulled a dirty trick like she did, learning Spanish and not telling anyone? It's like she was spying on us and just hoping to catch us saying stuff about her so she could get mad and make a scene."
I didn't have time for this shit, so I ignored Yvette and called to the room at large.
"Anyone who's parked behind me needs to move their car now!"
Still not reading me right, Yvette put her hand on my arm. "Don't go after her right now, Izan. She needs time to calm down and if you go after her and get in her face about the way she acted tonight, it's not going to go well."
"Don't even start with me, Yvette. I don't have the time to deal with you and right now, you're at the top of a very long shit list I made tonight. Just get your damn car out of the driveway. It's the last one in and no one can get out until you move."
And then we began forty-five minutes of looking for Yvette's keys. I was ready to take the chainsaw to the thick shrubs that lined both sides of our driveway so we could move around her car.
"I have no idea where they are!" she kept insisting as she ran around the house, looking everywhere she'd been for the long-lost keys. She finally found them at the bottom of her purse, even thought the first two times she'd looked through it, she'd sworn they weren't in there.
By then, I'd been in a rage. Mist wasn't answering my calls or texts, and I was blocked in and couldn't get to her apartment. When I finally got there, her car was parked in its space, but Mist refused to answer when I knocked on her door. Not wanting to do something extreme like kick her door in -- although I'd been seriously tempted -- I gave up after two hours of knocking quietly.
I'd had to work the next two days, but every morning and night, I was back at her apartment, my mood worsening with each hour that passed, with each hour that I couldn't talk to her. I'd waited outside her apartment, pacing, calling her phone, wishing I had a fucking key to her place so I could let myself inside, make sure she was OK. No contact was not Mist at all.
On Sunday morning, I'd taken to driving by all her favorite places within walking distance, then driving to all of her friends' homes I'd been to, then back to her apartment. It finally dawned on me that maybe she'd gone home. Her parents lived about forty-five minutes away from here, on a commune.
So I'd called her mother and she told me Mist was there -- and I'd never felt so relieved in my life. I'd immediately run for my car and headed out to the country.
I parked in the driveway of Mist's parents' home and ran up the steps to knock on the door. Her mother, a beautiful woman who looked and dressed like she was a flower child, answered. Sunflower's smile wasn't as bright as it normally was, but I wasn't surprised. I'm sure Mist had filled her in on the night of my party.
"Is Mist here?" And why was my normally low voice cracking like I was hitting puberty?
"She's at her grandmother's right now, Izan."
"Thanks. I'll head over there."
"No." Something in that softly-spoken word stopped me cold. "You're welcome to come inside and wait for her here, though."
"I need to talk to her," I tried to convey my impatience without being rude.
"It's waited three days. It can wait a bit longer."
Her tone was still casual but I'd never heard Sunny give an order to anyone like that. She was normally all kindness and love and mellowness. When she opened the screen door and motioned me inside, having no real choice, I walked into the house.
"Do you know when she'll be back?" I asked.
"When she feels it's time to return home," was her unhelpful answer. Sunny sometimes seemed to me like the human equivalent of the Magic 8 Ball with her vague sayings.
I followed Sunny into the kitchen where, like the rest of the rooms in the house, there were several plants in view, including a windowsill herb garden. Mist had used those when she made spaghetti sauce when we'd come for a visit one weekend.
"Would you like some iced tea?" she asked as she slid a plate of banana bread in front of me.
No, I don't want to have a fucking tea party, I want to lay eyes on my girl, talk to Mist and straighten things out.
"Calm yourself, Izan. I can feel the angry energy you're putting out there, and this is not the place for it."
She rummaged in a drawer with a number of dividers and fabric pouches. She poured something from one of the pouches into her hand and then placed a pale pink stone in front of me.
"I wish I had some obsidian, but rose quartz also works. A wonderful crystal to help you move away from anger. I always had my children place it over their hearts and breathe deeply to help them regain their inner peace and balance when they were fighting."
"I don't think that's going to help," I told her honestly. In my family, we yelled, we got mad, we got passionate and worked it out that way. None of this calm, woo-woo stuff.
Sunny smiled and waved one of her hands gracefully. "Maybe. Maybe not. As long as you calm down and don't allow your negative emotions into Mist's safe space, we'll be fine."
"Her safe space?" I repeated, feeling like an idiot.
"Very much so. She ran straight here after your birthday party because she felt unsettled. Unsafe. So, yes, our home is her safe space. But in my mind, Izan, the bigger issue is why she doesn't feel safe with you."
"I didn't know she didn't," I protested, but even to me that sounded weak. Like a terrible lie. Like an avoidance of the truth.
"You didn't know you had friends she needs to be protected from? Friends that make her feel unsafe in her relationship with you? She never mentioned that to you?"
Why did I feel like I was sitting in the principal's office for acting up in class? "I knew she had concerns about Yvette," I said slowly, "and I didn't let Yvette around her for a while until I thought she'd be OK with Mist."
This sounded like a bunch of bullshit the minute I said the words, but it sounded a lot better than I fucked up and didn't listen to what Mist asked of me.
Sunny canted her head to the side. "I don't think that turned out the way you were hoping," she said gently. "You're the man Mist loves, Izan. The man she should expect to be safe with. So the question isn't why she ran to her family; the question is why she ran from you."
Before I could answer -- did I even have an answer to that? -- the back door opened and closed and as Mist walked into the kitchen, I shot to my feet.
"I'm sorry," I said to her, the generic apology tumbling out of my mouth before I could even say hello.
Her gaze slid to her mother's.
"Gram liked the honey," she said. Was she ignoring me or did she just not want to get into it in front of her mother?
"I thought she might," Sunny gave her daughter an encouraging smile. "I'm going to go check on your father and Light, give you two some time to talk. I'll see you later, Izan."
With a swish of her floaty skirt, she was out the door, leaving me alone with Mist for the first time since my party. She was quiet and watchful, waiting for me to make the first move. Her long, curly hair was twisted up into a messy bun and, as always, she made my breath catch, even dressed as simply as she was in ripped jeans and a light purple tank top.
Thinking of her mother's words, I asked if she wanted to go for a walk.
"So we don't bring any negative energy into the house," I explained.
"That's fine," she agreed, giving me the side eye, and we walked out of the house together.
Out of habit, because I always had to be touching her, I took her hand and she pulled it out of my grasp and took a step to the side. That didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy, and I was concerned that letting this issue go three days without addressing it might have made it seem like a bigger, more serious problem than it actually was. Which might have been responsible for the next words out of my mouth.
"I didn't appreciate being ghosted for three days, Mist. We need to handle our issues like adults, not like middle schoolers who can't talk about our problems in a mature way. I was worried about you and you couldn't even be bothered to take one of my calls or even answer one text. I deserved better than that from you."
Based on the look on her face, putting Mist on the defensive might not have been the best way to start our conversation.