My hometown

editorial note: i have no idea what compelled me to write this, i just had an idea during a meeting and had to see it through. i hope you enjoy it—and let me know if you want to see more of this universe, i’ve certainly had more ideas.

---

The diner is cool and white.

When Nadia steps through the door the lithe wind chimes above her head sound her arrival. She is a shadow against the thin frame of the door and the expanse of blue sky visible through it, wisps of dark hair settling around her face like clouds. The waitress walks over to her, the waitress who had gone to elementary and middle school with her, but Nadia’s eyes remain deep and distant with no flicker of recognition. From his post at the table Blaise tracks that shadow as it makes its way to him. 

She smiles as she slides into the cherry-red booth. Her nails are also dark red, although they are splintering, the same colour cuts a slash across her face. Blaise thinks her teeth are too bright, too sharp, like a shark’s—he knows she pays for whitening strips and wishes she wouldn’t. He misses her crooked yellow teeth.

Hello, says Nadia. 

Hello, says Blaise. Are you ready to order?

It is less dramatic than he imagined it would be. Perhaps they have said enough to each other over the phone that this meeting can be between old friends, old friends alone. They have been coming to the diner since they were thirteen years old and the menu has not changed in the twelve years since. Neither of them look at it; indeed, Blaise realises the waitress hadn’t bothered to bring one over. She just hovers, pen in hand, notebook held loosely, and scribbles down their usual requests. 

Nadia, foamy eggs and bacon and a tall glass of cold coffee. 

Blaise, stack of too-thick pancakes and a mug of milk. 

When they were kids Nadia made fun of him for the milk. Now, within the bounds of their recently rekindled intimacy, the corner of her mouth just tugs up. He would like to get it on paper, graph it out and make sense of it, the way the corner of her mouth tugs up. Why it feels like it’s pulling on something inside him. 

His life has only happened in the intervals of knowing her. The rest has just been passing time. 

Nadia tilts her head to the side, rests it on her hand, draws her nails back and forth through her long dark hair. She seems like she is sizing him up. He thinks this based on the cartography of her face but the last map he has of it is from six years ago, it might be out of date. 

How have you been, he says, then winces. 

Better, she replies. And how are you, Greenie, is your life everything you imagined? 

Blaise looks towards the door. Yes, he says. 

It’s half-true. His life has been progressing on the path he’d set out when he was seventeen years old. No digressions, no diversions, certainly no distractions with cloudy dark hair who walked into their hometown diner at eight in the morning with heeled boots on, looking for all the world like a foreigner who just happened to find herself there. 

He says, the wedding is next week. 

Nadia arches an eyebrow, then says, sounding disaffected and a bit mocking, do I get an invitation? 

Blaise laughs. She would kill me. 

Does she know I’m here? 

Not unless someone tells her. 

Someone might. 

Blaise shrugs. 

Do you care? asks Nadia. 

Yes and no, he says. I care because I feel like she might still be bothered and then we would have to talk about it, which I don’t want to do. I don’t care because I feel like we should talk about something that isn’t napkins. 

So I’m a catalyst, says Nadia. A cure for cold feet. 

No, says Blaise. 

Then what? asks Nadia. The years seem to slip away from her face and voice, suddenly she is very young again, like she is in Blaise’s voicemail. Why did you bring me here?

It’s been six years, says Blaise. 

Of silence, prods Nadia. 

And you came, he says. 

You asked, she says. 

He takes a deep breath so his stomach strains against his flannel and looks at her. Blaise has known Nadia for so long that her limbs feel like an extension of his own body. Maybe it’s the other way around, though, because when she brings her hand up to cover her mouth he feels a stimulus in his own fingers, like she asked them to move too. The geometry of their relationship is tangled and often difficult to solve, but he knows her. He has known her for a very long time.

I missed you, says Blaise. 

You don’t have the right.

I know. 

There is a long moment of silence where he is looking at the divots in the hardwood table and she is looking out the window. Blaise thinks if they are quiet enough he will be able to match the pulse of the sea to her breathing, each one another wave. 

I missed you anyway, he says. 

She smiles. I know. 

You know why I asked, he says, why did you come?

I told you, says Nadia. You asked. 

Six years, he says, six years, and it’s because I asked?

It could have been sixteen, says Nadia. I would still have come. 

She is not covering her mouth.

The waitress comes back to the table with their food. She makes no mention of Nadia’s having forgotten her, no mention of the fact that the two of them should not be here together—gossip takes a long time to die, their town is only so wide—just sets the plates on the tables. Shades of yellow and brown and red. The way it has always been. The way it was once supposed to be. 

Thank you, says Nadia. 

The waitress nods to her. 

They make no acknowledgement of their shared history, while for Nadia and Blaise it is a gun on the table that both of them keep checking the safety on. For some number of months preceding this meeting they have spoken on the phone, obliquely making references and even jokes about the six years spent not talking, never addressing it. The material reality of the other person being across the table, about to marry someone else, has torn their hapless homage to high school in two. 

How’s…. Blaise trails off. 

Charlie, supplies Nadia.

Yes, how are they?

Nadia smiles and for the first time since she stepped into the diner it looks sincere. Something slick and sour twists in the recesses of Blaise’s gut. 

They’re good, she says. Really good. 

That’s good, says Blaise. 

They lapse into silence. It all feels wrong, like they’ve assembled a puzzle where the pieces can be made to fit into each other but the picture came out all wrong. He is happy that she got out, that she found Charlie, that it looks like the pain of this morning isn’t the pain of her life. It seems that instead of giving her closure he’s just reopened an old wound. Like she’s going to be a beautiful bride, and—

It should have been him. 

Blaise doesn’t say this, because she’s right, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to her. 

She came back for you, says a voice in his head. Because you asked.

So, says Nadia, twirling a fork in her scrambled eggs, you never answered. 

Answered what? 

Why you brought me back now. 

Well, I am about to get married. 

Am I the last loose end?

No, says Blaise. 

He can see the irritation growing dense between her eyebrows and above her upper lip. 

No, he hastens to add, you’re not, I just… I really did miss you. 

Blaise, says Nadia. 

I know, he says.

She is alternating eating her eggs and looking at him like he’s insane. It’s incredible that her face only bears the slightest traces of hurt. Blaise has felt her absence like a wound he cannot stanch for six years; he knows that she felt the same at some point, he has saved everything she tried to say to him in the time after. He tries to imagine what’s going on in Nadia’s head. Blaise left her: why did he also ask her to come back? Why did he call the girl who used to be his best friend six months before his wedding to make amends? It certainly hadn’t been for his fiancée’s sake. He doesn’t have answers for her. 

He left, he regretted it, he called her back. 

She came. 

It had been the truth of their relationship long before its last breakage. Neither of them had acknowledged this. Well, Blaise hadn’t. He doesn’t know how she thinks about it now. 

Maybe it’s best if we don’t see each other again, says Nadia gently. 

I don’t want that, says Blaise. 

Nadia huffs. You did for a while. 

Does anyone know what they want when they’re eighteen?

Nadia tilts her head to the side again. Does he seem that wrong to her right now, that she can only make sense of him by altering the frame? It occurs to him that he has not eaten very much of his breakfast. He worries that her eggs will go cold. 

It seems like she wants to say I did. She doesn’t. 

Nadia has always been too generous with him. 

I don’t have a best man for the wedding, he starts. 

Blaise, you’re insane if you think I’m going to your wedding. 

Okay, that hurt. 

Nadia presses her lips together, then says, good. 

Either way, that wasn’t what I meant. 

You want me to feel sorry for you. 

I don’t, he says. I want you to know I got what I deserved. 

Nadia rolls her eyes. I have a life, Blaise. I was more than happy to keep talking over the phone. 

I’m trying to apologise.

I don’t need you to! exclaims Nadia. It’s the most emotion she’s demonstrated all morning, she’s giving into it, slapping her thighs with a sharp sheer sound. I don’t need you to apologise to me now, Blaise, I needed it years ago when it would’ve mattered, when you could have honestly told me that I was the only person who ever knew you and you were scared of it, that you were sorry, that you loved me, that you made a mistake and you were scared. But none of that is true anymore. You can’t turn back the clock on this and you can’t get me back, you made your choice, I made mine, how dare you bring me back to this town and try to tell me you got what you deserved. You don’t deserve my coming back for you. And you don’t even want me now, you’re just lonely and sad and you’re marrying your high school sweetheart because you never decided to do anything different with your life. You want to drag me back here. You want me to fix you. It’s not going to happen. 

I know, says Blaise. 

Nadia’s face is contorted into a kind of rage he didn’t know it could hold. Then what on earth could you possibly want?

To see you one more time, he says. 

Nadia deflates, sinking into the booth. 

That’s so selfish, she says. 

You came. 

That doesn’t change it. 

You’re right, he says, shrugging. 

It has been a while since there was a true unspoken language between them, but by the dissipating tension in Nadia’s shoulders he can tell that she understands. Bittersweet, but true, Blaise still knows her: she doesn’t want his apology, she wants to be right. 

She is. 

He regrets having waited so long to tell her. 

Nadia picks up her cutlery and shoves several forkfuls of eggs in her mouth in a row. Her lipstick smears around the corners of her mouth and stains the fork, but Blaise doesn’t comment. He sits there, sawing through his pancakes, and waits for her to be done. 

I’m sorry I blew up like that, says Nadia. 

Don’t be, says Blaise. I—he hesitates—had it coming. 

True, says Nadia. 

Blaise pushes a bite of pancake into his mouth. The syrup has seeped too far in and it still tastes like sawdust, but he doesn’t complain. He just watches the curve of Nadia’s neck, avoids looking at her eyes. It isn’t until he sees the flash of the engagement ring on her hand that he works up the nerve to speak. 

We’re never going to be seventeen again, are we?

No. But that isn’t such a bad thing. 

I would do it again, says Blaise. I would do it differently. 

You can do it differently now, says Nadia. 

Please, he says. You don’t have to save me. 

I don’t want to, says Nadia, then sighs. That’s not true. 

I know, says Blaise. 

The corner of her mouth tugs up again. 

I can’t help it. 

You’re my Prince Charming, I think.

I know, parrots Nadia. 

Go on, says Blaise.

You can do it differently now, says Nadia. I realised that. After you. 

Yeah?

She exhales. You can do what you want, Greenie. Even if you’re not sure what that is yet. 

It’s not her. 

It’s not going to be me. 

Blaise looks away. 

I’m serious. 

You always are. 

Nadia laughs. The clouds of her hair settle around her shoulders. Her earrings are turquoise and he thinks they must be a gift from Charlie. He is surprised by the fierce longing this stokes inside him, but quells it. It isn’t going to be her. When she ducks her head to finish her eggs the turquoise earrings sway, and Blaise thinks they suit her. So does the engagement ring, which is sparkling and elaborate and entirely unlike anything he would have thought to buy. He thinks, Nadia is another manifestation of what he had wanted when he was seventeen, he isn’t seventeen anymore, he has to choose something different. 

The past is an annexed country. Even if they wanted to return, it doesn’t exist anymore. 

You should eat your pancakes, says Nadia. They’re getting cold.