Chapter 1: The Reunion

“Hey, what’s up?” The young man said as he walked into the dark airport that late night, “You must be Lehla,” He kindly extended his hand and shook hers lightly

“Yeah, that’d be me. And you are?” She said with a smirk

“Hahaha. Funny Lehla. Real funny. Come here you big jerk!” He said grabbing her and hugging her as if they were old friends and hadn’t seen each other in years, which was mostly true.

“Oh, Patrick, I’ve missed you so much! It’s been waaay too long,” She said, her voice full of sorrow. Still in the large embrace of Patrick, she sighed softly and simply enjoyed the warmth of her long lost friend.

“I’ve missed you, too, babe. More than you’ll ever know,” He lightened his grip a bit and they parted slightly. Still grasping each other’s arms as if to hold the other space. “Come on, Mikey is in the car. He’s dying to give you a hug.”

“Mikey came!?” She shrieked shrilly.

“Yes. Mikey came,” He said matter-of-factly,” Like he would miss you coming home for anything. Including sleep.”

“I can’t believe you guys got up at 2:30 in the morning to come get me.”

“Actually it’s 3:30 in the morning now. We had to leave at 1,” He said jokingly through a small chuckle, “We didn’t get up at all though, so it’s all good.”

“Huh?” She grunted in confusion.

“We found it was easier to stay up all night rather than get up early,” He replied smiling widely, his pearly white teeth almost shining in the florescent light. She laughed at his comment.

“Oh man, Pat, you’re insane,” She said with the most fond look on her face, “You both are. And that, dear friend, is why I love you kids.”

“We love you, too, honey,” He said softly, “Okay, now lets get outta here.”

“Sounds like a plan if I ever heard one.”

With that said, Patrick immediately picked up her two suitcases, took her messenger bag from her with a gentle smile and began walking slowly to the elevator. Lehla followed silently behind him with a cool smile on her smug face and a brand new glitter in her eyes.

She was so glad she was finally coming home where she belonged. She hated leaving, yet at the same time, she hated being home. She hated her family, but loved her friends dearly, and considered them her family instead. After all, what were genetics anyway? They didn’t decide who you were as a human being. That was all up to you. She wasn’t who she wanted to be but neither was anyone else. She told herself this often and was almost starting to believe it. But then again, in the words of Brandy, “Almost doesn’t count.”

Reaching the elevator, at the end of the long, narrow, egg-shell hallway, Patrick set her bags down momentarily and pressed the red down arrow. The light from this tiny button seemed to illuminate not only the button itself but also his eyes. That’s what he had needed all along. Just a little perspective is all. Although it seems perspective is a hard object to buy in the middle of a storm. It only goes on sale afterward. Guess we were nearing sale time, or so it seemed.

Lehla immediately stooped to pick up her bags when Patrick had put them down. With a slap on her hand from Patrick, he said, “Hey now…who’s the guy here?” She stared blankly, his words not registering in her mind because of the fact that she had just seen a side of Patrick she had long thought was there, but never had any proof, “Yeah, that’s what I though. Hand’s off.”

The elevator doors creaked open with an extremely distressed metallic sound. Stepping into the elevator, Patrick and Lehla looked at each other with a smile and sense of comfortable familiarity that was very pleasing to both of them. They both appreciated their long lasting relationship which always stayed within it’s own comfortable parameters. It is doubtful that they would love each other so much if it weren’t for the dimensions and boundaries of their friendship.

“So, Leh, you wanna go get some breakfast, maybe?” Patrick asked softly with a polite smile on his face.

“I’d love to, Pat. Where do we wanna go?” She asked in reply.

“Hmmm…where ever you want babe. This is all about you.”

“I don’t care. Where ever you want.”

“No, Leh. Don’t you even start you are going to pick and you’re going to like it. Ya dig?” He had a sarcastic tone in his voice and a smirk on his face but Lehla knew that she never won this fight and she certainly wasn’t going to now.

So she relinquished, saying, “Okay, fine. I never win this game. I hate this game. How bout Eat N’ Park? That’s the only place around that serves breakfast all the time, especially at 3:30 in the morning.”

“If that’s where you want, by all means that’s where we’ll go.”

“Alrighty. Eat N’ Park it is then.”

“Okay sweet.”

The elevator door dinged open and the two friends stood before a vastly large open space. On the right, you could see baggage claim for some of the terminals. To the left was the exit, which led to the parking lot where Mike was waiting.

Mikey was short for Michael, obviously, but no one, not even his parents, had ever called him Michael. As long as he could remember, he was always Mikey. He wasn’t sure why this popped into his head at that particular moment. He was reclining in the passenger seat of the big blue minivan with Snow Patrol playing loudly from the speakers. He assumed you must be able to hear the music outside the car because when people walked by, they gave him an odd look.

“My heart is bursting in your perfect eyes…” He sang along as if he were in as much pain as the singer in the band, in the agony of losing his only true love. The song slowly fading to a close, Relient K suddenly blasted out an amazingly loud intro guitar riff, “dun dun dun dun dun dun…” he began again, and then realized he was singing along with a guitar solo and stopped.

Patrick began to think about Lehla as they walked out into the cold. He loved her. He had loved her since the moment he had seen her. That long, messy, black hair, her bright green eyes, everything about her he absolutely loved. Today more than ever though and he had no idea why.

Today there was something different about her. There was the usual long black knee length leather jacket, black jeans, black band t-shirt; today it was The Get Up Kids. The normal red ribbon necklace, the only color she ever wore, and black armband, yet something was still different. Her crimpy black hair hung in front of here eyes like it always did, her nails were painted blac—that was it—her eyes. They looked so in control, yet so vacant. I hope she’s okay, he thought to himself, maybe I should say something. No, that would only make things worse if there were something wrong.

“Pat?” He hadn’t realized, amongst his thoughts, that Lehla had no idea what was going on in his head. He had stopped and she had just kept walking. It was always easier to think standing still. He felt somewhat foolish for standing in the middle of a parking spot, Lehla several feet ahead of him, waiting for him to start walking again.

“Oh yeah. Sorry, Leh. You know me. Always thinking too much,” He said, trying much too hard to sound amused at himself.

“Yeah yeah. Come on crazy,” She said. He was acting really weird and she was a bit worried. She didn’t know what it was. He was dresses the same as always; black jeans, random black t-shirt, today’s said, “Weezer” on it just below a large colorful picture of River Como, a black knee length leather jacket, and black leather flip flops. What was it? His shaggy black, curly hair was all hanging in his big blue eyes. The same old Patrick, but he looked so scared. As if he thought he was about to die or something. Of course, that couldn’t be it. No one knows those kinds of things. He’s probably fine and I’m just overreacting. That’s all, she thought.

They continued outside in the cold and snow, still silent and longing to know the other’s thoughts. On the unfortunate side, neither of them got their wish until much, much later.

It was so cold outside and Pat thought that by the time they reached the van his toes might fall off. Of course, this very well could have happened. After all, it was only twenty-five degrees outside and he was crazy enough to wear flips flops all year round. The kid had guts. What else could explain it?

“Pat my dear, you are a very brave man. I have a brand new respect for you,” Lehla commented through her chattering teeth.

“Thanks, Leh. Much appreciated,” He said as he set down her bags in the snow. He then proceeded to take off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

“Pat! You’re gonna freeze to death! Then I’ll feel like a jinormous jerk and a half,” She said sympathetically, while taking off the jacket and attempting to give it back to Patrick, “besides my jacket is bigger than yours anyway.”

“Put it back on,” He said flatly, picking up the bags and starting to walk away from her.

“But Pa—“

“Don’t say another word. Put it back on and shut up,” He snapped like your father would, while telling you to put your gloves on. It was as if he would rather freeze to death than see her teeth chatter even once. Which was absolutely true. With this, she shut up and hurried to catch up with him.

“So Pat, where the crap did you park?” She asked sarcastically.

“Just down the next row of vans that look exactly like mine,” He said through a slight laugh.

She chuckled and said, “Oh, well that’s certainly good and comforting at the same time.”

“You’re a jerk,” He retorted, while grinning excessively, “You do know that, right?”

“Oh yeah. But so are you.”

“Well, duh, Leh. That’s how it is. Don’t cha know?”

“Ah, shaa. You bet I do,” that was always hard for her to say without bursting out into laughter immediately. It was okay though, because Pat always did, too. Which was continually refreshing for her.

“You don’t have to tell me. Cause I already know,” He replied in an accent that could only be explained as an inner city black woman with extremely long, florescent red painted nails, and immensely large hair. As little sense as that accent made, it's exactly was it sounded like when he spoke that way.

“Look Leh, there’s Mikey’s leg hanging out the window. That’s our van,” He said excitedly.

“What in the world is he doing with his leg hanging out the window?” Lehla said inquisitively.

“Betcha any money he fell asleep like that,” Pat said laughing.

Pat and Lehla reached the van. Patrick took the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the trunk and put Lehla’s stuff in the back. He shut the trunk and went around the front door, smacked Mikey’s leg and woke him up.

“Mikey! Wake up, ya jerk! Lehla’s here!” Pat shrieked.

“Oh man!” Mikey screamed, jumping out of the car and grabbing up Lehla in his muscular arms.

“Mikey, I’ve missed you soo much,” She did indeed. She was beyond glad to see his brown eyes, shaggy red hair, pasty white Scottish face, and red rosy cheeks. He was wearing her favorite shirt, which read, “Antarctica…it sucks,” with a picture of a guy with sled dogs and a whole lot of snow, “Nice shirt, by the way.”

“Thanks. I know it’s your favorite. That’s why I wore it,” Mikey said, proud of himself for knowing it was her favorite, “Here, you can have shot gun, Leh.”

“Thanks, Mikey. You rock,” She said, getting into the front seat and strapping on her seat belt. Then, Mike got in the back, closed the sliding door and buckled his seatbelt. When Patrick got in and buckled his seatbelt, he started the care and backed out of the parking spot.

“Here, Leh, pick some music,” Patrick said, handing her his i-pod. She turned it to The Rocket Summer, “That’s so You” and cranked it up as high as it would go.

“Today was a terrible day,” They all sang loudly and whiney as ever,” You don’t know, how much I, I need you plea-e-e-ease, don’t go,” They continued singing as they drove to Eat N’ Park for a lovely, early morning breakfast.