Finley
It's only been four months since I got home from England, and it already feels like a distant dream. And it's weeks like this one that have me doubting it even happened.
I spent most of my day Monday through Saturday at the restaurant where I work, trying to keep everything from falling apart. And then I drove home, grabbed food that wasn't pizza, and sat in my room watching Netflix, wishing I'd had time to call Harlyn. Turns out long distance relationships are hard and made even harder by six hour time differences. Usually, we make a video call work, even if it means one of us staying up late or getting up early. But this week, it just didn't happen.
So, I'm resigned to sulking in my room like a teenager instead of the (sort of) mature twenty one year old I actually am and rewatching Heartstopper for about the fortieth time. It makes me homesick for Canterbury and miss Harlyn's sweet accent. But it also makes me feel all gooey inside, so it's a good trade off most days. Tonight, it just makes me sad. Happy, of course, that these adorable guys are happy and in love. But sad that I'm not close enough to my ridiculously adorable boyfriend to do the same.
Halfway through episode two and halfway through my plate of casserole, Bridget appears, plopping down in my desk chair with a sigh befitting a young widow waiting to be done with mourning. Before Bridget and I completely stopped having any sort of a good relationship she'd do this quite often. At least twice a week, I was subjected to hearing every single bit of elementary and then middle school drama she could tell me. Starting in her freshman's year of high school, and for almost four years after, she only came to my room to make a snide remark or if she was asked by my parents to get me to come down for dinner. But in the four months I've been home from England, she's started doing it again.
I'm not sure how I feel about this new dynamic, even though I've wished for a long time that we could salvage some sort of relationship. I've been mostly excited to have her back in some sort of friendly way. But unfortunately, the thing that seems to have bonded us is me finally standing up to our parents, and so our conversations usually center around, well, our parents.
"Mom and Dad are insisting that they stay in Chicago for the entire first week I'm up there," she groans.
"How are they even going to do that?" I ask. "They both work. And they're already taking a week off to take me to England. And also, what are they going to do for your entire intro week? There's orientation and then...what? They're going to hang out on campus with you?"
"I hope not," she says, folding her arms over her chest. "That would be awful. They said it's in case I 'need anything.'" She puts air quotes around the last two words with her fingers. "The only thing I need is for them to leave me alone."
"They have been trying this summer."
And they have. It's definitely been in a very Mom and Dad way - reluctantly accepting that I'm moving to England, awkwardly asking if they could come with me to help me settle in, stiffly asking about Harlyn and listening for a polite amount of time before changing the subject. But compared to how they first reacted when I told them I was thinking about finishing my Bachelor's degree in England, it's almost night and day. So, I've been trying, too.
Bridget sighs deeply again. "I know. I can't even be mad at them for wanting to try to support me when this definitely is not what they want me to be doing with my life."
At some point while I was away, Bridget came to the conclusion that her long time goal of moving to California for school might be a bit more involved than she originally thought. But living at home and going to the community college I went to was also out of the picture. So, she chose something in the middle, University of Chicago. It's still a three hour drive but not all the way across the country. And a friend of hers from school is going, too, so they're going to room together. Mom and Dad, while relieved she's not leaving for the west coast, are still not happy she's going to be leaving at all. And they aren't happy that, for the time being, her major is undeclared. But baby steps.
"Well, hopefully they'll mostly leave you alone."
"Yeah. We'll see."
I shrug. "They probably want to have a week just the two of them. I know coming to England with me is their anniversary slash 'we've been saving up for a big trip' trip. But you're coming, too. They're not exactly going to have a lot of alone time."
"No, I guess not.
Defending my parents is not a new occurrence. I've defended them for years, whether I meant to or not. I was constantly trying to live up to their expectations, never speaking up when they compared me to Bridget and found her lacking. Since I started therapy a couple years ago, I started to see the cracks, the ways they...weren't a hundred percent right. Or right at all. The grip they had on me and almost every decision I'd ever made. But it's still too easy to slide back into it.
"Finley, Max is here!" Mom calls from the kitchen.
"In my room!" I yell back. Footsteps thunder up the stairs, and Bridget tenses a little, already standing. Max bursts into the room, and he stops almost immediately when he sees Bridget.
"Bridget," he greets coolly. I might've opened the door to a better relationship with Bridget, but Max is a bit less forgiving when it comes to her choices over the last few years. Specifically, he thinks she should apologize for all of the times she threw me under the bus with our parents and the anger she took out on me for things that they did. He doesn't completely understand why I've been so cool about her suddenly deciding to be nice to me again.
"Max," Bridget says, attempting a soft smile. "I was just heading out. Goodnight, Fin."
I smile around another bite of casserole. "Goodnight, Bridg." As soon as she closes the door, I raise an eyebrow at Max. "You should be nicer to her."
Max huffs and plops onto the end of my bed. "No. You shouldn't be that nice to her."
"Moving on. How was work?"
"Exhausting. But! I'm off all next week so I can spend some quality time with you before you leave me forever!"
I roll my eyes. "You're such a drama queen. I'll be back at Christmas."
"For two weeks!" he protests. "That's nothing."
"I'll miss you, too, Maxie."
It's his turn to roll his eyes. "I guess I'll survive. I guess."
"Besides, you have Dana now," I remind him. "You'll have so much more time to spend with her."
Max blushes faintly under his glasses. I love making him blush. I haven't been able to do that for a long time.
"Shut up."
"But you two are so cute together," I say, drawing out 'cute' to make him blush more. It works.
"Alright. I get it. You're getting back at me. I understand how it feels. You can stop now."
"Are you going to stop?"
He pauses. "No."
"Yeah. I didn't think so." I take a sip of water. "Seriously, though, how is Dana?"
"Dana is wonderful," Max says, his face melting into a goony smile.
"Good. I'm so glad."
He tells me a few stories, shows me a few pictures. There's one I've already seen from Dana's Instagram story of them on a hike at Starved Rock, sweaty and smiling. Dana and Max are exactly the same height, and Dana has her head tilted into Max's, her light brown bangs blowing into Max's eyes. Max looks like he might float. This isn't the first time Max has had a girlfriend, far from it. But this is the first time I've seen Max grin like that. I've told him that a few times, but he just brushes me off, saying they've only been dating for a few weeks, and he doesn't want to ruin anything.
Max crawls up to the head of the bed against the pillows, bumping my shoulder with his. "Whatcha watchin - Heartstopper? Again?"
"Obviously."
"You're obsessed."
I set my now empty plate on my night stand. "Yes, I am. Not ashamed. You can't say it's not genius."
"I didn't. I was simply commenting on your eternal crush on Nicholas Nelson."
"Whatever," I scoff, clicking out of the episode to my Netflix home page. We agreed to do a movie night, but since we haven't seen each other in person in almost a week and I'll be leaving for England for three and half months in less than a week, we both know we probably won't be watching anything tonight. At least not anything we have to pay a lot of attention to. "Holly talked about Heartstopper at lunch."
"Hm. Good for her."
Holly was the third member of our friend group through most of our school years. We were nearly inseparable. Until I came out to my parents and had what I now see as some sort of breakdown that lasted almost all of Senior year. I shut everyone out, Holly and Max included. And while Max was stubborn and pretty much forced his way back into my life, Holly, understandably, let me go. I've never really held a grudge for it. Does it bother me that I lost one of my best friends? That now we only speak once every six months or so when we comment on each other's social medias? Yes. But when Holly asked to meet up for lunch since we were both home for the summer, I agreed.
Max did not take the invitation. I don't think he really holds a grudge, either, not in the way he does with Bridget. But being the go between for most of our senior year was rough on him, and I don't think he was quite ready to sit through what was, admittedly, an awkward lunch. I've told him the highlights, the long conversation we had about senior year and what she's up to at college. He didn't react much. And ever since, I've been trying to drop things I remember. I know we'll never be the three amigos again, but it would be nice to talk about her, maybe revive our group chat if only on holidays and birthdays.
Max isn't having it, though. "So, what do you and Harlyn have planned for when you, ya know, reunite."
"How do you make everything sound dirty?" I groan.
"It's a gift."
I sigh. "Well, he works the day we fly in, unfortunately, and can't get out of it. It's one of his last days at McDonald's, so they're trying to milk him for all he's worth before he leaves. But, anyway, we get into London about one in the afternoon? We'll get to Canterbury by four-ish? Maybe later if customs are ridiculous. Harlyn will get off work at about eight, I think. Which gives me enough time to shower, maybe take a quick nap, and then I'm meeting him at his house for the...reunion." I give little jazz hands at the end, just for Max.
"I thought you were going to wait until Saturday, since you're taking your parents and Bridget to have lunch at his house."
"Yeah, well, then we realized that seeing each other for the first time in almost five months in front of both of our families sounded horrible."
Max wrinkles his nose. "Agreed."
"And we also didn't want to wait. Knowing we're in the same city again and not seeing each other for almost twenty four hours? Unacceptable."
"Agreed squared."
I snort. "You're so strange."
Max whips a pillow at me. "I am not. I'm agreeing that you shouldn't have to wait twenty four hours to snog yourself senseless in front of your parents."
"There will not be any snogging in front of them." I shift uncomfortably. Mom and Dad have only met Harlyn briefly over video call. They've never seen me kiss anyone. Ever. That'll be a new experience. And not one I'm looking forward to. "We barely kissed in front of his parents, and they're way cooler about all of this than mine are."
"Mm. Diana and Martin are insanely cool." Max snatches the pillow back and fluffs it behind his head. "How is Harlyn? I haven't talked to him much lately."
I scoff. "Neither have I. We've been texting, but we haven't talked on the phone since last week when he was helping the girls move into our apartment."
That's a strange phrase to say still. I wasn't originally planning on living with Elly, Polly, and Francesca. I was going to live with my host mom from last semester. But when Elly offered the fourth bedroom at a decent rent, and in a moment of bravery I'm kind of regretting seeing as two of three of my future roommates are relative strangers, I agreed. Mom and Dad weren't too happy about the fact that on top of picking up and moving to England, I'm going to be living with three girls that they don't know. I'm not sure why they're so upset by it. The only thing I can think of is the lack of "adult" supervision.
"Oh yeah. Man, I can't wait to see your apartment," Max pouts.
"Yeah me, too," I mumble, patting his knee. "Anyway, he seemed off, but he just said that he missed me."
Max slides farther down. "I'm sure he's just nervous. You're a nerve wracking guy."
"Um, thanks?"
"It's a compliment." He tilts his head up to look at me, nudging his glasses up his nose. "I just mean that it's been a while. And while I know you're both excited, it's still going to...take getting used to again. Aren't you nervous?"
"Max, I have anxiety," I remind him. "I'm nervous about everything."
He rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."
I do. And I am nervous. I overthink everything, and Harlyn is so important to me. I overthink our relationship even more than everything else. What if he's only staying with me because he feels like he has to? What if he feels obligated because I'm moving to England and moving in with his best friend? Even though I've assured everyone that moving to England is not just for him - it's definitely not - there's this...added pressure since that's what everyone assumes. Even Holly did, and she knows I have more sense than to move to a different country for a boy I've only been dating for six months.
"I am nervous," I admit. "But I'm also excited enough that it's outweighing the nerves."
"Good. Now." He slaps his thighs. "Push play on Heartstopper."
I turn to him with far too much glee. "Really?"
"Yes, really."
"I love you, Maxie."
He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I love you, too."