Page 32 of Slanting Towards the Sea

TWENTY-NINE

I WATCH THE AIRPLANE land from the parking lot behind the airport building.

It’s the last day of April, but the weather has turned, as if to prove that it can manage one more bite before it gives in to the spring warmth.

The wind rustles through the tops of nearby cypresses, the stormy clouds low and threatening on the horizon.

Something akin to stage fright—excitement mixed with fear—pulls in my gut as I’m waiting for Asier.

I don’t know where we stand, where I’ve left us.

After that fight with my family, I was short with him.

Not just because I didn’t know if I wanted to go through with the sale, but because that shame for wanting him tainted whatever it was growing between us, and I couldn’t cleanse it.

So when he sent me a photo of the sun setting over Hyde Park, glistening in millenary hues of green, I didn’t answer.

A few days later, he sent a photo of his neighbor’s mutt, an adorable dog he said he talked to when he sat on his balcony, to which I replied, “a good-looking friend you have there.” A couple of days later, he sent me a poem about an olive tree he had “accidentally come across” online, as if one can stumble upon poetry without intending to, and I sent back only “lovely,” even though the poem chiseled its way into my heart, its verses about resilience and sturdiness both sparse and humbling.

He stopped texting me after that.

It felt safer that way, getting us back to the realm of business acquaintances negotiating a deal.

There was so much in the ether already, all kinds of grief, anticipation, and anxiety because of the upcoming sale, incredible muscle work needed to keep my head straight. Piling more onto it felt unwieldy.

What were we, after all, but two worlds briefly touching? We were leading such different lives, often in different parts of the globe, and I couldn’t imagine anything meaningful emerging from this.

So I replaced the new habit of texting with him at night with my old habit of stalking Vlaho’s socials, but poring over his photos wasn’t landing the same way.

Something had been lost, the painful thrill of it subtly shifted to the side, and I found myself scrolling through the abyss of my feed instead.

One night, I came across a post with a photo of two lemurs hugging, saying that a person needs eight hugs a day for regular maintenance alone—to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and tone the vagus nerve.

Eight hugs, in other words, just to keep functioning.

In the near darkness of my room, I turned on my back and tried to recall the last time I was hugged. Not a passing sideways embrace at hello, or the pat on the back Dad gives me when he’s in a good mood. A real hug. I thought back and back, and there was nothing as far as the eye could see.

So when Asier said he was coming for the viewing, I offered to pick him up. He said I didn’t have to, he could take a cab—by then the distance I’d put between us had festered—but I insisted.

I have no idea if this hug deprivation is a hoax or a scientific fact. All kinds of half-truths float on Instagram, there’s no way of telling if it’s true.

But it is true.

So, here I am.

I tighten the edges of my jacket against the wind, make one more swipe to try to comb my hair behind my ear, but it refuses to stay put. People start exiting the double glass door and spilling onto the parking lot. It’s hard to breathe despite the wind blowing gusts of air into my face.

The crowd dissipates and still no sign of him. But then the door slides open again, and there he is, absorbed in his phone as he’s rolling his suitcase behind him. He looks up, and even though I don’t move or wave, he spots me instantly. His smile is measured and fleeting.

We walk toward each other, then stop with a meter between us. I feel every molecule of the space we didn’t cross.

“Hey,” he says.

“Welcome to Zadar,” I say, sounding like a taxi driver picking up a tourist.

My whole body is sensitive as he reaches and gives me a not-too-near one-sided hug. It feels anticlimactic. As he recedes from me, I catch a whiff of a citrusy, manly tang under the stale smell of airplane. A small thing, this scent, but something inside me gathers.

“I hope you had a good flight?” I ask.

“It was fine,” he says, unsmiling.

As I drive us into the city, lightning cracks on the horizon, and the first fat raindrops hit the windshield.

The town is gray and lifeless as we descend into it, as if it’s not ready to show itself either.

“I’ll take you directly to the hotel,” I say.

“You must be tired, and, well, the weather is—”

“Yeah,” he says.

“I can take you to see Lovorun tomorrow. The storm should clear by then.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He’s looking out the window.

I take note of the first impression my town must be making.

Junkyards, car dealerships, warehouses, and bathroom supply stores with glass windows that glint like golden teeth in a mouthful of cavities.

Houses interspersed in between, made of concrete and not even painted, their gardens filled with rusty old car wrecks and rototillers, and patches of overgrown cabbages and spring onions.

I have the urge to tell him there’s more to my town than this, its center is old and beautiful, and it will take his breath away, but he’s more absorbed with the sights—the neighborhoods thankfully getting neater the more westward we go—than maintaining a conversation with me.

His reserve drills holes in my excitement, until it sinks completely.

Until I sink with understanding. I’ve really screwed this up.

We enter the hotel complex and drive down a narrow road surrounded by a pine tree forest. I round a fountain and stop the car, but don’t shut down the engine.

The rain is pouring now. It’s like a curtain, isolating us in the car, hiding us from the outside world.

It makes the moment intimate, acute. I’m aware of every part of my body and his, of even the softest sounds of our breaths.

“When would you like me to pick you up?” Only now do I dare look at him, and he does the same.

“I’m an early riser. Just text me when you’re here.” He reaches for the handle to let himself out. I want to stop him, but don’t know how. “Thanks for the ride,” he says.

A split-second movement. I lean in, aiming for his cheek, but kiss the corner of his mouth instead. I pull back, mortified, pinpricking all over, drawing back the smell of him—mist and citrus, with me.

He looks ahead of himself for a moment, barely containing a smile.

He’s not a beautiful man, but his angular features have a way of arranging themselves into something pleasing when he smiles, as if the sharp contours are only inflicted on him, and there’s something warmer underneath that aches to get out.

“See you tomorrow,” he says, and exits into the pouring rain, goes behind the car to get his suitcase, doesn’t even hurry to retrieve it.

He closes the trunk, then taps twice against the window, and I press my foot against the clutch, but don’t go yet.

Instead, I watch him walk to the hotel entrance, his blue shirt soaking through, and when I finally shift into first, I realize I’m barely containing a smile too.