The day she left Arizona was also the day of the wedding. They both had to leave very early, so they only got a chance to talk on the phone while they were driving. She made him drive home and then pick her up from the airport so that they could talk in the car.
"So, how was the wedding?" he asked.
"It was really nice. It was very short."
"Meaning what?"
"The ceremony lasted just an hour. She didn't even want a movie my wedding."
"And now?"
"I'm still waiting for her to tell me how to give birth to her children."
"And how was your honeymoon?"
"It was nice, though I wish we could have been in a car all the time. It would have been better if we went to Hawaii."
"You love Hawaii, don't you?"
She nodded. "Where are you staying now? Somewhere in Minnesota?"
"I'm staying in a small town called Haven."
She smiled and shook her head. "That's one of the tourist spots. You should have stayed in a better place. Like a city."
"I chose this place because I wanted somewhere with strong family values."
At that moment she noticed that they were approaching the Great Lakes; she thought about her time in school when she spent summers in her home state and the complete awe she felt looking at the great lakes.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked, giving her a confused look.
"Sure," she answered.
"I thought you were a nun. Why did you leave your work to come to Minnesota?"
She became quiet for a moment, unsure of what to answer. She hated talking about herself. The silence stretched between them and she knew he was waiting for her to respond. She decided to just say the truth.
"You left me."
He smiled. "I didn't say I was going to stay."
"At least you didn't say goodbye."
"What?"
"You left without saying goodbye. You never showed up again. You never even called after you left Arizona. You just left."
"I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. I needed to think about myself, about what I wanted."
"What did you want?"
"I learned a lot about myself. I wanted to have a family, and now I have one. And—"
"Are you staying with him?"
"No. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to be a scientist after spending the summer working at a hospital. I'm staying here, though. I'm starting a PhD program in community medicine starting next fall."
"And there's only one girl?"
"We're buddies, but there's no romantic entanglements between us."
He smiled and then shook his head. "You should have told me all this before I was heading out."
"I'm sorry," she replied.
"Don't be. How is school?"
"Good," she replied. "I talked to my parents about you. I told them you tried to have sex with me, and then I told them it was a lie. And they believed me."
"That's wonderful," he said, smiling. "You're really a good person."
"Why, thank you," she replied.
"Stop smiling, you're going to make me cry with the next thing you tell me."
"We really did have a lot of fun, didn't we?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "Yeah, we did. We need to hang out more often."
"You forgot to ask me to the prom. I wonder why."
"I can't believe you're talking about that shit. You were never into me. Look at those jerks, how they're drooling all over you. I should have gone to the prom, not to the dweeby party."
"I'm sorry."
"Why, because you couldn't get anyone to go with you, so you thought you could just grab me like that?"
"I said I was sorry. Why can't we just be friends again?"
"Because if we are friends, I wouldn't be able to ignore you like that."
She laughed. "I don't think you ever ignored me. I think you liked me too much."
He smiled. "No, that's not true."
"When did you finally get over me?"
"When you got married."
They remained silent after that. She knew that they would have to reconnect, to talk again. He didn't say anything, but she could tell that he missed her.
