“It seems we do,” Julian said jovially. He shook Marcy’s hand, but never took his eyes off Lena. His cool blue eyes searched hers. They had more gray in them than she remembered. And they were asking her thousands of questions. Like, How have you been? And did you miss me? And do you regret smashing everything we had together and leaving it behind?
Lena knew she should say something. Anything. But her mind was buzzing, and it was difficult enough to think, let alone in English. Millions of Arabic phrases fired through her brain, and when she was able to distill her emotions down to one isolated kernel, she realized it was: longing.
She’d missed him.
Desperately.
And when she let her heart acknowledge that, it ached under the weight of everything else she was missing. Namely, home. Namely, her mother. God, she wanted her mother. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be home so, so badly.
She blinked back the tears that she felt forming in her eyes, and Julian reached out and grasped her hands. Even though she’d always taken such pains to hide her homesickness from him, he had a sixth sense for when a bout was coming on. And even though it had been months and months since he’d had the chance to comfort her, he was still able to steady her with his reassuring touch.
He watched her eyes soften as she regained composure. “So how have you been, Lena Abdallat?” he asked. “It’s been a New York minute.”
She swallowed again. “Isn’t the better question how have you been?” She gestured toward the stage. “It’s all coming true for you.”
He bowed his head a little bit. “I told you it would. Patience.”
She tensed and pulled her hands away from him. Such a simple word: patience. But it felt like an indictment. A reminder that she hadn’t been patient. That she hadn’t waited on him to get his shit together.
Truly, though, when she’d left Oak Falls, she’d had absolutely zero faith that Julian would get his shit together. It was her turn to give him a searching look. She wondered when he’d told his father he was dedicating everything toward becoming a musician. That his plan was to leave Oak Falls, to live a life that was radically different from Mr. Oliver’s.
Julian had once told her he couldn’t abandon his family business because his father had threatened that if Julian didn’t take over the store, he would simply shutter it. She’d known Julian was terrified of creating more emotional distance between himself and his father.
Maybe it had gone down like how he’d crooned on “Finally, Always,” the closing track on Winter in Indiana. She’d taken that track to be a personal admonition to her. But in the song, he’d sung, “Told you to be patient/But you said you had to go/You were right about your reasons/But now I’ve owned my own/So will you come back and be patient now?” and her heart had shattered when she first heard the song.
She’d thought: Yes. Finally, always.
And then when he’d called she could hardly believe it.
“I’m coming to New York,” he’d said.
“Julian,” she’d said.
“Please, Lena. I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. That’s why I’m calling.”
She’d smiled and twisted her hand around the phone’s cord. “You’re calling me on the phone to tell me that you don’t want to talk on the phone?”
“You’re still you,” he’d said, and she’d heard relief in his voice. It was almost as though he’d been genuinely afraid that in the past two years she’d morphed into an entirely different person. But that was one of the main differences between her and him—the difference that had proved to be too insurmountable to overcome when push came to shove. She didn’t believe that people could really change. And he did. He believed in anything if it was given time.
“More or less,” she’d said.
“I want to see you.”
“When you’re in New York?”
“I was thinking that was my best shot. I didn’t think you’d agree to my offer to fly you out to come meet me right now in San Francisco.”
She’d held her breath like she was considering this even though she really wasn’t. “New York would be better.”
“I thought so.”
“Will you go to dinner with me?”
She held her breath again. “I want to hear you play.”
“You’ve already heard me play.”
“I want to hear you play these songs.”
“You’ve already heard me play these songs.” There was an edge to his voice.
“Not all of them. Not ‘Finally, Always.’ I love that song.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“You like that one, huh?” he finally said.
She wound the cord tighter around her fingers. “Yeah.”
She wanted to say: Did you write it for me? Do you forgive me for being impatient? For leaving you behind in Indiana? I’m so proud of you, Julian.
And even though she didn’t say any of those things, he still said, “You know that song was for you, right?”
“I thought so.” Her voice had turned tiny and timid. Julian used to refer to it as her mouse voice.
“So will you see me?”
She didn’t want to agree to dinner just yet. She didn’t even know if she could handle it, if her heart could handle it. She didn’t trust herself to sit calmly across the table from him. How could she be expected to share a bread basket with him, smile, and pretend like they hadn’t smashed each other to smithereens?
“Julian” was all she said.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“We destroyed each other. Do you really want to visit the wreckage?” She remembered the long fights in Oak Falls where she’d accused him of being a lazy coward and he’d accused her of being impatient and impractical and of having standards that were too damn high.
Of course I do, she’d thought when he’d accused her of that. I want more of you. I want more for you. I want more of everything. No one puts an ocean between themselves and their home who isn’t wildly, madly in search of more.
There was a long pause on the phone. She wondered where he was calling from. Maybe San Francisco. He’d mentioned San Francisco. She imagined him at a pay phone on a hilly street, but then quickly corrected that mental image. Did successful musicians use pay phones? He was probably calling her from some fancy hotel room with a fluffy bed adorned with five-hundred-thread-count sheets. There was probably some model next to him right now, her silky blond hair spilling over the neighboring pillow. The thought made Lena’s stomach coil, though she knew she had no right to be jealous. She’d given up that right when she left him standing heartbroken on the back porch of his family’s home, his whole face begging her not to go, his blue eyes ringed with red.
When Julian hadn’t said anything for a whole minute, she pressed the phone’s receiver closer to her ear. She heard his shallow breathing and was filled with relief that he hadn’t hung up, but then chastised herself for caring.
“Yes,” he said. “I do. I do want to visit the wreckage, Lena. I want to rebuild everything. With you.”
The relief she’d felt moments before was amplified. And a fluttery feeling of hope bubbled in her stomach and got stronger as she replayed in her head what he’d just said.