Way Back Home

“But Stella, I need that order to reach LA this evening or our jobs are on thin ice. Zachary adores us, but it doesn’t mean he won’t hesitate to fire us!” Michelle's words sprint out to the other side of the phone as her assistant at the Palette magazine tries to push in a response. “That’s it, I don’t know whose birthday surprise you’re planning today, if you love your job, make the order on time.” With that she ends the call and steps out of her car, slamming the door shut. She’s standing outside a gigantic roadside diner and it’s a warm evening. She’s loving how the sky is in all her pretty colours today; purple, pink and blue fading into eachother so perfectly. She begins to walk into the diner and her phone pings, but she ignores it and decides to attend it when she has a booth to herself. She finds one and sits on the dusty pink sofa in relief as she unties her hair . Its time to get back to the ping, so she scrolls through the messages. A message from Dad. “Hey hun, hope you’re on your way. We miss you so much and the fact that you’re just a day away from us is even more unbearable than thinking about all those months apart. Don’t stress yourself out, you’ve earned this sweetie. Lot’s o' love!” She’s smiling oh so silly at her screen. Even though she loves it, her job has been too much for her lately. One time she was so all up in her head about a deadline, that she forgot to lock her apartment before leaving for work. But bless sweet Mimi living across the hall to take such good care of it. Till date Michelle brings various little desserts to her, each weekend, as a gesture of gratitude.

Her phone rings and Michelle almost yelps out of surprise. Its work again and she’s not one to ignore it, so she picks it up. “ How could you not remember such a stupid thing Stel?! You know I love you but I’m finding it very hard to feel so lately . They’re seven freaking suits, okay?” she stands up and walks over to the jukebox as she puts a penny into it, a bit furiously now, “ The time I’ve spent grooming you could’ve easily been spent on spa’s, you should be grateful I’m so dedicated and worried about you!” and with that she ends the call. She rests her hands on either corners of the jukebox as the song of her choice begins to seep into the air.

A guy on the other side of the diner seems to be rather busy staring at her in confusion. He stands up and with unsure steps walks up to Michelle, stopping at just three steps away from her as he hears her mumble angrily.

A tap on the shoulder.

“Michelle?” he speaks, still trying to be polite to the stranger who turns around, annoyed. “ Haha, you’re looking like my record label's CEO, all salty and puffy. Kinda like a salted bun!” he jokes as he becomes as sure as day that the stranger indeed is his childhood best friend, silly Michelle. “ Excuse me I think you’ve got the wro- Daniel?” she’s shook. “That’s right girl, be shook, you’re looking at the headman of the up and coming punk rock band Not It!” says Daniel as a proud look makes it to his face. She stares at him, “ No damn way. Danny boy, good to see you uh after what five long years?” and he nods in response. She begins to walk to her booth, as if she hadn’t just met her childhood best friend, the boy whom she had promised to stick together with as he had done the same. “Well well? Mitch that’s it? Didn’t you miss me?” questions Daniel while following Michelle to her booth. “ No you dumbo, I knew you’d follow me to the booth, or atleast I was hoping you would. Also, I haven’t spent five cool years just to comeback to your Mitch, don’t call me that.” she retorted.

They settle down at the booth, sitting face to face. Daniel looks quite enthusiastic about their sudden meet, whereas Mitchell doesn’t seem more than a ‘oh!’ surprised to see him. At this point they’re just sitting. But Michelle breaks the ice with, “ You look...uh, very punk rocky?” and Daniel mouths, "unbelievable!"

“ Real smooth, miss fashionista. Thanks, you don’t look bad either.” he chuckles as he shakes his head at her.

“ I meant to say that, you look different than how I expected you to. Obviously not a bad different, just.. unexpected. I love your black nail polish and don’t even get me started on those little hoop earrings.” said Michelle as a matter-of-factly.

“ Okay I’ll believe ya, I do look great. But why unexpected?” he asked, all too curious. She retorted, “ Uhm I don’t know maybe because you left town for MBA? Because I don’t usually see MBA grads in casual oversized dark clothes and black nail polish, not that that’s the convention.”

“ As you can see this guy’s a punk rocker and not a businessman. So let him look like he wants to.” he speaks in a sing song manner as he leans over the table and towards Michelle, his confident gaze searching for the woman's sitting across . “ Enough about my awesome life, how about you? Looks like you followed through the plan of entering the fashion world, with all that boss like screaming at the phone.”

“ Yep. Not much to be explained here. Got into the best college and worked my way up in a great magazine, still working up the ladder. Clearly, all of us would like to know what the hell happened with your plan.”

“ Curiosity killed the cat, miss Mitch.” He did a sort of cat hand gesture at the end of it, smirking silly.

“Go ahead, there’s an officer sitting at the counter just a few steps away, darlin'.” Michelle’s not backing up either.

He began, “ Purr purr, here I go pushy cat. So well, shortly after you left, I started to lose my mind in college.” She looked at him slyly as if saying, “Aww, you missed me so much?” and Daniel ignored it completely as he went on, “I know that I wasn't in town either but thinking about you leaving home just... made me feel someway. Fast forward a little, I came across a bunch of dynamite gals and guys and discovered my love for music. They took me in, well some of them didn’t make it till here. But here I am, a proud member of Not It!”

“ That’s some interesting piece of information bud, you’re lucky this didn’t dip or else I would’ve twisted your ear.” lifting up her eyebrows, she chuckled.

“Oh please, you wouldn’t dare to call me much less think about twisting my ear.” He protested.

“Well you didn’t either.”

“But someone had to.”

"Was waitin' for you."

“I guess we’re both a bit of losers.”

“Yeah, but you more than me.”

“Yeah right, she always has to win, ain’t that right miss Mitch?”

The couple bursts into a laughter, failing to hush up, as the waiter approaches them. It was this kind of banter which they had missed so much. Michelle is shaking her head at Daniel and it seems like he knows what it means.

“ No one can make me laugh like you do.”

Michelle orders a Belgian waffle with whipped cream and a thick shake, along with that she takes the liberty to add a grilled cheese sandwich. Daniel manages to get up before she orders the food, in order to get his half eaten sandwich from his booth. He comes back and sits at the same spot in Michelle’s booth. “Oh no, I ordered another one for you!” she hits her forehead lightly but continues, “ eh well, your appetite would at the worst smirk at the extra sandwich, that is, if you haven’t had the second serving.” Winking at him, struggling to hold her giggles.

“Very funny Mitch, lucky you I don’t care about your vain jeers and the fact that I’m still able to love you, boohoo.” He says as he straightens out his imaginary crisp shirt collar and shoves away her joke. “ and by the way, this indeed is my second sandwich, but I’ll happily devour the third one just to respect your adorable side, remembering my favourite snack.” he gives her a big bright fake smile as she manages to tame her laughter. He continues to snack on his sandwich and feeds a few bites to Michelle too, while she talks about her life and her sweet Mimi who saved her butt last month.

“ At this rate, I should be the one to twist your ear! You must be eternally grateful to sweet Mimi, you McClumsy!” he commented as she revealed how Mimi secured her apartment that one time.

“ Well yeah, eternally responsible to bring desserts to her, even after she refuses. Honestly, I try to maintain this because its difficult to find trustworthy people there, atleast in my fashion world.” Daniel nods in response. She continues, “Besides, who knows I might adopt a cat,” purposely looking at Daniel now, “ or a good friend might gift me one, so I’d ask her to take care of it, by then we would have become best friends!”

“ Ah, scheming little woman, buy your own cats!”

They welcome another round of laughter as their order arrives. Michelle announces, “This one’s on me!”

“You bet it is!” he doesn’t even hesitate a second.

They continue to eat and chat under the neon pinks and blues, doing tiny dances with their shoulders and feet whenever someone played a familiar song on the jukebox. Michelle, obviously, made fun of Daniel’s appetite as he ordered pastries and what not. But hey, its not like she didn’t order less than half of it!

“Ah, what lyrics!” she shouted sarcastically.

“ I know right?! When else do you get a chance to scream to your fans about your ex in a generally aggressive manner?!”

“ Y'know, I own a small library and a few restaurants back at home now, you could perform there if you bring your band.”

“ We definitely could, but I’m on a break, maybe a solo? By the way, don’t think that I missed your evil self offering me to play at a freakin’ library!” a pause, “ Cause I’ll freakin' play!”

“Then you should!”

Things have definitely gotten warmer than they seemed to be when they had first met eachother at the said diner. They’re laughing and talking smack and trying to remember their special handshake. It’s all too endearing, it’s as if there’s no end to their talks.

At this point, both of them are comfortably sprawled either over the table or on their seats.

Daniel glances at Michelle.

In a swift move, he slides out his seat, stands beside their booth and slowly spreads out his arms a little. A pretty red painting his slightly pushed up cheeks as he looks at her with the most endearing smile. For a moment Michelle was confused as to what he was doing. She bounced her eyebrows once as if asking, “What? A hug? Now?”

Daniel smiled bigger and in no time was Michelle getting up and hugging him. She’s a bit shorter than him, so the top of her head reaches his nose. He chimes into the hug, “Wow, I’m offended, am I untouchable or what?” and scoffs incredulously as she realizes the tiny distance still existing between them. She let's out a sigh of exasperation and closes the distance between them, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. You know I’m a sucker for hugs.” Daniel tightens the hug and adds, “A big baby for ‘em!” and they both chuckle. “I guess people haven’t hugged me right,” a pause, “ever since we’ve been out of eachothers’ lives.” She mumbles as Daniel lowers his head and lays his forehead onto her shoulder. She laughs a little and goes on, as if she’s inspecting him, “When did you become so loving?” Daniel pulls away a teensy bit, so that they’re face to face and pouts at her, “Have you signed a petition to piss me off today or what?” and soon bursts into giggles as she joins him, “I’ve always been loving, since the beginning and I’ll always be, unlike your cold self.” Michelle hits him on the shoulder playfully. They’re absolutely adorable, gazing at eachother like no one’s ever adored them the way they did.

“Hey uhm, d-do you wanna dance? I’m rich and there’s a jukebox here.” She asked even though, she knew Daniel couldn’t say no. He nodded, happy tears circling around his lower eyelashes.

“Wait, are- are you crying?” she inquired, moving closer to him to looking for any signs of tears. “Aw my poor baby!” she cried as she proceeded to wipe his tears before they could make it beyond his red cheeks. He tried to stop them but they made their way anyway. “You’re making things difficult for me.” she admitted while wiping off his tears because, she too was struggling to keep her joyful tears at bay now. A hug seemed to be the only thing to save face, so they did, they hugged again. It was as if they were meant to fit together perfectly; so warm, the diner might as well melt, added to this hot evening.

They part and Michelle leads Daniel hand in hand, towards the jukebox. She let’s a coin slip into the machine and they slow dance to the music when she begins to speak softly, “So uh, do you wanna go home? Mom and Dad had caught me on the right time and called me back home, I couldn’t resist.”

He chuckled, “ No way, I was going home too. I guess it’s settled, then.”

He smiled fondly through his soft tears.

“We’re going home.”