One year ago, I took a trip on a whim across the country to visit a friend. Things weren’t great in my life, and everything felt on the verge of collapse. It seemed like the entire world was going to end.
I wrote this story shortly after the trip. It’s not been shared with more than a handful of people, but it’s been a year. It can live here.
This is the airplane window that I look out of on my eastbound flight to Philadelphia.
I am sitting at the back of the plane because I bought the tickets four days before and this seat was cheapest. There is a six-year-old boy sitting next to me, and he keeps tapping my shoulder. He leans into my personal space for the fourth time to peer out the window. This flight is five-and-a-half hours long, and he ran out of things to do ages ago.
When the plane flies over Ohio, I think about the train derailment and chemical fires that happened just a week before. Outside the window, a dark cloud hovers over the landscape. Another airplane, just like the one I am in, is flying west. The chemicals in the atmosphere pass through the jet’s engines and turn its contrails black. My plane shakes from turbulence, and I have an anxiety attack while a sleeping child kicks at my leg.
This is my suitcase on the floor of the Philadelphia International Airport. The coarse sides are made of a burnt orange fabric. The rolling case belonged to my ex, and when she stormed out last year, she left it behind. One of the wheels was stuck, and why would she take the time to fix something that wasn’t working? Before the trip, I replaced the axle for the wheel. It works, but nothing like before.
I run my fingers over the pattern on the suitcase and wait. It’s 2:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, and Ross will not arrive at the airport until 3:00.
This is the beat-up Mazda SUV that Ross picks me up in. Last June, when Carl died, she drove it to the beach in Pacifica and cried for three days. Then she made her way back across the country, alone, to her home in Pennsylvania. The drive back did a number on the car and now the check engine light is always on.
After her boyfriend’s funeral in July, Ross called me out of the blue. “It seems we’ve both lost people recently,” she said.
This is Ross. She is five feet and five inches tall with bags under her eyes and short black hair. Her voice has a pepped-up energy that doesn’t match the tiredness on her face. In three days, it will finally wear down to match the exhaustion in her eyes. Today, when she tosses my suitcase into the trunk of her car, she smiles. It’s first time she’s seen me in years.
“Oh my god, sorry, hello! We’ve been talking almost every day for months and I didn’t even think to hug you,” she says.
I laugh. “I’m not a tiny picture in your phone anymore.”
Her head fits perfectly under my chin. “You’re shorter than I remember,” I say. I linger in the embrace, ignoring the car honks and screeches of airport traffic.
This is the record that Ross plays on the car radio my first day in Philadelphia. 808s boom through the speakers, and the artist jumps from rap verse to melodic chorus, screaming about love, longing, and forgiveness. Ross whips her head around and screams when the tempo changes. She wishes she could crack herself open at the ribcage and let this album live inside of her.
On the return flight to San Francisco, I will listen to this record on repeat no less than 4 times, wishing I could crack myself apart too.
This is the quesadilla that Ross gets me from Wawa. It’s more than gas station food, she tells me. She’s right. I understand why a Wawa appears every half mile along route one.
In two days’ time, after a lengthy discussion about our relationship, we will drive through Wawa, Pennsylvania, in silence. She will speak only to point out the company’s corporate offices.
But tonight, she is spilling chipotle sauce on her sleeve and reminiscing about her boyfriend between mouthfuls of food. This is her favorite photo of him. On her phone screen she swipes to an unglamorous photo. Carl has snot dripping from his nose, tears streaming out of his eyes, and a laugh that is frozen in time. I laugh at one of Ross’s stories, overcoming the discomfort that discussions about dead boyfriends bring. I admire Carl’s smile.
This is the beach in New Jersey where we sit the next evening. It took nearly two hours to drive here. I stare at the Atlantic Ocean’s waves as they crash onto the frozen shore. Ross leans her head onto my shoulder and the cold wind tears through our coats. On the horizon, we spot a cargo ship cruising by.
“None of my friends have wanted to drive all the way out here,” Ross says. “It’s like 90 miles from Philly.”
“Would Carl have wanted to?” I ask.
“Of course. We’re inseparable.” She sits up and shivers from the breeze.
“I mean, were. We were.”
I lower my voice. “Sorry.” It’s barely audible above the wind.
“Not your fault. Plenty of people died of covid.”
“People are still dying of covid,” I say.
Ross leans into me once more. “It’s like the world is ending in slow motion every day.”
We sit on the seaside bench until the sky darkens completely. Ross and I climb into her car and drive away.
This is the Philadelphia Museum of Art the next afternoon. Built in the 1920s, it sits on top of a hill at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. In the 1970s, the long stairway in front of the museum was used as a set piece in a film about boxing. Each day, hundreds of tourists pose for photos outside of the southeast entrance, raising their fists above their heads.
Ross and I take the north entrance. Neither of us have seen Rocky, nor do we think recreating a shot from a movie is particularly meaningful.
This is Ross’s favorite piece in the museum’s collection. It is an oil painting of the Ecuadorian landscape. She stares at the details intently. She’s amazed that a painter in 1867 could create such vivid artwork. It rivals modern photography.
This is my favorite piece in the museum. I am astonished that there are so many of Monet’s artworks in one place. Ross takes two steps toward the painting, then three steps back. She dislikes the impressionism and lack of detail. I tell Ross that she doesn’t get Monet because she is between jobs. She laughs and punches my shoulder.
“That pun sucks,” she says.
This is the parking lot by the Delaware River where Ross and I talk for over an hour. I am confused about our friendship. I stare at the water, and I bring up the dozens of late night phone calls and the come-ons that we’ve both brushed off from one another. Ross remains silent while I try to describe my feelings. I lay them out in front of me like a thick binder of files, opening folders recursively until I can point to a diagram that can articulate the longing I feel for her.
We sit in silence. Birds swoop over the water.
Ross clears her throat and tells me that she isn’t confused.
“Last year, I woke up next to someone who couldn’t breathe. Ever since, I’ve barely been above the water. It was paramedics, and phone calls, and not being able to afford anything. Ryan, I had to tell someone that her son is dead.
“I am stuck in this unending wave of grief and debt and confusion every single day. I’m sorry. I just need a friend to hold onto.”
I sit in the passenger seat. Ross has been kneading her hands on the steering wheel.
“If things were different,” she continues, “We might have hooked up long ago. And I would have crashed into the rocks.”
I stare at my feet and close the imaginary binder in my lap. I tell her I understand what she means.
“I’m your friend,” I say. “Maybe in the future, that’ll change.”
“I don’t know. Probably not,” Ross says.
These are the six dollars that Ross hands me so we can split some slices at Mel’s Pizzeria. The television above us has some sort of talk show, and it chatters on about sports teams and football players. We focus on that instead of ourselves. At the end of the week, I’ll trade the six dollars for corner store noodles and a bottle of soda. The five remaining quarters will get spent at the laundromat near my apartment.
During a commercial break, Ross jokes to me that I am foolish for flying across the country to confess my feelings. I state that I’ve done dumber things. She takes a bite of pizza and changes the subject, saying that Mel is an artist in the medium of dough and cheese.
“It’s a shame they don’t put pizzas in museums,” she says.
Outside, a storm rolls in. The chemicals in the sky return to the earth as acid rain.
This is terminal A24 at the Philadelphia International Airport. After leaving the pizzeria, Ross drops me off at Departures and says goodbye to me with a tired voice that finally matches the bags under her eyes. I walk away from her car, put on a face mask, and make my way through airport security.
I’m waiting for the plane when Ross calls me to say that she was kidding in the car. She adds that she doesn’t want my flight to be cancelled, but if it is, I can spend another night at her place. I let out a thank you.
This is the airplane window I look out of as I return west. The seat next to me is empty this time. Occasionally I’m able to close my eyes, but the harsh sawtooth wave that opens Ross’s favorite album jolts me awake every forty-one minutes.
This is a text exchange three days after I return to San Francisco.
I feel numb, Ross says. I don’t think we should talk for a while.
I reply twice. I get it.
I won’t say anything until you say something first.
She texts back. Thank you.
This is my apartment, where I sit completely alone on a Friday afternoon. My home is exactly as I left it. It doesn’t know that things are different now. I think of the beach, the art museum, the gas station take-out, the chemical spills, the diseases, and so many other things.
I want to crack myself open and spill it all onto the floor.