Twelve Dollars

I’d started dating a girl while attending college back home the semester before.

She was my first girlfriend—college or otherwise.

I should have broken up with her before leaving.

Then she bought a plane ticket.

~

“Hey, did you get my care package yet?”

I had to admit I had no I idea what she was talking about.

A few weeks later, that was still the case.

“It’s at the airport. You just need to go and sign for it and pay the customs.”

But I never did; it wasn’t worth it.

“I tried. But they want like a hundred bucks for it.”

I wrote back.

A semester later, she handed the box back to me after it had been returned.

“Here. This is yours. I need it out of my house.”

Then she thrust it at me and closed the door.

~

When the day of our reunion came, I rode the bus to the airport. Standing outside the terminal, I saw my reflection in the glass doors and I flinched. An unkept stranger with a dirty shirt looked back.

Then the doors slid open, and I saw her face. She’s looked cute—cuter than I’d remembered, and suddenly I was embarrassed. Then she smiled, and for a moment everything was okay.

She pulled her luggage onto the bus.

“What do you want to do first?”

I hesitated.

“Introduce you to my host family. Then maybe we can go to my school, and sit in the grass. The cafeteria’s pretty good too, though a bit bland. You’ll learn to like it.”

“Just that? No volcanos, or sloths, or little vacation houses on the beach?”

“Naw. I thought I’d just show you what I do here. I go to school, I go home, oh, and sometimes I eat these burritos at the … Oh man, you really should try them.”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Take me somewhere else.”

~

Some got off the bus a stop early.

There, we found a bench in the town’s Central Park and watched the pigeons play in the fountain as the sun set.

At first, we were careful and polite, pretending our old rhythm might return, but by the end of the evening, silence had overtaken conversation, and we’d slowly moved to opposite sides of the bench.

“I guess I should go to bed. Perhaps things will make more sense in the morning. Where are we staying?”

“We?”

I explained the hostel.

The dorm room.

The rule about my host family.

“And I’ll just go home. It’s cheaper.”

“Cheaper?”

“Yeah. It’s like twelve dollars a night.”

“Twelve dollars?”

She looked at me—not confused, just quiet.

I nodded.

“I’ll come find you after school tomorrow.”

Then I left her at the hostel door.

~

The drive back felt longer than it was. Every light lingering, every intersection calling to me like a silent urge.

“Twelve dollars.”

I shook my head.

The driver turned.

“¿Qué dojo?”

“Turn around. I mean… dé la vuelta. Por favor.”

~

I ran to the hostel and knocked hard against the door. The lights were off. The door stayed closed.

I stood there longer than I needed to, waiting for something to change—for a light, a step, a voice, but it never came.

After a while, I stopped knocking and I walked back to the street. Alone.