Songs For Your Mother

All you had to do was choose one. One. How hard is that?’ Will asks.
‘We sort of agreed that we wouldn’t, that we would do that after I’d driven back,’ I say.
‘That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. It’s like you two knew you were never going to see each other again. I’d also guess she knew you weren’t coming back,’ Will says.
It hurts to hear that. It’s something I hadn’t considered, and I start to doubt myself. Was that why Lauren did this? Did she suspect that it was a possibility? I don’t want to believe it. The thought never occurred to me. In my mind, I was always going back. There wasn’t anything that was going to stop me. Yet here I am standing with Will making the decision not to go back.
‘You think?’ I ask.
‘Of course, I mean, why make it so hard for each other otherwise? It doesn’t make sense any other way. She knew,’ Will says emphatically.
‘There’s that,’ I say, nodding in disbelief, now unsure of my mind.
‘Besides, be realistic for a moment. She lives six thousand miles away,’ Will says.
After he says this, a terrible realisation hits me. I am going to end up being one of those stories. I am going to be a sidebar topic when Lauren and her girlfriends sit around and talk about guys. I’m going to be the guy from England. I’m going to be ‘that story’. One of her friends will say ‘so what about that British guy? Whatever happened to him?’ Then Lauren will relate how we had this one night together. For the purposes of her story, I’ll be Wailing Break-Up Guy. She’ll recall how we walked along the beach and played the guitar, and how I never came back.
‘All I’m saying is that it is what it is, a one-night stand in Santa Cruz. No rule says it has to be anything more,’ Will says.
A one-night stand is selling it short.
‘It felt like a lot more than that,’ I say.
‘Doesn’t it always?’ Will asks.
I shake my head, no, it doesn’t. Sometimes it feels like exactly what it is, and you know it from the start. Drunken sex followed by sober regret, for one or both parties. Nights where two people crash together in a boozy blaze of sparks, burning bright in the night and leaving only cold, damp ashes in the morning. The names and faces blur in the grey daylight. Last night wasn’t like that: it had heart and soul. I can remember each moment as if it had taken place at a slow and balletic pace as the evening moved through its arc. Not a second of it is a blur. It felt precious and like many nights packed tight into one. I don’t say this. I don’t say anything.
‘Look at it this way: maybe it was perfect like it was and anything more would kill it?’ Will says.
‘Maybe,’ I say, although I’m not convinced, and I don’t want to let go.
‘We have music, sunshine and plenty of road. So, are we good? I think Pescadero is the next stop,’ Will says, trying to rapidly wrap our conversation.
‘Yeah, we’re good,’ I say, but we’re not. Or at least I’m not, and I don’t make a move. I stand there looking back the way we have come and thinking about Lauren. I stare down the road a while longer. Will starts to drum gently on the metal of the car. He looks at me and asks me again if we’re good. It’s only then that I bow to the crushing weight of the inevitable. I shrug and nod.
‘I suppose so,’ I say, and I open the door to the car and start to get back in when Will calls out.
‘Why don’t you take a break, I’ll drive, you look like you’re ready to be a passenger.’
We switch sides, and he’s right. I feel very weary. Will gets behind the wheel and starts the engine. I’m listening to the sound of the tyres as we roll down the road. Santa Cruz is falling further behind us by the second, and all I can think is that Lauren is no longer the girl I’m going back for. She is now the girl I’m leaving behind, and I know I’ve made the wrong decision.
We have only been driving for ten minutes or so as we sweep around a bend and Will pulls the car into the side of the road. He looks across at me, shaking his head. What now?
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Will says.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I know you, and you are going to carry that face around for the next two or so weeks, looking like someone killed your dog. We’ll go back. We’ll lose a day, but so what. Get her details, and what happens after that is up to the pair of you. If it’s like you say, then maybe together you’ll work something out. Maybe she’s the one, and you’ll have this great trans-Atlantic romance. This way, at least you’ll know. Okay?’
My face lights up like someone flicked a switch. I’ll be the guy who came back, the guy who kept his word. My faith in life is restored. Fate isn’t so bad after all. Sometimes it finds a way to get through. I can feel the smile on my face stretching my mouth full.
‘Thanks for this,’ I say.
‘I know you would do the same for me,’ Will says.
With that Will swings the car across the road. He mutters under his breath, as we fail to turn in a single movement. I shake my head at him smiling. The car stalls, and Will struggles to get it into reverse. Then I see it, and Will sees it: the big black truck sweeping around the corner like an unstoppable automotive hammer of God. We look at each other and, with cold, hard, granite-like certainty, we know the truck isn’t going to stop.
I hear Will yelling at me, and he’s pulling