Five-forty AM. Marcus's car. He's driving. I'm in the passenger seat. The 405 is empty the way it only is at this hour, and the airport is sixteen minutes away, and the red-eye to Atlanta boards at six-forty.
The suitcase is in the back. One suitcase. The boxes go later. Marcus's spare bedroom can hold them for now. For now is one of those phrases that turn into years if you don't watch it, but I'm not watching anything right now. I'm just looking out the window at the empty 405.
She offered to drive me. Last night. Late. Through a closed door, because I had locked it, because I couldn't be in a room with her anymore. I can take you to LAX in the morning, Shaun. I said no. I said it the way you say no when you are about to break, which is short. Just the one word. She said please, baby, and I didn't answer, and a few minutes later I heard the front door, and a few minutes after that I heard her car, and a few minutes after that the building was quiet.
She had already taken the firm. She had already taken Victor Reyes. She had already taken the Paramount contact. She wanted to take me to the airport.
That is the part I cannot get my head around. Not the firm. Not the contracts. The airport. The wanting to drive me.
Marcus said I should fly East. He said get out of this city for a year, see what comes back. He said Atlanta because his cousin is there and his cousin knows people. He said it last night around eleven, and I said yes, and he booked the ticket on his card because I was not going to wait for my own card to register the charge, and he said pay me back whenever, and we drank in his kitchen until two and I slept in his guest room and he woke me up at five.
The suitcase has —
Two suits. Four shirts. Underwear. The laptop. The hard drive. Two pairs of shoes. The good headphones. The book I started in March and never finished. The Howard sweatshirt. Mama's number on a piece of paper in case my phone die at the wrong moment.
The suitcase does not have —
The methodology document, because she has the methodology document. The Rolodex, because she has the Rolodex. The website, because she has the website. The years.
I have the years. I am taking the years. The years are in my head and she cannot get them out. Marcus said this last night around midnight. She can take the contracts, brother, she cannot take what you know. I nodded. I am still nodding. I will nod about this for a long time.
Marcus don't talk much in the car. Marcus know better. Marcus has been around enough grief to know that the talking part come later. He drive. I look out the window. The 405 stays empty. The airport sign come up faster than I want.
He pull up to Departures. Delta. Terminal 2. He don't get out. He don't try to hug me at the curb because he know I will not survive a curb hug right now. He grip my shoulder once, firm, the kind of grip that say I see you. Go.
He say: Rebuild. Don't let her be the last chapter.
I say: I won't.
I don't know yet if I mean it. I will work on meaning it.
I get out. I take the suitcase. I walk through the sliding doors and they close behind me and Marcus pull away and the terminal is the cold fluorescent kind of empty that LAX is at five-fifty AM.
I check in. Security. Gate. I sit at the gate. I look at my hands. They are not shaking. I notice that. The hands not shaking is a fact I file under small mercies because I have started filing things under that today.
The plane boards. I sit by the window because I want to see LA the way I am going to see it for the last time tonight — from above, lit up, the city that taught me I do not know what I am doing even when I think I do.
It taught me. I want to be on record about that. I learned the lesson. I am taking the lesson with me.
The plane pushes back. The pilot say the flight time to Atlanta is three hours forty minutes. I close my eyes. I do not sleep. I will not sleep for a while now.
But I am going. I am going.
That counts.