Best Friends Part 5 Conclusion

Part 4 was the hardest part for me to write. I knew I had to create a separation for the sake of the characters and the story but I didn’t want to separate them by anger because the real Alex and Emma had never fought or argued about anything so it didn’t make any sense to have them fight or argue in the story. Hopefully the final chapter makes sense and ties it all in together for the reader.





Looking back, it was a pretty big gamble moving back to the states after so many years but it was a gamble I was all too eager to make. There were a lot of unsure emotions going through my head at the time. Was I doing the right thing? Would I find what I was looking for when I did arrive? I knew in my heart that I was making the right decision.

Before I had left, the company I had worked for was also a global company meaning they had plants all over the world so the one I worked at was simply one of many. There had been a corporate tour group from the states that came through my plant one day. The president of the group stayed behind my area after the rest of the group carried the tour on to the next stop. He was a pretty nice guy and with both of us being Americans on foreign soil, the conversation eventually turned to him asking what brought me all the way to Australia. I was honest with him and explained that I had moved there with family several years earlier but admitted I had been strongly interested in moving back very soon. He had then explained that the company had a plant in the state that I had come from. When he told me the town, I was stunned. It was towns about fifteen minutes drive from where I grew up. He had then gave me the information on the plant and told me when I got back to look the place up and he would help me get a job there by giving me permission to use him as a reference. I couldn’t believe my luck. One day I am having anxieties over how things would work out and the next day the cards appear to be falling in all the right places like it was meant to be. My mind was now made up and I was finally leaving Oz.

When I landed in the US, I was picked up at the airport by my grandparents who were my only relatives I still had from back home that were still local. I had talked to them before leaving and they agreed to let me stay with me until I was able to establish myself with a new job and a place of my own.

After establishing a US driver’s license, I immediately looked up the company I had worked for and saw by a sign on their door that they were not hiring for production positions but they were hiring for data entry. I was qualified for that position as well so I went in and filled out an application, not expecting much but to get my foot in the door anyways. I did use the president’s name as a reference like he had offered and it worked. A week or so later I was contacted for an interview and was immediately given an office position.

I didn’t have much of a new life yet besides going to work and come home for dinner and sleep but very often I would get off work and just drive around to familiar places for me, hoping to reacquaint and hoping to maybe run into familiar faces. I would even drive by Em’s house hoping her family had still lived there but I had found out that they had moved quite some time back when I had finally gotten the nerve to just get out of my car and ring the doorbell.

I had been on the job now for a few months and was having just one of them days. It was late morning so I hadn’t fully woken up yet, not in a bad mood and not in a good mood. Just…there, but not necessarily into things that particular day. Unbeknownst to me, things were going to drastically change for me that day. Typing away, I could see through my peripherals that our office manager had come upstairs and had brought someone with him. At first I didn’t pay much attention but I could hear him talk as he made his way around the office that he was clearly showing around a new employee. Again I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on…until I heard him say her name when they got to my desk.

“Alex. This is Emma. She will be joining us starting today as our new receptionist.”

I looked up while holding out my hand to shake hers out of polite habit when you are introduced to someone. Our eyes locks and it took a second to actually register with both of us. After all these years, it was really my Em!

There was so much I wanted to say to her but I obviously couldn’t since she was preoccupied. If one was sharp enough, they could tell by the looks on our faces that there was a connection and a history between us. She smiled as she instantly recognized me too. I could see in her eyes that she was dying to talk to me as much as I was dying to talk to her. It was going to be a very long day and my mind was no longer on my work.

All I could think about was how and when I could talk to her but my mind was put at ease when late in the afternoon I suddenly had an email pop up on my computer from “emmap.” It was brief but to the point.

“Hello stranger. Meet me at the park behind the library after work.”

The library was just a couple of minutes drive away from work but I found myself not being able to get there fast enough. When I pulled up, there was just a few cars in the parking lot that overlooked the peaceful park. Her car was an early nineties model Firebird and was easy to pick out since she was still in her car when I pulled up next to her left. She wasted no time jumping out of her car very quickly and into the passenger seat of mine.

“I can’t believe it. After all this ti…”

I didn’t even get my first sentence out when she threw her arms tightly around me.

“You said you were going to write me everyday you were gone.”

“Em. I did write you all the time. I wrote you while I was on the plane. I wrote you every day after that until I started getting all of my letters sent back to me saying you weren’t at your address anymore…I eventually got one in a strange hand writing saying you hadn’t been eating or sleeping until you had finally moved on to someone else. I had even brought the letters all back with me…Em? What happened after I left?”

She was quiet as if she was wondering where to start.

“I did have trouble eating and sleeping at first because I was missing you like crazy but the birthday present you gave me got me through it in anticipation of your letters. I didn’t move on though. Not for a long time anyways when I thought I was never going to hear from you again. I don’t know who would be terrible enough to tell you such a thing.”

“Like I said, I still have the letters. Maybe you would recognize the hand writing because they didn’t bother to sign it. They said you started seeing Steve. The only Steve that came to mind was seven-minutes-in-heaven-Steve from junior high.”

She suddenly looked like she was going to be sick at the thought.

“Steve? Eww! Never in a million years would that have happened. Things did change dramatically though. A few days after you left, my dad informed me that Anna and I were being enrolled in Catholic school for the following year.”

“Catholic school? What was his reasoning behind that?

“To this day we still don’t know and he would never tell us but I believe it was because he somehow found out about the things you and I used to do.”

“Well that would explain his mood change towards me before I left.”

Not wanting to talk about her dad, I was quick to change the subject.

“So, tell me about yourself. Did you marry? Did you have any children?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that either. She seemed a little uncomfortable talking about it but she finally spoke up.

“I did get married about ten years ago. He treats me OK and I have two kids, a girl and a boy. How about you? Did you ever marry? How long have you been back?”

“I have been back for a few months now. I am staying with my grandparents right now until I establish myself in a job and place of my own. After work, I still have a lot of free time on my hands so I like to drive around and see places I hadn’t seen in a long time like our neighborhood. I had been hoping that I would run into you on one of my outings but it is weird seeing familiar neighborhoods and houses but knowing that someone else is living there now. I think a lot about the times we both had growing up and I can’t help but wonder if what happened with us is now happening with two other kids now. I did eventually get married after several years but that lasted about five years before we realized we should have never been together in the first place. We divorced amicably and thankfully we never had any kids together.”

She was quiet for a moment as she listened to my back story before finally making a suggestion.

“Would you like to see some pictures?”

“Of course, I would love to.”

She seemed a little apprehensive at first but slowly pulled out her wallet while flipping her photos open. I saw her son first and noticed him to be about nine in age and looked a lot like his mom.

“Your son?”

“That would be my little guy Travis. He just turned nine back in June.”

“He’s got his momma’s looks.”

I flipped the page and came to a photo of her daughter. She looked about fifteen and the closer I looked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something seemed a little different. I was silent as I tried to figure it out and Em had patiently watched my every facial expression to see if I would figure it out. After a minute of concentrated silence, she finally snapped me out of the trance I was in.

“She is your daughter Alex.”

I looked at Emma and then back to picture and that’s where I had finally realized what it was that seemed different to me. I had suddenly realized that I had been looking into my own eyes. It was then that I had started to cry. Emma moved in closer, held my hand, kissed me on the cheek and hugged me close.

“She is so beautiful. What is our daughter’s name?

“I named her Heidi.”

“That is a beautiful name. Does she know about me?”

“Of course, I have told her a lot about her dad. She keeps saying that she hopes she gets to finally meet you someday.”

“Looks like I have a lot to catch up on huh?”

She looked up at me as if recalling that special night so many years ago.

“I remember that last night we had together. I said to you that I wanted as much of you as I could possibly have. I woke up one morning and was a bit nauseous but I didn’t think too much about it.