It was way to early for me to be up. I had been planning on sleeping in until noon until a hyper red head jumped me in my own bed.
"Axel!" I shouted at him in surprise, my eyes practically bugging out of my head as I scrambled to sit up while shoving a laughing Axel off my bed. He landed with a thud on the floor as I jumped to the other side of the bed and quickly pulled on a pair of sweatpants, since I had been sleeping in my boxers and an undershirt, unaware that anyone would be surprising me in my own bed this morning. When I was fully clothed and Axel was standing up, still laughing, I confronted him on this situation. "Axel, what the hell man? What are you doing in my room at 5 in the morning?"
"Oh lighten up," Axel replied as he casually slumped down into the chair by my desk. "My mom's being a pain in the butt and I was kind of hoping you would be willing to give me a ride to the airport, like the wonderful, kind, amazing, generous-"
"Flattery will get you no where with me at 5 a.m." I cut it, and he began a new tactic: pouting. "Oh come on Axel, you're not five."
"But if I was, I'd need a ride to the airport. You wouldn't let a five year old go all by himself would you?" I gave him a 'you have to be shitting me look,' but finally gave in. Axel's unique sense of immaturity had kicked in again and won me over. I fished a T-shirt and a pair of jeans out of my closet and in a few minutes we were stuffing Axel's suitcases into the back of my Saturn. I hated my car, but it was all I could afford so I was forced to deal. Crowded inside the already cramped car was Axel and just about everything he had ever owned, with me sitting scrunched in the driver's seat with a suitcase jabbing me in the head.
"Wow Axel, just…wow. I think you need some more stuff, the car feels a little empty." He lightly punched my shoulder.
"Come on, just drive." I shifted into drive and pulled out of my driveway. I had left a note for my mom on the kitchen table, but hopefully I would be back before she woke up because note or not she wouldn't be too thrilled about this. The airport was about half an hour away, and for the first five minutes we sat in an awkward silence, which was weird for Axel since he never seemed to stop talking.
"So…" The streets were deserted this early on a Saturday morning, so there wasn't much to keep my mind occupied with, besides the awkward silence. "What happened with you and your mom this morning?" Normally Axel's mom and him got along really well, but when she got stressed out she acted like every little annoying thing that someone did was comparable to Mount St. Helens erupting in her own home. She loved to freak out, exaggerate, and melt down when she was stressed, so in a way I couldn't blame Axel for not wanting to have to deal with her in his final moments here. Plus, in a weird way, even though I had to get up before the freaking sun did, I was glad Axel had picked me to bring him to the library. Well, maybe picked wasn't the right word, more like snuck up on and then manipulated into driving.
He sighed, and I sensed that whatever happened between them was more serious than I had thought. "It was so weird man, like everything that happened is like a dream." A car ran the red light at the intersection and almost hit me. Jackass. Why did people drive like they didn't have brains, even if it was so freaking early in the morning. "She was stressing out cause she didn't think I had everything one second, and then the next she was sobbing, uncontrollably. I figured it would be because her only son was leaving for college, you know?" I nodded when he looked over. It seemed logical enough. "Wrong. She freaked out because she didn't remind me to dust my bookshelf before I left, so now she would have to do it herself. I just kind of stood there, looking at her for a minute, like 'what is wrong with you?' Then, I grabbed my bags and left after I told her I was getting a ride from you. Of course she threw a fit about that but I just hugged her goodbye, promised I call her soon, and left. There are some things I just can't deal with on days like today, and that was one of them."
I sat there in silence for a moment, letting his busy morning sink in as I got on the expressway. "I think your mother might be crazy."
He snorted, and I laughed at him. "You think?"
The rest of the ride flew by. Axel talked more than I though possible for any human being, but at least there wasn't any more awkward silence. And then suddenly, we were there.
The airport once seemed exciting and wonderful to me, beckoning me to hop on a plane and see the world. Now, this once positive place once made a knot in my stomach grow tighter. I pulled up to the doors leading to his flight desk and hopped out to help him drag everything up to the counter. It took us two trips, but finally everything was tagged and stamped and sent on its way down the conveyer belt. Axel, with his backpack carry-on, thanked me for being a good sport even though he had attacked me in my own room this morning. "At least my exit was memorable!" That it was Axel. That it was. We said our goodbyes and Axel gave me a crushing bear hug that actually lifted me off the ground as my face was squashed into his chest before he walked off to go through security.
I waited until the crowds of people had swallowed him up before leaving. I walked outside, a swirl of emotions and thought, and I realized I couldn't go home yet. At 6 a.m. in the morning, however surprising, I didn't have many other options. I decided on stopping at a small diner off the expressway that catered to truck drivers, had a wide early breakfast spread, and was facing the airport. I ordered a cup of coffee and a breakfast plate and started out the window, wondering which plane Axel would make his exit on.
"Refill?" The waitress snapped me out of my thoughts so suddenly I jumped, making her jump as a reflex. "Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to startle you."
I shook my head in protest. "No, no I'm sorry I was just zoned out, and sure. Thanks." The waitress was older, probably around my mom's age.
"I see it all the time here, darlin'. There's always someone over there in that airport that's leaving for bigger and better things than this town and city can offer, and there's almost always someone sitting over in this restaurant, wishing they were going too." She poured my coffee and gave me a smile that seemed to hold in it the answers to all of life's mysteries, which apparently could be discovered through working the early shift at a diner.
I decided to wait till I was sure Axel's plane had taken off, so I killed two and a half hours in that diner sitting in a booth with red vinyl covering that squeaked when I moved while my waitress (who's name I learned to be Sal, short for Sally, but never call her Sally because she hated it) filled up my coffee like clockwork and supplied me with a muffin every half hour, two of which were on the house. I watched each plane that took off from 8:00 to 8:30, and then finally decided it was time to get a move on.
"Good luck with everything, darlin'. And don't be a stranger, come back sometime soon!" I waved and smiled, both completely genuine, before walking slowly to my car. The ride home was silent and weird. I was no longer tired physically since I had downed about four cups of coffee, but I was mentally exhausted.
Once home I quietly snuck inside to find my mom hadn't woken up yet. I grabbed my note off the table and replaced it with another one saying I'd be down by the lake. The path seemed to have gotten longer, or was it just the fact that every step I took seemed to weigh a thousand pounds? I finally emerged out of the woods and onto the beach, which was vacant and still had that early morning feel to it with a faint mist clinging to the water's edge. The bench beckoned me to sit down, and I accepted its invitation, tired and emotionally drained. I had always figured that when Axel left I would cry at least a little, but now sitting here, positive he was gone, I couldn't cry. Not even a little. My mind was still replaying over and over our last moments together, when he crushed me in hug so tight I could barely breathe. That's how I wanted to remember him until I saw him again: happy, goofy, and confidently walking away into the unknown.