Chapter 8 : A message in a Bottle

Arizona's POV

That Sunday morning began as every Sunday morning: I got up at dawn, drank a coffee in the kitchen while listening to radio, called my mother to tell her about my week as well as Sofia's, read some medical articles and then woke Sofia up.

We spent a peaceful day, we went to play in the park and then we enjoyed some cute cupcakes in an extremely cute pastry shop.

At the end of the day, as Sofia had gone up to her room to complete her homework and I had been working in the living room, I received a text from Callie.

Callie: Arizona, I think we need to talk about the two of us. Anyway, I need to talk to you about us. I have some things I want to tell you.

Arizona: I agree, I think we need to clear things up.

Callie: I am flying back from Los Angeles on Tuesday. Shall we talk on Tuesday night?

Arizona: If you want, we can meet up after work in a café, halfway between our places.

Callie: In addition, Sofia told me she wanted to go and have a sleepover at one of her friends' houses. We'll have time to talk!

Arizona: See you on Tuesday then!

Callie: See you on Tuesday.

This conversation had really surprised me, and I did not really know what to think about it. I didn't know if this conversation was going to be positive or not. I did not know if it was going to transform things between Callie and me.

Anyway, I was completely lost. I did not know if this conversation was going to lead to a positive outcome for us or if it was going to completely shatter my hopes.

During the evening and then at night I was completely taken aback and could not concentrate on what I was producing.

The next morning I took Sofia to school for her first day back in her New York school and then I drove to the center, as I had a work session planned with Nicole and the teacher we had hired, Jen.

After the meeting, which lasted almost two hours, I went to get a coffee from a vending machine and sat down at a table to drink it. I was quickly joined by Jen.

"How are you?" She interrogated me.

"Everything is quite okay." I lied.

"You really seemed to be absent-minded during the meeting."

"I was absolutely committed to this meeting but I just have a lot of things going on in my life right now."

"If you want to talk, I'm here. You should know that before I went to biology school, I achieved a semester of psychology."

"Do you have like twelve hours free so I can tell you the whole story?"

"No, but you could try to shorten it. Let's say I have two hours!"

As we continued to drink coffee, I summed up our whole story to her. I really needed to share my doubts with someone and couldn't do that with Sofia.

"You're right, a lot is going on in your life right now."

"Yes, and sometimes that's a lot to think about!"

"What do you plan to tell her?"

"I don't know, I don't even know what she wants to tell me. I tried to put together some kind of speech, but it's complicated."

"I know I don't know you very well but the only thing I learned from the course called Interactional and Relational Psychology is that we all just react to our environment. Making plans never works. We adapt our speeches, our words, we adapt our movements."

"So, I guess I'll adapt."

"And if it doesn't work, we'll adapt and I'll tell my husband to take care of the children and we'll go and drink cocktails in a chic bar."