Being Arizona chapter 15

Hey guys, I was so excited to write this chapter and I'm pretty proud of it! I realise that the actual airport scene doesn't last long, but for me that's how it was. I didn't see it coming. I was like 'woah!' and then I cried. A lot. So I hope you enjoy!

I felt like the most horrible person in the whole entire world. I took a quick glance around the usual hustle and bustle of Sea-Tac airport, wishing very much that I could be one of those regular people, getting excited for a family holiday or trying to find the right gates so they could catch their plane. I did not want to be standing in the middle of the airport with my heart threatening to burst past my ribcage. I certainly did not want to be making the hardest decision I have ever been faced with.

I looked Callie straight in the eye from where I was standing just a few feet away. The decision I wanted to make was just to continue as we were, but I knew I couldn't do that. I couldn't make her do something that would make her unhappy, even if she was the one who suggested it. I'd very nearly done it with having kids and I sure as hell wasn't going to do it now.

But what if I stayed? Could I let myself do that, and be just as unhappy here as Callie would be going with me? I couldn't do that to myself. This was an amazing, prestigious and rare award that I couldn't just turn down. It was a major advancement in my career.

So, I was faced with the question I'd faced too many times already. What was I supposed to do?

"If you get on that plane, if you leave, we are done. We are over, do you hear me?" She yelled. I looked her straight in the eye again and I knew that there was only one thing that could be done. Practically, I knew that neither of us could be happy when we were apart, but there was a possibility that we could at least be happier than we would be trapped in a country we didn't want to be in.

"We are standing in the middle of an airport screaming it each other." I pointed out. I could feel the stares of the few people who had stopped to observe this situation. I had a point- if I didn't go, what would we do? Break up anyway? Live knowing that we weren't happy? "We're already over."

I took one last look at Callie and, with every fibre of my existence yelling at me to turn around and kiss her and not leave, I turned around and walked. I didn't look back. If I did, I wouldn't keep going, and I needed to keep going. For us. For me. For my career. For Callie. For the better.

I didn't say a word to anyone as I handed my boarding pass, apart from informing them that there would be a seat vacancy, and as I told them my voice very nearly broke, but I managed to control it. I kept my head bowed as I entered the plane and didn't bother touching the outside of the plane for luck, which was a childhood tradition that had stuck with me through adulthood. I quickly put my bag in the overhead carrier before taking my seat next to a middle aged woman, the seat next to me where Calliope was supposed to sit heartbreakingly empty.

'Ladies in gentlemen, the flight will begin taxiing in approximately seven minutes. Please feel free to continue use of electrical devices until then. Thank you.'

Upon hearing that announcement I sighed and pulled my phone from my pocket, only to find it flashing like crazy. I pressed the circular home button at the bottom and it lit up, and I saw that I had 9 missed calls and five texts from Callie and four missed calls from Mark already. Without hesitating I swiped the screen to dismiss them, because this was heard enough. I couldn't be convinced to go back. I wouldn't be. However, with dismissing the notifications came the clear view of my lock screen picture, the same one of us at Joe's that Callie had on her desk in her office. I looked intently at it and smiled before breaking down in tears.

How could I be such a horrible person? I left her. I just left her standing there in the middle of the airport with no idea of the battle that was going on inside my head or how hard it was for me to turn around and not look back. I promised her I wouldn't break her heart and I'd just done it. Again. First with the kids thing and now with this. As hard as I'd tried to do what was best for both of us, I'd failed and now I was the bad person. That's what caused my hands to shake.

Would I ever see her again? I knew this placement was only for three years, but that was a long time. She would probably move on, get a boyfriend or girlfriend and move and get married and have cute little mini Calliopes running around, and I resented the thought. I resented the thought of her with anyone else, and I resented the thought of her kids calling anyone 'momma' that wasn't me. That caused my head to start spinning.

Oh God, what if she moved on with Mark? It wouldn't surprise me. They knew each other perfectly and they were best friends, and he had a penis and he always wanted kids and he didn't have to move to Africa. That's what caused my knee to start bouncing.

But what if she never moved on? What if she just resigned herself to the thought that she'd never find happiness again? What if she became broken and wounded as she had been when I kissed her that night at Joe's? What if she moved back to Miami, away from all of her friends and her hospital family, to where she wasn't happy anyway? That caused my breathing to quicken.

"Miss? Are you okay?" I was brought back to the quiet scenery of the plane, where I was sitting with my head slumped to my chest and with quite a few people looking at me. One of the many things I hated about planes was the quiet buzzing you could always hear from the engine, and that noise right then was louder than normal to me and drilling into my eardrums. The weak morning Seattle sun from outside was painfully bright through the small windows and it burned my eyes.

I looked over to the woman next to me, who had a comforting hand placed on my arm, an expression of concern upon her face. I looked round the other people who had ever so politely stopped to look at me, and most of them looked the same. Apart from a few of them who just looked bored, and one guy who looked annoyed.

I hastily wiped my eyes and clasped my hands together to stop them from shaking. "Yeah." I said, trying desperately to keep my voice from breaking. "I'm fine." I said determinedly, to convince both myself and her, because I needed to be fine. When I arrived in Malawi there would be sick children who needed my help and I couldn't be crying when that time came.

The rest of the flight went slowly. I didn't sleep. I couldn't. The woman sitting next to me, who I later learned whose name was Audrey, was very nice and spent the flight talking about anything and everything. I learned that she was only stopping off in Malawi on her way to Australia. 'It's the longer way round, but I just thought I'd see what it was like.' She told me matter-of-factly. She had two children, Eric and Natalie, and Natalie lived in Australia with her husband Nate and their two kids Emma and Caden.

"So what brings you to Malawi?" She asked.

"I'm a doctor, a paediatric surgeon to be specific. I won an award that gives me a near limitless budget to go to Malawi and help sick children there." I revealed and she smiled.

"Well, I have my doubts about people, but you're one of the good ones. You're going to make a difference." She said seriously which triggered my first smile for hours.

"Right. A difference." I repeated vaguely, and 'a difference' soon became my inner mantra to stop myself from going crazy. I just had to think of all the kids who otherwise didn't have a chance that I would help. The difference I would make.

When I finally got off the plane in Lilongwe, the first thing I noticed was the heat. I'd been braced for the idea of no air conditioning, but I hadn't expected it to be this hot. It was the middle of January an it was freaking freezing in Seattle. The first thing I did when I stepped off of the plane was shed the hoodie and shove it into my rucksack which was slung lazily over my shoulder. As I walked towards the baggage claim I forced myself to concentrate only on what I was doing so as to avoid another public breakdown.

After I retrieved my bag over the desk (there were no carousels at this airport) I simply followed the people and signs until I walked through the international arrivals gate. The airport was pretty small so it wasn't hard to find where I was going. When I got there I looked around to find the person who, according to the person on the foundation board, Carrie, was called Imamu, and I easily found him as he was holding a sin bearing 'Arizona Robbins, welcome to Malawi!'. I smiled and waved at him, approaching him with a handshake.

"Dr Robbins." He greeted me warmly, his accent thick and his voice comfortingly deep. "I'm Imamu. I'll be guiding you, introducing you to people, basically just teaching you the ropes of our clinic."

I smiled and laughed quietly. "Great, because I have no idea what I'm doing." I said and he laughed.

"As long as you help the children, we'll do the rest." He said graciously before leading me out of the airport.

The ride from the airport to the village where the clinic took us about an hour and after a while I got used to the heat. When I was nine we'd lived in Hawaii for a few months and the heat there was pretty intense. We travelled in what closely resembled a golf cart and along the way Imamu pointed out different things to me all of the different animals and which ones were safe to approach and not, the different villages we passed by and the fruit trees. I also learned that the people in Malawi were extremely nice. Our driver, Lerato, spoke no English whatsoever but was so excited to see me and talked animatedly in rapid Swahili while I nodded politely, happy that so far I'd been accepted.

Once we reached the clinic I was welcomed warmly, presented with multiple handmade gifts from the children such as bracelets and necklaces and sunhats. I was given a bowl of what they called Sima which basically just tasted like plain porridge. I was given a backpack containing sunscreen, special sandals that would keep any unwanted bugs or insects out during the day and a mosquito net which I saw was covered in holes. I was shown where I would stay, in a little hut about five minutes from the clinic. It was fairly nice and the people I shared it with were lovely. I was with a family of three- The mother, Kunene, her husband, Sultan and their son Syo were very welcoming and didn't hesitate to show me the ways of the village, introduce me to the people, and teach me their daily routine.

It was needless to say that I was beyond exhausted when I finally lay down on the bottom bunk of the bed joined to Syo's, but no matter how much I tried I just simply couldn't fall asleep. I lay awake thinking of all the events that had flashed by. How Callie and I had gone from so happy to opposite sides of the world in just a few hours. How Teddy had told me that she'd had to remind everyone that I was leaving to, so they'd quickly written my name on the end of the 'goodbye Callie!' banner at our leaving party a few days ago. They wouldn't miss me. Would they?

I cried myself to sleep that night. I don't know if Kunene, Sultan or Syo had heard me, but if they did they didn't say anything. I missed Callie terribly. But I was the one who left. Who just left her standing in the middle of the airport, and whether it was best for both of us or not was still undetermined. But this was my decision, and I was sticking with it.