Chapter Five:
A Surprise Facetime

APRIL 16TH, 2022

1100 LOCAL
APARTMENT OF AJ ROBERTS
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

No one knows they're in the fierce clutches of young love while they're in them, and that was exactly the case for AJ Roberts and Eleanor Brumby. They may have had their personality differences, logistical obstacles standing in their way, and absolutely no clue how their relationship would fair in the long term, but none of that mattered because they were undeniably, utterly, madly, truly, deeply, in love with each other.

AJ was laying in bed, scrolling through his phone and reading the messages he missed from friends and family back in the states. Apparently his mother's release party the night before hadn't exactly been a hit. There were several texts from James, some from Clara, a couple from his father, several more in the Roberts sibling group chat, and even more in the group chat with all of the cousins.

When the architecture firm AJ had done his post-grad fellowship which not only revealed that they wanted to hire AJ as a full time worker but also that they had international branches, AJ suddenly saw his horizons broaden past Washington DC. In an act born out of curiosity rather than desperation, he decided to pick the farthest possible place away from his family. This act was what led him to the land down under and, ultimately, to Eleanor Brumby.

AJ looked up when he heard the shower stop running. Eleanor emerged a few moments later, wearing her lavender robe she shuffled back and forth from Melbourne to Sydney and vice versa because it was her favorite robe and she refused to use any other robe, with her hair wrapped in a towel.

It was then that AJ took a closer look at some of the messages he received, and he realized that some of the texts weren't about his mother losing her mind over a book review, but rather they were about him.

A one word text from James just saying Sorry.

A text from his father: James said you're seeing someone…?

A text from Clara: Who's the girl?

And finally, a text from his mother: The next time I call you, you better pick up.

The frown on AJ's face deepened as he read that final text. Ellie watched him, a frown forming on her own face as she unwrapped her hair in the bathroom mirror.

"What's wrong, babe?" Ellie said, the pet name coming out a little awkwardly. Recently, they had been trying out different terms of endearment to see which one they wanted to use with each other, as any couple in the early stages of their relationship would be. The only names off limits were "love" which Ellie's parents used, and "sweetie" which AJ's parents used.

They hadn't been able to land on anything to use for each other yet.

"Nothing," AJ quickly shook his head, placing his phone face down on the bed. Out of Sight, Out of Mind. "Just stuff from home."

"Oh." Ellie unwrapped her hair and shook it out from the towel, going to drop the towel on the floor before pausing to tuck it under her arm.

Like any couple, Ellie and AJ were not immune to lover's quarrels. AJ had recently brought it up that he found it irritating how she always left her towels on the floor rather than putting them away, as Ellie had also brought up how she didn't like how he constantly seemed to be wrapped up in some business with his family.

AJ tried to explain to her that their family dynamics were just different - Ellie didn't come from a big family with a bunch of siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents - basically any kind of relative you could think of. Still, she insisted it was weird, the way he was less than a month away from turning twenty-three and his family still knew pretty much knew everything about him.

"That couldn't be me," she'd told him before, "My parents don't know anything about what I do unless I'm home and I have to tell them."

AJ had countered, saying that was also not normal.

He watched as Ellie brushed through her curls with her fingers, her collection of hair products surrounding her like a miniature army. He always marveled at how much she packed for one weekend. On the few occasions where he would visit her in Sydney (they would always split a hotel room because Ellie still lived with her parents), he only brought a backpack.

"You know," AJ said as she picked up one of the bottles. "I was thinking we could go out to dinner tonight."

"That would be fun," Ellie said, not looking at AJ but rather at her reflection in the mirror. Though it had struck him as odd at first, even irked him earlier in their relationship, he now found her preening to be oddly endearing. After going on a few dates with her, AJ began to discover that, once you got her away from a crowd and away from the need to present herself in a perfectly manicured way, Ellie could actually be quite personable.

AJ had always been more observant than most, and over the past few months he'd picked up on certain things Ellie hadn't realized she'd been putting down, reading between the lines she didn't realize she was writing down. Who she appeared to be at first glance was put together well enough that it didn't call into question any possibility of additional depth. By all intents and purposes she was a vapid and blissfully unaware young woman who had very little true direction in life, who spent the bulk of her upbringing living in a gated community and still used her father's credit card for some purchases.

This was definitely the first impression AJ had gotten and then some, but something about her had taken him so aback, caught him so off guard, that he decided to stick around and see what she was actually about.

AJ and Ellie had met under the most improbable whirlwind of circumstances that it still made AJ's head hurt to think about it.

He'd moved to Melbourne in early January, less than a week into the New Year. He'd made the move all by himself, something that had made his father proud and almost sent his mother into a spiral. He was truly on his own for the first time ever, and with that came an awkwardness reminiscent of his first day of high school or college move-in weekend. As he sat alone every evening those first two weeks in Melbourne, he was left to ponder the very serious question of: How the hell do adults make friends?

There were no clubs or sports he could try out for, there wasn't any fraternity he could rush. AJ was at a loss.

As much as life in Arlington had begun to feel stifling, AJ began to wonder if moving halfway across the world had been the right answer.

The third week of bouncing back between his apartment (it hadn't started to feel like a home yet to AJ) and work, AJ was beginning to feel the slow descent into insanity. It was the middle of summer in Australia, and there he was, hibernating like it was winter.

However, luck would come to AJ in the way of Chris Vincent, the only other coworker at AJ's new job who, being twenty-five, was the only one close to his age range. Tall and movie star handsome with a year-round tan, AJ had written Chris off almost instantly as someone who would never want to be friends with him. That's why, one day when Chris struck up a conversation randomly in the elevator, it took AJ a few moments to realize he was actually talking to him, even though there was no one else in the elevator.

"Do you play volleyball?"

"Huh?"

"Volleyball? Do you play?"

"Oh - I can. I mean, I do. Sometimes."

Christ Vincent needing an extra guy for his volleyball game that weekend would actually be the catalyst for AJ and Ellie meeting. Over the course of faking a knowledge of volleyball for a couple of weekends, AJ soon found himself with a group of friends. A couple of more weeks went by, and said friend group was going on a weekend trip to Sydney, a trip AJ was surprised to find himself invited on.

Before he knew it, AJ was in the middle of a nightclub in Sydney, getting introduced to Chris's girlfriend Mackenzie, and her friends.

There was one friend in particular that caught AJ's eye - or rather, AJ had caught her eye. She was sitting at a separate table, across from AJ. He was talking to Chris's friends (he supposed they could be called his friends too by this point, couldn't they?), while Ellie had her phone in one hand, a drink in the other, chatting loudly with her friends and Chris.

"Who are you?" Ellie announced, loud even considering the volume of the club. Feeling a pair of eyes on him, AJ looked up to find Ellie staring at him.

His eyes widened. "Me?"

Ellie slid off her stool, walking over to his table. Her long curls were piled on top of her head in a high ponytail and she was wearing a short dress in a shocking shade of electric blue.

AJ would soon find out that, while Ellie usually preferred clothing in hues to pink and purple and the occasional orange or red, she preferred blue for nighttime settings.

"I usually wear warmer tones like purple and red, but the blue looks better in club lighting," was the first thing she said to him, leaning over the table on her elbows.

"Purple is a cool color."

Ellie shrugged with a smirk. "You get what I mean."

"What's your name?"

"Ellie."

"Hi Ellie, I'm AJ."

Most Australian girls were the most intrigued by AJ's American, but Ellie, having gone to college in America as she would soon inform AJ, was none too impressed by foreign accents. AJ never inquired what exactly had made her zero-in on him that night - maybe it was the fact that he was simply a new face, or maybe it had been boredom (turns out that club wasn't one she'd frequented and hence, not one of her favorites), or maybe it was something random that neither of them could really explain.

They made small talk throughout the rest of the night with Ellie doing most of the talking, unless she was asking a question that he felt obliged to answer even if some of them felt a little invasive for his first conversation with someone.

Where do you work? Why did you move here? What's your family like? Do you usually go out? How'd you meet Chris? Why'd you choose Australia? Do you like it here? Do you want to try this drink - here, try this drink. What's your favorite color? What's your favorite movie?

Maybe the questions actually weren't entirely that invasive, but AJ wasn't used to someone taking such a rabid interest in him. He answered every question she threw at him, inspiring her to give answers to her as the drinks continued to flow, Ellie eventually abandoning her mixed drink to throw back shots.

"Just look at you," Ellie said. By that point she had pulled her sunglasses out of her bag and put them on, no doubt trying to hide the effects the mix of alcohol and whatever party drugs she had taken earlier in the night were having on her eyes.

She grabbed his face and smushed his cheeks together, turning his head towards two of her other friends, who had been trying to get her to dance earlier and kept glancing over at Ellie and AJ with interest.

"You're so fucking cute, like a Disney Channel character or something," Ellie said, leaning in so close to AJ that he thought for a fleeting moment she might kiss him. "Maybe I should've gone to college in the middle of nowhere, there would've been more guys like you."

"New York was the better choice, trust me."

The night ended with AJ watching from the peripheral as Ellie vomited in the alleyway behind the club, but not before she typed her number into his phone, with a slurred promise to visit him in Melbourne the following weekend.

As much as Ellie claimed AJ looked like a Disney Channel character, he didn't have the naivete of one. Ellie wasn't the first drunk girl who had made a promise to him and he wasn't foolish enough to expect to ever hear from her again - and he especially wasn't foolish enough to reach out to her first.

The following Thursday, AJ got a text from an unsaved number informing him that they were boarding a plane to Melbourne. There wasn't any deducing left to do - it could only really be one person.

Ellie exited the bathroom, smelling like a barrage of different floral scents. She sat down on her side of AJ's bed, and picked up her phone.

"See," she said, holding up her lock screen for AJ to see. "I don't have a million texts from my family."

AJ leaned forward, squinting slightly to examine the screen. "Both of your parents texted you to ask how your flight was."

"Yeah, but that's different."

"Is it, though?"

Despite their glaring differences, AJ and Ellie were able to find a harmonious sweet spot between the two of them with a patience and wide-eyed optimism that is often only afforded to young couples who are madly in love.

Were they madly in love? Only time would tell. But at the currently moment they were content being utterly obsessed with one another.

LATER THAT NIGHT

2130 LOCAL
BRUMBY-ARTHUR RESIDENCE
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Mic and Gillian always had the most interesting interactions with their daughter while she was out for a night drinking. These actions could always serve as a gauge for how intoxicated Ellie was. If she was just sending heart emojis in the family group chat talking about how much she loved them, she was tipsy. She was sending random selfies throughout the night in the family group chat asking them for their opinions on how she looked, she was drunk.

If she facetimed one of them (or sometimes, both of them) she was wasted.

From a dead sleep, Mic and Gillian were awoken by both of their phones ringing. After the few seconds of panic from being so abruptly woken up wore off, they realized it was just their daughter inviting them to a group facetime.

Mic went to pick up, only to have his phone batted away by Gillian. "Don't," she said. "Don't do that. Let me answer. If we both answer it's going to do that god awful echoing thing," Gillian answered the call. "Hi love."

"Hiiiii."

Judging by the bright lights and the noise, Ellie was on some street somewhere in Melbourne, but the camera was moving too much for Mic and Gillian to actually see her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm out for some drinks- why are you guys in the dark?"

"We were sleeping, love."

"But it's only 1am."

Gillian and Mic looked at each other.

"Exactly…" Gillian turned back to her phone. "Are you having fun?"

"Yeah," Ellie giggled. "Do you guys want to see something?"

Mic and Gillian exchanged glances again. "Sure."

Suddenly the camera jerked up and away from Ellie's face and revealed the face of a young man walking next to her, a young man who Gillian recognized instantly, much to her dismay.

"Look at my boyfriend! Isn't he SO cute?"

A very modest update considering my absence, but an update nonetheless. I think I'm just going to stop saying I'm going to try and be more consistent, because I always end up jinxing myself.

But anyways, happy fall and happy end to the WGA strike!

-Harper