Chapter 2

I smiled as I put the phone in my pocket and completed my journey back to the hotel. I entered my room as quietly as I could. There was no need for such care for she was still awake.

“Have a good time at the pub…or where ever it is you went,” She asked when she heard the door shut. I hung up my coat and answered, “Yes I did, I may just go back tomorrow night, and you should come with me.”

She chucked and said “How ‘bout no, I’m tired on England.” I was baffled. “We’ve been here a week, how can you be tired of England already? We’ve just spent time in London; don’t you want to go see the county side?”

“Eh,” She retorted, “Not really, we have country sides back in Ohio.”

“Well, we have 3 more weeks here, so you should just enjoy yourself.”

“3 more weeks?” She said, wining, “I don’t think I’m going to survive 3 more days, can’t we just go home?”

“No we can’t. If you want to go home so badly then go, I’m not going to stop you. There is a reason we didn’t buy return tickets, that way we could spend as much time here as we wanted. I want to stay as long as I can, take in this wonderful country, but if you really don’t want to stay then you can go back home. I’m a big girl; I can be on vacation without a chaperone.”

I think I may have hurt her feelings a bit because she gave me this glare, burning me with her mind. “Ya know, I think I will go home. All you want to do is see sights and go to pubs. They have clubs in London ya know; would it kill you to have fun?”

“My dear Lydia, we have different ideas of fun. I think the pub and seeing sights is fun.”

Lydia wasn’t having any of this, “Yeah, for the first week maybe, what after that? Ugh, I knew this would be boring, why did I even agree to come with you? I’m leaving for Ohio in the morning. At least there I have friends who know how to have fun.”

“Ok, I’ll go with you to the airport and see you off. I don’t want to make you unhappy,” was all I could say to her. This was kind of hurtful to hear. I brought her along because she said she wanted to get away. I guess we should have talked it through more. Oh well, I can manage on my own. At least now I don’t have to hear her babble on about every cute guy we pass in the street.

I showered and climbed into bed with her, we had only gotten a room with a king size bed, big enough for 2 girls, and said goodnight to her. In the morning when we awoke, I helped her pack and saw her off to the airport.

“Are you sure you want to go? We have 3 more weeks paid on the hotel room.” I said as we walked into Heathrow airport. She gave me a weak smile, “Yeah, this isn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. You just have fun; I know you will with all your boring sightseeing and stuff.” I smiled and hugged her, “I’m going to miss you, and tell my mom I miss her.” Returning my hug she said, “I’ll miss you too, and I will. Have fun.” And with that, she was off to buy her ticket back across the Atlantic.

After I lost sight of her I went back outside and hailed a cab to take me back to the hotel. The ride seemed to take forever. Once back in my room I had a bit of a breakdown. I just sat in the big armchair our….my room had and cried. I can’t believe I just let her leave like that. I was alone now, alone in a strange country, 3866 miles from my home.

I had to stop this. I had to stop worrying about what had happened and focus on what was ahead of me. At least 3 more weeks in England, and it was only 9am, so I had the whole day ahead of me. I packed up my day bag, threw it over my shoulder and set off.

Today would be great. I could do all the things that she hadn’t wanted to do, like ride the London Eye, and just enjoy the city. I caught a cab to the Eye and as I exited the cab my phone buzzed.  I removed it from my pocket, expecting a text from my mother asking how my trip was going. To my great surprise it was not a message from my mom, but that man I had met in the pub last night. I had honestly thought I dreamt it; it seemed too wonderful to be true.

‘Good morning, I hope I’m not bothering you, but I have the day off today actually’

 I had to keep myself from jumping around. I simply did a dance inside my head and quickly sent a return message. ‘You’re not bothering me at all; actually I was looking for something to do today.’

I didn’t really move from where I was standing, I looked like a fool just standing there smiling. The gentle buzz of my phone brought me out of my daze. I opened the message and read what Mr. May had said, ‘Fantastic, where are you staying so I could pick you up?’

He was going to pick me up. This time I actually did do a bit of a dance, and was awarded with some strange looks. Before answering, I hailed a cab and went back to the hotel. On the way we worked out the details. He would pick me up in about an hour, so I told him I would wait in the lobby.

I must have gone through a dozen outfits before finally settling on one. Simple, jeans and a striped shirt. A dawned my jacket and took one last look in the mirror, to make sure my hair, makeup and cloths were perfect. Satisfied I made my way down to the lobby of my hotel. I sat in a big leather chair and took out my phone to check the time, also to have something to do with my hands. I was nervous. What if the pub was a fluke, what if it was just the drink talking and he thought I was horrible company, or what if he thought that I just wanted to be seen with a celebrity. As all these thoughts raced through my mind I felt a tap on my shoulder, and couldn’t help but jump.

I looked up and saw him standing there. He was so handsome, even more so now that we were in a properly lit area. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said kindly. I smiled and stood up saying, “It’s fine, I was just thinking.” He smiled at me and gestured for me to lead. As we walked toward the door he said “I hope your friend doesn’t mind you going off and leaving her.”

A twinge of pain in my gut, “Actually,” I began, “She’s not here anymore. We had a bit of a disagreement on how we should spend the reminder of our vacation here. She decided that I would be best if she just went home. Luckily we hadn’t bought round trip tickets. She left this morning.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding a bit sad, “Sorry to hear that. I’m glad you decided to stay. I would have felt like a clot texting you as you were over the middle of the ocean.” He got a laugh out of me as we exited the building.

As we stepped out I turned to him and asked, “So, where are you taking me?” He looked toward the horizon and said, “Well, just around I guess, didn’t really have a plan. You just said you wanted to see the country side. There’s a lot of it here.” I smiled and said “Sounds good to me.” Giving me nod he handed a small slip of paper to the Valet and muttered something like “careful with her”.