Auggie had a quiet nature, but one look at him made it obvious that he was not someone to mess with. Not only was he physically large and intimidating, but the battle scars on his skin and the shadows of war in his eyes made cowards flinch inside their own skins as soon as they saw him.
The waiter took one look at Auggie and wisely shut his mouth without saying a single confrontational word.
“No. Sorry about that. What drinks can I get you started with?”
It was a very brief exchange. The waiter took our drink orders, and then fled the table as soon as possible without mentioning the menu or even introducing himself.
Watching the man’s retreating back weaving between the other tables, I couldn’t help giggling behind my hand.
“I’ll bet ten bucks that a different waiter is going to come back with our drinks.”
Auggie pushed over one of the menus to me that the waiter had dropped on the table and forgotten to hand over to us. “Don’t bother. I don’t take losing bets.”
To no one’s surprise, our drinks were, in fact, brought out by a different waiter who announced that she would be taking over our service. She claimed her colleague had an “unexpected emergency,” but the truth hung over our table like a final curtain call waiting to drop. The man just couldn’t bear to serve us.
I shared a look with Auggie, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing.
Coward. If that man was going to be a bigot, he could at least have the decency to do so bravely and face us directly.
Still, after that exchange, the rest of the meal went surprisingly well. Our new waiter was perfectly pleasant, the food was just as good as promised, and even the other guests stopped staring at me, though they were probably scared off by Auggie’s presence as well.
By the time we were done eating, the sun had already set, but the weather was warm and neither of us was in a rush to simply return home. So, we took a stroll by the river to appreciate the night air.
I automatically slipped my hand into his as we walked. We hadn’t really talked much about our relationship, but we’d easily fallen into these little domestic habits, as though we’d always been walking side by side.
Although the night was warm, I pressed as close as I could to Auggie’s side without tripping either of us.
Auggie squeezed my hand. “Hey. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Since he was taller than me, I had to turn my head significantly to meet his gaze, but he wasn’t looking at me. “What? Is something wrong? You sound worried.”
Auggie’s gaze flickered toward me, but only for a moment. “It’s not bad. I was actually thinking of surprising you, but I figured I should probably give you a heads up beforehand.”
The banks of the river in this area were steep and lined with concrete. That put the water far below the walking path along its sides so that, in the darkness of night, the babble of the river seemed to echo out of nowhere. The two of us stopped to sit on a concrete bench along the path, illuminated by a pair of antique looking streetlamps.
Auggie draped his arm along the back of the bench, wrapping me up with his warmth. “I told you about my coworker’s partner, Tyler, who attends University in Maryland, which is how we were able to find out about your past, right? Well, Tyler has continued looking into things now that’s gone back to Maryland and… we’ve managed to track down Eli.”
The sound of the river stopped. The noise of the city stopped. Even my own beating heart seemed to fall silent.
All I heard was that familiar name repeating over and over in my head.
Eli. Eli. Eli.
I still remembered the man who had helped me survive my year of Camp Green Hill and learned the skills necessary to live on the streets by my side. They were some of the clearest memoriesI had left, like my brain had realized it was standing on a sinking ship and bailed out as much as it could to try and save what was most important. Some of my unpleasant or unnecessary memories like my father’s face and the heat of raging fire growing around me had been sacrificed, likely never to be recovered, but in exchange I got to keep important memories like Eli.
When I’d fled to the other side of the country to escape Detective Smith, I thought I would never hear of Eli again, and the unexpected sound of his name was like a bullet piercing my eardrum.
“You…” My dry throat cracked and I had to swallow several times before I could speak properly. “You found him?”
Auggie scratched at the back of his head, a gesture he made when he was nervous, but he didn’t try to pull away from me. “Yeah. He helped testify against Detective Smith, and his testimony mentioned the location of the tent city where a lot of the homeless population lived, including you when you were there. Tyler checked it out, and some people who were still living there knew where to find him. Apparently he’d returned there often to see if anyone had any news of you. I’ve, um…” He stopped to look out over the shadowed river that we couldn’t actually see. “I hope this isn’t overstepping, but I’ve arranged for him to come here.”
“Come here,” I repeated, not immediately grasping the meaning of these two little words. “You mean Eli? Come here? To Baton Rouge?”
“Yeah,” Auggie said, still sounding completely calm, as if what he was only admitting something minor and not monumental. “Tyler was able to get me in contact with him. It was difficult toconvince him to come here at first, apparently he didn’t believe you were even still alive and thought it was some sort of prank, but eventually I got him to believe me.
Eli was coming here. I couldn’t believe it.
Auggie continued to tell me about plane tickets and when exactly Eli was arriving, but I didn’t hear any of it. I was still hung up on the fact that Auggie had bothered to hunt down Eli at all. Finding out my past made sense. That information affected me, and by extension Auggie, right now. It was a necessity. However, tracking down Eli wasn’t necessary. I hadn’t asked for it. I’d barely even mentioned the other man and certainly hadn’t admitted how much I missed my old friend.