: Five Years

3

The bus was taking forever, so I just hailed a taxi. I scooted over to make room, and the driver gave me a confused look.

"Is someone else joining you?"

I shook my head, closed the door, and gave him the address.

Jenna Lowe sat beside me, gazing out the window in delight.

"We used to have to pool our money just to take a taxi. Now, the two of us can ride and only one of us has to pay. This is great!"

She was beaming, but I couldn't manage a smile.

We had come to the big city by ourselves to build a life, and we'd been through it all—getting manipulated by employers during our job search and scammed by shady rental agents.

It took everything we had, but we finally found a foothold in the city.

On the day we packed up to move into our new place, Jenna Lowe said we should splurge and take a taxi.

We rummaged through everything we owned but still couldn't scrape together the full fare. We had to haggle and plead with the driver until he reluctantly agreed to give us a ride.

He still made us get out with a mile to go, so the two of us had to lug three large suitcases the rest of the way to our new home.

In five years, the city had developed so rapidly that nearly all of our original neighbors had moved away.

Only the old granny who lived across the hall and her grandson were still there.

As we passed their door, Jenna Lowe's eyes went wide.

"Who's that cute boy?"

"Granny Kingsley's grandson, Leo."

"No way. He used to be just a little kid, always pestering me to act out Ultraman scenes with him. Honestly, if Granny Kingsley wasn't such a great cook who was always giving us food, I wouldn't have given him the time of day."

'But the kid who only cared about Ultraman back then was already in high school now.'

'Five years was such a long time.'

I closed the door, my hand tightening on the knob. I finally broke down, crying in front of Jenna Lowe.

"Five years, and you've only come back to see me once! Where the hell did you disappear to?!"