Chapter Text
Michael hoped that if he ignored the knocking on his door, Isobel would go away. He knew it was her because there wasn’t anyone else who would be knocking on his door. And there was a distinct rippling sensation in the air that he had learned to associate with her. He just wasn’t in the mood to play happy birthday triplets with her and Max that night. Besides, he’d promised he’d hang around the ranch and check in on the herd. At least the cows didn’t know it was his birthday. Or, his fake birthday anyways. His assumed birthday.
The knocking started up again.
Michael sighed, got to his feet, and swung the Airstream door open.
“I still don’t do birthdays,” he said.
Isobel arched an eyebrow at him. “And I still don’t care,” she said. She pushed her way past him into the Airstream and dropped a six-pack of beer onto the table. “I have suffered through your ‘I don’t do birthdays’ bullshit for the last eight years. So you are going to have a drink with me, and then I’ll leave you alone to wallow or jerk off or do whatever it is you do when you’re not getting arrested for bar fighting.” She dropped down into one of the chairs at the table.
Michael stared at her for a moment before shifting his gaze to the beer bottles and telekinetically popping two lids off. He sat down across from her and grabbed one of the open bottles. “You just had to bring up jerking off, didn’t you,” he said, shaking his head.
Isobel giggled and reached for the other open beer.
“Come on,” Michael said. “Why’d you really come?”
“Noah has a late client meeting,” Isobel said, “and he promised to take me out to dinner tomorrow. Max is stuck working a night shift. Apparently ‘it’s my birthday’ doesn’t work with Sheriff Valenti.”
Michael swallowed a mouthful of beer and watched Isobel pick at the label on her own bottle. “And?” he prompted.
“And no one should be alone on their birthday,” she sighed. “Even you. You’re just…” Isobel waved a hand around like she could pull the right words into her. “You’re alone so much of the time. Even when you do go out to the Wild Pony, you’re alone. You start the night alone, you end the night alone, no one can ever get you to let your guard down. Not Max and not me either.” She paused and took a sip of her beer. “I don’t want you to be alone Michael. Let someone in.”
A thousand petty retorts reared up in Michael’s mind. Let someone in. Like you let Noah in, he thought, holding him at arm’s length with a spaceship-sized secret between you? Like you let Max in – both of you keeping important details about that night and that summer from each other? Letting people in was what got people hurt. A twinge of pain shot through his mangled left hand. Michael welcomed the pain. Welcomed the reminder of what happened when you let people in. Other people got hurt.
In the end, he said nothing to Isobel. She got the message and switched the conversation to lighter topics. The annual VA clinic fundraiser at the drive-in. The New Roswell High Alumni Association, and the ten-year class reunion she was starting to organize for next June.
They finished their beers, and Isobel stood up to leave. She pulled Michael into a tight hug before he could protest.
“I mean it,” she said in his ear. “Let someone in. Don’t force yourself to be alone all the time.” Isobel released him and let herself out.
Michael stuck the four remaining beer bottles in the fridge, closed it, and then opened it again to take one of the bottles back out. He sipped from it while he mindlessly scrolled through various forums and blog posts. He didn’t have a great technology setup, but he did have a refurbished laptop and one of Isobel’s old smartphones. The forums and blogs were like a digital version of people watching. It kept him out of his own head for a while.
He was about to give up and go out to check on the herd when a post caught his eye.
There’s a booth in a diner in Roswell, New Mexico that catches the afternoon light in just the right way, making everything feel magical. I used to sit there with my best friends, waiting for that sunlight magic to melt away my invisible barriers and let me let them in. I sat there after my heart was shattered into a million pieces, waiting for him to come back to me – my first love, my best love. Needing him to tell me that we would be okay. Sometimes I feel like I’m still sitting there. Lonely. Waiting. Separated from life.
I’ve lived more in the past few years than I ever thought I would, and I haven’t lived a day of it for myself. I’m just a guy, screaming into the void for something, anything to prove I’m not all alone in the universe. But maybe that kind of magic doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s time to stop waiting.
Without even consciously thinking of doing it, Michael opened a browser tab, navigated to Google, and set himself up with a burner email. He had a new email window open before he came back to his senses.
From: [email protected]
Michael let his fingers hover over the keyboard. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t about to actually engage with an active military member, was he? At least, he assumed from the “airman” part that the guy was an active military member. It was the “lonely” part that got to him. If there was one thing Michael knew, it was what being lonely felt like. He knew all the bars in town. He knew how to fix a car faster than anyone in town. He knew he would have loved being in UNM’s engineering program. And he knew all too well what the bitter sting of loneliness felt like. He took a breath and typed.
Hey Private,
You’re not all alone. Sorry, that was probably way too cheesy, and I should just delete this. So why aren’t I?
Michael sighed and leaned his head back. Why wasn't he deleting this email? Why did he start it in the first place? What exactly was he trying to accomplish?
The truth is, I don’t know what to say or why I’m writing this at all. Your post hit a little too close to home for me – on multiple counts. First, I think I know the diner you’re talking about. The Crashdown, right? My brother and I used to hang out there a lot. Before we stopped talking anyways. I guess that’s point number two. I’m just like you in a way. Feeling completely alone and isolated from everyone and everything. Feeling stuck in one place or one memory while everyone else moves on. I get it. I don’t have a solution, I don’t have some cosmic phenomenon to prove you’re not all alone in the universe,
He did literally have that, but not in the metaphorical sense. And it certainly wasn’t anything he was going to share with a stranger or with someone working for Uncle Sam.
but maybe, if you wanted, we could try being alone together?
He hit send before he could change his mind and exhaled slowly. The anxiety crept in a moment later. Had he actually just done that? Emailed a total stranger just because they were both lonely? A pen pal couldn’t fix his ruined hand or his ruined relationships. But the email was gone now. No way to retrieve it. Michael shut his laptop and finally went out to check on the herd.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would think about this again. Tomorrow he would have more information to work with.
**
Michael was in the shower the next morning when he heard his phone ding. He frantically rinsed the shampoo out of his hair – and then out of his eyes – before stumbling out of the shower stall and grabbing his phone, hoping it was an email from solo_airman18. His shoulders slumped when he saw that it was just a welcome email from Google. He tossed his phone aside and finished his shower.
He was still splitting his time between the ranch and the junkyard, and today was a junkyard day. He stole glances at his phone all day, waiting for the notification to appear. As a result, he worked at half his usual pace. He wasn’t aware of his own level of distractedness until Sanders kicked over a metal bucket next to him.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“You waiting for that cell phone to fix the engine for you or something?” Sanders asked in his usual gruff, frustrated tone.
“No,” said Michael, a little petulant.
“Then quit staring at it like it’s got the answers to the universe and get back to work. I don’t pay you to look at Facebook.”
Sanders walked away before Michael could say anything else. With a scoff at the Facebook quip (he would never touch that infernal social media), Michael tucked his phone into his pocket and got back to work. He liked working at the junkyard. He liked seeing all the pieces of an engine working together or fixing them until they did. But in another week, he'd be back to working full time at his real love, Foster's Ranch. He’d had a standing summer job there since he was eighteen. Almost nine years ago. It was one of the few places he'd ever felt at home. He knew Isobel and Max thought his obsession with the ranch and the crash site was weird, but it was just home to him. As close to home as he was ever likely to get anyways.
Michael was so engrossed in his day dreaming about Foster’s Ranch that he almost forgot to check his phone. There was an email waiting for him when he climbed into his truck at the end of the day.
From: [email protected]
Hey Spaceman,
I'm not sure what’s worse. Being demoted to Private (by the way, we don’t have Privates in the Air Force, we have Airmen) or the sheer amount of cheese in “you’re not all alone”. It did make me smile though. And feel… less lonely for a while. I think that’s why I wrote back. I honestly wasn’t expecting anything to come of that post. I just wanted to scream into the void because I can’t scream my frustrations here. I don’t get the luxury of having feelings or needs. So maybe I was looking for something. A connection.
I’m sorry that you don't talk to your brother anymore. If it helps at all, I don’t talk to mine either, and I have three of them. I won’t get into the why. We don’t know each other well enough for that.
Well Spaceman (Spacewoman? Spaceperson? Just alien?) I might not have been looking for a pen pal, but I guess I found one anyways. Like Fall Out Boy said, let’s be alone together. I can’t promise regular emails, and I’m not prepared to share my real name (there's too much at stake), but if that's all okay, you know how to reach me.
- Solo
Michael exhaled slowly as he read the email a second time. Solo wanted to be pen pals. Solo was sharp and witty (dare he say snarky?) yet also kind. A memory of a person he once knew shook loose in Michael’s brain. He shoved the stray thought back down into its cage, not wanting to even entertain the idea that Solo was him. He couldn’t be. Cosmic miracles weren’t real, and if they were, they didn’t happen to people like Michael. The best he could hope for was a friend.
It took a few overeager attempts for Michael to get his seatbelt in place, and he drove home as quickly as he could. He needed to get to his laptop.
From: [email protected]
Dear Solo,
I won’t ask why you’re lonely or why you can’t vent your frustrations to anyone where you are (wherever that is). I respect your privacy like I’m sure you’ll respect mine. But I can’t deny that I spent most of the day hoping to hear back from you. This pen pal thing seems like it might be good for both of us. I’ve been saying for years that I’m fine on my own and that I don’t need anyone. But I think maybe I do need someone. A pen pal. A friend.
Sorry, not trying to jump ahead or anything. Just saying that I’m on board for being pen pals with you.
Write back when you can.
- Spaceman
**
From: [email protected]
Dear Spaceman,
“Dear”? Are we strangers who met on the internet or are we lovers separated by a great war? Are you gazing longingly out the window as you await news of my safe return? Don’t fret. I shall keep your photograph close to my heart for luck.
Sorry 😂
The formal greeting activated the overly-dramatic part of my brain. I hope I got at least a chuckle out of you.
- Solo
**
From: [email protected]
Dear Solo,
You did 🤣
- Spaceman