“The snowstorm in Israel? It was crazy. Oh my God. Like, I’d been in Israel when there was an inch of snow and the whole place shut down, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. But this was a real snowstorm. Everyone was off from school and were just outside building snowmen and having snowball fights everywhere you went.”
—Y.C.
I WAKE UP in the middle of the night with four messages from my mother. Call me, call me, call me, call me.
I dial her number, heart in my throat.
Everyone’s okay, thank God. But there’s a snowstorm coming. A big one. Bigger than they’ve predicted in the past few years, big enough that schools are already thinking about closing for those days already and it’s not for another two days.
She reminds me how school starts again for me in three days and they won’t excuse me if I miss a day of school because the airports are closed but school isn’t.
She reminds me about the attendance policy and how strict it is.
She reminds me gently that the fee for changing my ticket isn’t so high.
“I hate this,” I moan.
“I know, sweetie. I hate it, too. I wish you could stay longer. But you should call the airline to see what they can do.”
I call the airline.
They have one available ticket before all of the snow potentially happens.
The flight leaves in seven hours.
I swallow hard.
I book the flight.
I pack in a daze, and wander through Barbara’s apartment like a ghost. It’s too early for me to go anywhere, but I need to. I have so little time left, considering how early I have to be at the airport and how long it takes to get there.
Avi isn’t working by the bus station now.
I can’t leave without letting him know. But he’s on the base now and I can’t bother him. If I call, he won’t answer.
So I do the next best thing.
Well, really, the only thing I can think of to do.
I write him a letter. I’m honest. Brutally so.
I tell the taxi driver to pick me up by Avi’s bus stop and drop the letter for him at the little security kiosk thing with a chayal whom I don’t know. I ask him to make sure Avi will get it, and he says he’ll try.
I hope he does.
The taxi driver pulls up just as the sun is beginning to rise over the horizon.
I watch the sky light up in color and wonder why I have to leave.
“Leaving is always the worst part. It doesn’t matter how many times you go and leave, it will feel like your soul is shattering every time the plane takes off from Tel Aviv.”
—L.H.
I CAN’T EVEN appreciate the sight of London at night as we land in Heathrow. Everyone in the airport is perfectly pleasant, but all of them have crisp British accents and aren’t arguing with each other in Hebrew. The bathrooms are gorgeous and the seat that I end up falling asleep on while I wait for my second flight is super comfortable, but I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be going back, I don’t want to be here, I want to be back in Barbara’s apartment, I want to be by Avi’s bus stop, I want to be having dance parties with Salome in her Bayit Vegan apartment, I want to be sitting on my park bench in the Old City, I want to be riding the train through Jerusalem, I want to be floating on the Dead Sea, I want to be rolling around in grassy fields after climbing a mountain, I want to be anywhere but where I am.
There’s nothing wrong with London except it’s not Israel, and Avi isn’t here.
Avi, who I didn’t even have time to say good-bye to.
I cry myself to sleep in Heathrow Airport.