Text Me When I Get There
TEXT ME WHEN I GET THERE – November 22, 2025 – Orem, Utah, USA
Gabriella woke up to her phone chiming. She squinted to see the time. 7:32. After a moment, her brain restarted and she shot out of bed. She was supposed to be up an hour earlier. How had this happened? She must have subconsciously hit the snooze button multiple times. In a matter of seconds, she transformed from unconscious to hyper-conscious.
She had zero time to waste if she was going to catch her flight home for Thanksgiving. The airport would undoubtedly be busy. If she was to catch the bus that connected her to the train up to Salt Lake City, she had to leave immediately. She pulled on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and a coat. Then she fumbled for her glasses and a pair of slip-on boots. Her phone dinged with a text message, which she ignored. She could already hear her dad’s voice accusing her of missing her flight because she was too distracted by her phone. Luckily, her bag was packed and waiting.
Less than 90 seconds after leaving her pillow, she was out the door and running. Time-sucking luxuries like breakfast and using the bathroom would have to wait.
Gabriella hustled through her apartment’s parking lot and down the sidewalk. Her lungs hurt after the first block but she kept going. If she had not been dragging her bag, she probably would have made it. But she rounded the last corner only to watch the bus leave without her.
Breathing hard, she walked the rest of the way to the bus stop. “Now what?” she asked herself. “Next bus is in 20 minutes. It probably won’t reach the train in time, but I guess I have to try.”
She sat on the bus stop’s frigid metal bench feeling panicked and dirty. She unzipped her luggage bag and fished out a hairbrush. She ran it through her hair and added a scrunchy. Then she pulled out a tiny bottle of mouthwash to attack her morning breath. After swishing a sip around, she spit it out on the gravel surrounding the bench. She felt a little cleaner and less tragic. Fortunately, she had no plans to meet anyone important until her parents picked her up at her hometown airport.
Three other bus passengers arrived to wait next to her as Gabriella anxiously stared down the street. When the bus finally arrived, she pleaded with the driver to please hurry. He ignored her like he did not understand English. She counted the stops to the train station, screaming in her head for traffic lights to turn green and for people to quickly get on and off. She arrived in time to see the Front Runner train pull away for Salt Lake without her.
She got off the bus, unsure of her next move. Another train would leave in 60 minutes and take 75 minutes to get to the airport. There was no way she would make her flight if the trip took that long. She needed someone with a car who could take her, but most of her friends were college students who had left town for the holiday. She quickly ticked through a list of people who might still be around. At the bottom of the list was Ajay. He was probably awake. Was she that desperate? Yes, she was. She dialed his number.
“You awake?”
“Yeah. I didn’t expect you to be calling.”
“Surprise. Hey, can you do me a huge favor? I’d owe you big time.”
“What is it?”
“I need a ride to the airport immediately. I missed my train. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“The Salt Lake airport?”
“Yeah, why else would I be taking the train?”
“That’s kinda far.”
“I know. I’m sorry it’s last minute. You’d be saving me.”
Ajay sighed heavily and said, “Alright. Just give me a minute.”
“You have to hurry. I’m at the Orem train station.”
The call ended and Gabriella instantly worried whether she had made a mistake. There was no guarantee he would actually show up, and if he did, she was not ready to see him. Their breakup had not gone well. She swore she would never speak to him again. When she confronted him about going out with other girls, he could not understand why she was upset. He tried some ridiculous argument about being a couple but not an “exclusive couple.” Idiot. No doubt, he still thought she had overreacted.
As she sat waiting on another cold metal bench, Gabriella found herself again worrying about her hair. She was about to find her brush in her bag, but she stopped herself and whispered under her breath, “No, I want to look as bad as possible for him. If he shows.”
She was still sitting there, concentrating on the train’s departure schedule displayed on a wall, when an unfamiliar pickup truck pulled up next to her. It looked like an old farm truck with worn tires and dented side panels. The driver honked the horn. Gabriella looked up to see Ajay gesturing toward her.
“Get in!” he shouted after rolling down the passenger-side window.
“Whose truck is this?”
“My brother’s. It’s the only thing working right now.”
Gabriella opened the door and hefted her bag into the truck’s front cab rather than the back bed. She climbed in and shut the door.
“Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. We’ll see if the truck makes it.”
Ajay set the truck in motion and drove toward the freeway. Gabriella tried to roll up the passenger-side window but it stopped before completely closing.
“Yeah, that’s broken. It might get a little cold in here,” Ajay said. “I can turn the heater up full blast.”
The truck’s engine made strange grinding noises as it picked up speed. Gabriella was stuck between streams of hot air from the heater and cold air from the open window. She took her first long look at Ajay. Like her, he had not showered yet. His shaggy hair stuck up in sloppy patches on his head, matching his splotchy beard. A grease stain covered most of the front of his sweatshirt. This was the guy she had once cried over? What had she ever seen in him? She turned away and stared out the cracked windshield at the road.
Ajay asked about where she was going and how long she would be gone. Then he asked about the weather and where she would eat Thanksgiving dinner. It was the type of shallow conversation you might expect with a talkative Uber driver. Gabriella responded politely and with a smile on her face.
“Thanks again for doing this. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot at the last minute.”
“I’m kinda glad you did. You didn’t have to miss your train if you wanted to see me,” Ajay added in a teasing voice. “What was going on this morning? Did you get distracted by something on your phone? That’s usually why you were late for stuff.”
Gabriella did not want to risk an argument that might end with her stranded, so she fake smiled and stayed quiet.
“I still don’t understand what you meant the last time we talked,” Ajay continued. “I’m not sure what I did wrong. I was thinking maybe you’d give me another chance.”
They were still 45 minutes from the airport. Gabriella could not say what she truly felt – that every second in the truck was torture and she hoped no one noticed them together. Instead, she gritted her teeth and muttered, “Maybe. You never know what can happen.”
“I could show you some places we never went before. I found this dance club that does line dancing three nights a week. You’d love it.”
Gabriella had already been there with him. He had forgotten how much she hated it, but she did not bother reminding him. He mentioned other fun things they might do and she nodded indifferently. Then Ajay pestered her about her schedule and when she would be free.
“You’ll get back a week from Sunday. What are you doing the Monday after that?”
“I’m not sure.”
Ajay went through all the days of the week until Gabriella found herself nodding just to get him to shut up. Once he seemed satisfied they had a date, he moved on to talking about friends who had recently gotten engaged.
The left side of Gabriella’s body sweated from the heater while the right side shivered from the open window. She worried the truck might fall apart at any moment. She had to pee so badly she bit her lip to keep her muscles clenched.
They finally lurched into the departure line for the Salt Lake airport. “Thanks again!” Gabriella shouted after popping open the door and flinging herself and her bag to the curb.
“See you when you get back!” Ajay called.
Gabriella ran straight for the nearest bathroom and then to the TSA checkpoint. Once she was in the long security line, she let herself relax a little. There was nothing else she could do. Whether she made her flight or not was up to the speed of the line.
After purposely ignoring it so she could focus on getting to the airport, Gabriella pulled out her phone. She read text messages from friends about their trips home. Then she reached the message that had arrived as she was racing out of her apartment. It was a travel update from the airline. Her flight was delayed by five hours.
Gabriella read and reread the message in stunned silence. While she stood there, a gap grew in the TSA line and the people behind her encouraged her to move up. She absentmindedly shuffled forward cursing herself under her breath. “The one time I didn’t check my messages. Now I’m five hours early after a ride from hell. And did I actually agree to go out with Ajay?”
Once through security, she found another bathroom where she washed her face and replaced her glasses with contacts. She felt much fresher after a little breakfast. She called her parents to let them know she was at the airport but would be leaving much later.
“You’d think the airline would let you know about a flight delay before you left home,” her mother said.
“Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice,” Gabriella responded with fake frustration.
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