05
After a while, you forget. Or maybe, it’s not exactly forgetting, but attempting to live life without having to look back. It’s more of a moving forward instead of a moving on; you remember the past but you can’t allow yourself to dwell on it anymore because it only causes you pain, and you know that you will never be able to forget the memories you’ve made with that person. So you move forward and try to look at the past with fondness instead of heartache.
I think that’s what I did. For two years, I thought about the growth I would experience. The life changing moments I would have. The people I would meet and the people I would lose. They were all things in my future that I could move towards to. I wouldn’t forget those that lingered in my past… but that’s where they would remain. Fragments of the life I used to have that slipped away due to silly mistakes and harsh words.
So when I landed on the New York City ground for the last time of my college career, I didn’t know what to expect. New York was my past in every way. All the things I missed and had to move away from lived and breathed in the City that Never Sleeps. I was unsure of how I felt about such a thing. I was finally okay. I didn’t want to risk not being okay.
It wasn’t so hard getting back into the swing of things. Like riding a bike, you sort of just know. You don’t forget your way on the train; the street corners are all the same. It is ingrained. And such a thing makes you wonder whether you were ever meant to leave at all, whether you’ve actually moved forward or just pressed pause on the life you used to lead. As I looked around Columbus Circle and recognized everything, even the trees, I became fully aware that nothing had changed and that while my life was different and I had grown, I wasn’t exactly someone else. I was still me. And my heart was still my heart, aching and pained.
Something happened then. My heart, which I had forgotten existed for two whole years because it had been frozen in an effort to numb the constant throb of heartbreak, plummeted to the pit of my stomach. I stood shock-still, the intensity paralyzing me. What happened, I didn’t know. Suddenly, I wasn’t okay, and the feeling was vaguely familiar.
I turned when I could. I saw him standing there, looking just as handsome as I remembered him. His hair was just the right length, only a little tamer. He was still just as thin, only with a little more muscle. His eyes still squinted in the sun and his skin was still nearly-translucent, and his lips still curled in the most delicious of ways.
And then I noticed the girl beside him.
She was beautiful in ways I could never be. She was thin, with creamy skin, and eyes as big as saucers. She walked with a grace I did not possess and her nose fit her face. In almost a tragic, ironic way, she was everything I had dreamed of being.
He saw me. He stopped, making the girl stare at him with confusion. He blinked once, twice, and then three times, before moving again. He came to me slowly, hesitation clear in his face. He stopped before me and smiled awkwardly.
“You’re back?”
I nodded. “I just graduated.”
“Congratulations.”
I looked at the girl who was standing next to him. She smiled at me, a genuine, beautiful, perfect smile that put the sun to shame and made the flowers wilt with embarrassment. “Hi,” she said, and her voice sounded like little glass bells twinkling.
He looked at her and nodded. “This is my girlfriend.”
My heart, still sitting unpleasantly in my stomach, proceeded to drop even further, all the way down to my feet. “Oh,” I said, and I was sure the disappointment in my voice did not go unnoticed. “Andy.”
Her smile dropped for a moment before finding its way back. “Well, we should get going,” she said, looking at him. He nodded.
“It was nice seeing you again,” he said, extending a hand. I took it for a second before dropping it. “We should catch up.”
Sometimes, things happen and you realize that the past was a beautiful thing. It taught you a lot of things, despite all the pain it may have made you feel. You grow and you become a better person. You learn more about yourself and you realize that the things that don’t kill you really do make you stronger. Maybe not physically, but it’s not so easy to get through you anymore. You’ve built up your defenses and you learn. And the best lesson of all is leaving the past where it should be left.
“I’m really busy,” I said, and took a step back. “Until we run into each other again.”
He nodded. His girlfriend began to walk away. He didn’t really spare a glance at her. He only looked at me.
“I missed you,” he whispered. He turned around and walked to where his girlfriend had been heading. He turned back to look at me.
And sometimes, the past creeps its way back into the future, and you have to take it for what it is worth. And it is worth everything.
