it’s amazing how the first and last times i was with you were similar – they both resulted with me running from your hotel room. i’d learned from the first time, i wasn’t half naked this last time around. a sign of progress.
ostensibly, the same change you said you noticed in me. the spry (i saw that as nervous) 22 year old had turned into a mature (seriously) 28 year old woman. you saw it, you said. in the way i dressed, the way i spoke, the way i held myself.
i revel in that observation. in your words and the way you looked at me – like you were seeing someone new. like you really noticed it.
of all the things you said that night one of my absolute favorite things was that you had noticed that my drink had changed.
“i remember you drinking such sugary sweet drinks (coconut rum & juice) and look at you now. with your man’s drink (maker’s mark and soda).”
i loved that you remembered that. it would have seemed ridiculous to most, but to me, it was such a little fleck of goodness. then again, it was how we met.
anytime i recount that story, i marvel at how much of a cinematic beginning it had.
“is this seat taken?”
those were your first words to me.
i don’t think i’ve ever admitted this to anyone & i certainly haven’t to you, but i remember noticing you at the bar before you made your way to me. i saw you standing by the door, eyeing the place. looking, searching. maybe not for me, but you found me.
that night, that infamous night when i ran out of the waldorf astoria, half-naked, thinking i’d never ever hear from you again.
and yet here we are. six years later. a lot closer than i thought possible given the distance. the ever present distance.
then it happened. then you told me why these distances existed. you told me about her. about the way she existed in your life. who she was to you.
we spoke a lot that night. a lot of what you said surprised me. a lot of what i said surprised me.
“i’m a cheater, but i can’t lie to you.” to me, you said. to. me.
like i mattered in your life. i know i matter. it wasn’t until you said it out loud that i realized i mattered to you. and you looked at me like you were terrified that you had fucked me up somehow. that you knew i hadn’t ever dealt with this and you didn’t want to be the one doing it to me.
and that’s when i realized why you kept my number, why you kept me in your life – because i was that person in your life. the one you saw hope in.
you were are to me the one who had his shit together. who was older, mature, had the type of life i wanted to grow into. and i said this to you, before your revelation. which i think added to your not wanting to lie to me. and i reminded you of that – how so very grateful i was that you didn’t lie to me. that you didn’t want to lie to me.
and despite that revelation, you are still all of those things to me.
i want you to know how close i came to running back upstairs to room 1208. to where you were. to you.
i didn’t. i stood by the elevator and looked down the hallway to your door. wanting to badly to see you standing there. i’d have run back if i saw you standing there. i told myself what i knew. i would have.
i didn’t because i knew that i couldn’t have a hand in someone else’s unhappiness. i couldn’t help you be unhappier in your life. i couldn’t mar what we had.
because to do that would be to damage this pristine image of us and our imaginary, non-existent existence.
my friends continuously ask why it is that i don’t speak up about what i want with you. how i’d so quickly agree to something, anything more substantial than this.
my only response is that i’d rather imagine and dream (and i do) about a future with you than a reality without you.
and yet, here we are. i’m facing a future without you. i’m dreading, what i was previously anxiously excited about, the 4 hours i know we will be in the same country.
you may see that as coincidence, but to me, it’s fate. that is life reminding me with it’s cruel, fickle hand at how close we were.
you will never read this.
you will never know more about how the last few days have so kept me awake and in turmoil. how i would take the long way to work so that i’d walk past your hotel on the off chance that i’d run into you. i stayed so many more hours, sitting at my desk in the hopes that you’d call me and i could run the 3 minute walk to you.
how badly i want to go back to sunday evening, when you so persistently kept me on the phone trying to get me out of pj’s and in a cab to you. to go back to that ignorant bliss. when i was just excited to see you and be with you. when she didn’t exist. all i had to think about was us.
and somehow, i’d be able to justify this as fate. life. some greater force moving us together despite her existence a world away. even though that isn’t the truth.
i meant every word i said to you. not only that night but for the past 6 years. but especially those last few sentences.
i hope, more than i think i’ve ever hope for anything else, that i will see you again.
