Once upon a time, in friend groups spread far and wide, I was known as a Casanova of sorts. The type of chap who always knew the right thing to say (hard to believe if you have ever caught me mid-stutter). The one who could make you feel like he had known you for years after a single night. The guy who knew when to lean in, what to say, and how to disappear before dawn. The kind you knew would break your heart, and the kind you invited that pain from with open arms.
But lately, very lately, when the world (me) needed him most, that guy vanished. Well… no. Confidence left the room before I did. And in its place stood a stammering, slothish ghost of a kid. That kid sees nothing at night but the ghoulish monsters under his bed. That solemn pause where passion is supposed to rise and do the talking has lately been filled by the proud chant of crickets. Time slows to a near sub-zero halt. The ambiance is awkward. Quiet, except for the shaking hands that fiddle with wristbands in grasp, spinning. And even with all that borrowed time, the moment slips.
I have been fumbling a lot lately. And I would love to say I do not know why, but I do. All too well. It started weeks ago, in an elevator still heavy with the scent of missed opportunity. A faltering era of indecision that evoked her memory. And that is where our story begins.
I have told y'all the rooftop story before: the piano, the parking garage, the picnic under the stars, the intimate thrills that nearly tumbled into a fatal ending. But what I left out was the aftermath.
Sometime after her soft laughs and stolen kisses, she looked at me with those tender doe-eyes and asked, “What are we?”
And I, in all my shadily brilliant, avoidant glory, said, “We both know we are still talking to other people. No need to rush that. But you are always my favorite.”
She smiled with a pinch of inauthenticity that was barely visible. But hints of well-salted disappointment escaped the vice of her grin as she conceded she was not looking for anything serious anyway. And with that, winter break came. Cold. Quiet. Passive.
Until Kaminsky’s.
Dessert had always been a signature of mine, a peace treaty of sorts. She picked raspberry lemon cake while I got the usual key lime. She tossed back an espresso shot. “Tired of my bullshit,” she scoffed. I believed her.
We talked about movies. “The Room,” if I remember right. And we laughed about people we probably should not have been watching that closely, our own intimate roast. She told me about her dreams, about working for the Times, chasing history as it happened, leaving her mark on the world. I do not think I shared much. I was too entranced by her. There was something about the way she spoke, the way her words escaped her lips like privileged silk pillows. How her eyes illuminated the dimly lit room. How she nervously spun her golden Burberry necklace between her fingers whenever I let my silent admiration linger a little too long.
Funny how we shared that tick. A habit of looking calm while quietly falling apart.
At one point, I asked about her dad. I knew we had never met, but he seemed hauntingly chill on our brief phone call. She laughed it off. Said he was doing well. “Business is booming,” and something about his success making him paranoid.
Oh, the warnings we ignore when hopelessly falling.
After dinner, I walked her to her car. Opened her door. Said goodnight. Then… nothing.
I just remember waking up lying beneath an underpass, sirens rattling my ears into a muddled sense of awareness. A feeling adorned by the disorienting brightness of violent reds and strangling blues. I could never explain why, but I felt a dire urgency jolting through my skin. There was no context. I do not think my eyes had even come into focus. But my body, without warning, decided to run. The fear of all the things I could have done wrong and all the possible repercussions rushed through my veins like 60 CC’s of adrenaline. A fear so primal it almost negated the inferno that ignited my lungs. A fear so moving that I ignored the pain at my ribs piercing my insides as if escaping confinement. For 2.7 miles I was confused, alone, and terrified, enduring the pain of every punishing breath that whipped against my flesh like the lashes of my ancestors.
When I arrived home, I had just enough left in the tank to see the flash on my phone reading:
“I had a great night. Kinda wanna come over tomorrow.”
My fingers must have been on autopilot as I collapsed onto my mattress.
When I woke, she was at my bedside. Concerned. Sweet. Innocent. She never asked what happened. I never told.
Even now, as I glance between an empty elevator and back into another’s eyes, when the air stiffens with a lingering tension teetering on the edges of hope and disappointment, I find myself right back there. Back under the yellow-brick underpass. Helplessly stuck between moving on and running back to Hollywood.
I think it is clear what I chose on that one fateful night.