Georgetown University October 2013
Georgetown University
For the first time since our tradition began, the Greenstead Apple Festival has been canceled.
I sit at my desk reading the news, scrolling through the article that cites the Greenstead parks department’s budget cuts and a lack of volunteers as the reason for the cancelation.
A pang of disappointment runs through me.
It never occurred to me that the festival could be canceled, especially with just a few days’ notice.
I was planning to go down to Greenstead this weekend.
I told myself it was because I haven’t missed the festival in over a decade.
But a small part of me was holding onto the hope that if I showed up, Marina might be there too, and we might just find our way back together.
I reach for my phone and pull up my texts with Marina.
The last text between us was from the day of last year’s festival, a simple Leaving now!
My thumb drifts over the keyboard, tempted to tap out a new message, ask how she’s taking the news, ask if she’s as disappointed as I am, ask if she misses having a best friend, because I do.
I have friends here, but no one like Marina.
No one who shares my history, trades my soggy fries for her crispy ones, can make anything, even a Slap Chop informercial, the most entertaining thing in the world to watch.
She’s the best person I know, a beam of goodness who makes me want to try harder, be better.
Still my thumb remains frozen. Suppose she ignores the text?
What if she’s still mad about our fight, and that’s why she hasn’t reached out to me, either?
What if she was hoping she wouldn’t see me at the festival, and now she’s relieved that it’s canceled, that last tie between us severed for good?
The cancelation does make me feel like a line has been drawn, actually. Except it’s not just with Marina. Greenstead as a whole is sending a message, closing itself off to me, telling me to stop looking back, because there is nothing left for me to go back to.
I wanted to leave Greenstead, didn’t I?
Why go back?
I swallow and exit our text thread. I close out of the tab with the news article. And I vow to move forward, once and for all.