Chapter 12
TWO YEARS LATER
SOSIE
The air is on the warmer side this cloud-free March day. I tilt my face toward the sun to soak in the rays before I check the time. “Shoot.”
I should catch a cab or call a rideshare, but after being cooped up all day in class and then trapped at the internship I need for graduation in two months, I want to stretch my legs and enjoy the fresh air.
Kids run by, causing me to jump out of the way to avoid a game of tag that’s taking up most of the sidewalk.
Resettling the strap of my schoolbag, I roll my eyes when an older woman yells at them for causing an unnecessary ruckus in her life.
Seems kids having a good time is just the sort of uproar she needs to shake that cranky mood of hers.
I reach for my phone to capture the lines of her face, her mouth open and shouting, and the kids, with the opposite reaction, still laughing.
People's expressions as they react to life were always my favorite subjects to photograph, though I’m still partial to landscapes as well.
The lonelier moments that make everyday places feel more desolate.
I stop myself, pulling my hand from the pocket of my bag, and grab the bag’s strap to keep temptation at bay.
I was supposed to get photography out of my system during my sabbatical, but some habits die harder than others.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I aim my gaze at the ground and start walking.
The ends of my hair drift over my shoulder.
I’m still not used to it even though I’ve been growing it out for so long.
I miss the ease of my shorter hair, and the lightness that it made me feel inside as well.
Exhaling a long breath, I know it doesn’t matter what I want when it always comes down to appearances.
I’d almost forgotten the time again. I rush over a block and gallop down the steps to the station.
The echoes of people talking, even the faint sound of a guitar being played, greet me when I’m underground.
I hold my phone over the sensor and then push through the stall.
Looking left, I spot the train. My train!
I run just as the doors start to close, hoping someone else just ahead of me blocks the doors from closing.
No luck, but I’m not giving up. I run so fast that I slam my hands against the windows to stop myself from crashing into the closed doors entirely.
“No. Ugh.” I step back. But then slam my hands against the windows again when I see the man sitting on the other side with his eyes glued to the open book in his hands.
“Keats?” I yell, banging again. “Keats?”
The train shifts forward, forcing me to back up. “Keats?” My voice is drowned out as the train speeds off, sending my hair into a flurry around my face.
My heart pounds in my chest.
Breathing becomes harder.
Tears flood the corners of my eyes.
And a friggin’ guitarist strolls behind me singing Mazzy Star like he’s auditioning for American Idol.
I push my hair from my face and wipe under my eyes before raising my chin into the air.
I shuffle to the tiled wall to lean against it, trying to catch my breath and talk myself out of whatever I think I saw. I didn’t, did I?
How do you run into someone randomly like that in a city that has a billion people always roaming around? Where am I that this could even happen? I tilt my head to glance down one direction, then the other, and see Fulton Station listed. I’m never at this station. Is he?
My heart regulates, and my breathing evens as I lean my head against the wall, wondering if I’ll ever see him again. I look down the tracks where the train disappeared, regret flooding my system. There’s not just remorse but also pain. One night with him wasn’t enough.
It was only a glimpse, but seeing him again reminds me of the sacrifices I’ve made to please people who never deserved my obedience. I used to think it was about the money I’d need to survive, but that doesn’t seem to be much of a factor anymore. What did it bring? Not happiness.
Even I know that gave me something to fall back on.
But at what cost? Glancing once more down the tunnel where the train disappeared, I know the cost. Keats.
The best night of my life has become a painful memory.
That is when I allow myself to think about it, which isn’t often and usually forced by something that triggers it, like passing through a cloud of smoke before it dissipates or the cork of a champagne bottle being popped.
I don’t eat ramen or visit Joy’s restaurant anymore.
My dad’s apartment has been a no-go zone since Keats and I last went there.
But it’s the time that I walked in on a poetry reading that had me turning around and leaving.
I never even got to read my Poet’s work.
I bet he was an amazing writer. Hopefully, he still is.
Though he stuck to his plan and got his finance degree.
I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming in excitement when he crossed that graduation stage.
I’ve never felt prouder, as if that was my right even though I only had less than twenty-four hours with him.
My feelings for that man developed fast and furious.
I should have known I was doomed to fall for him the minute I saw him sweep his hair out of his eyes when he was focused on his phone.
That playboy hair with the soft wave that ran through it so casually that I know he didn’t style it.
He just knew how to wear it like that attitude of his—a little feral and equally calming.
I’d never met anyone like him before. He was who he was.
No pretenses.
No forced expressions.
No small talk that didn’t feel like it was meant for more.
The arrival of the next train pulls me out of memory lane. I press a fingertip to the inside corner of my eye to keep the tear from falling. “Don’t be silly, Sosie.”
The doors open, and I sit in the same seat I saw him in on the other train. Instead of distracting myself with my phone, I stare out the window and exhale, unable to organize the messy state that meeting him has left me in. I shouldn’t still care about him, but I can’t help myself.
He looked good and is probably happy. I’d be shocked if he hasn’t had some other girl fall madly in love with him.
Lucky girl.
I don’t have any claim to jealousy regarding him, though I feel it, but I do still have a hole in my chest that he temporarily filled. I once read it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I’m not so sure I agree with Lord Tennyson anymore.
More than two years later, the pain of losing Keats hasn’t dampened.
It’s only morphed into something else—loneliness, discontentment .
. . I don’t even know. I still struggle to find one word that encapsulates the emotion of having the universe open its arms, only to have a door slammed in your face the next day.
The high of the hope and the low of the loss.
“Sorry I’m late.” I drop my leather messenger bag onto the wooden bench and slide into the booth across from my friend.
“It’s okay,” Marcy says, looping her fingers around the stem of her martini glass. “Hope you don’t mind. I already ordered a cosmo.”
I smile as my friend, who’s become a bigger part of my life over the past year, sips the pink drink.
We hit it off in our Classical English Literature 3 class last spring and now have a standing date every Wednesday at a different restaurant.
She’s been the addition to my life that I needed.
She’s not in my family’s social circle or looking for a bad boy, which used to be my tendency to spite my parents.
She’s started making me see people in a new way, steering my views away from the extremes.
It’s not one or the other anymore. It just is.
I’ve found comfort lolling through the middle of the two.
Maybe I’m a little numb as well, but that beats the heartbreak I barely survived two years prior.
“How very Sex and the City of you.” My phone buzzes, and I reach down to see who’s texting.
“Gregory.” I don’t mean to say it with such disdain, but he’s just always around—my house with his parents, at large dinners out, even the events we attend.
It’s annoying, though he’s not. He’s sweet.
I wish I could summon an attraction to him, but it’s just not meant to be. I read the text without swiping on it:
My parents are hosting a party in the Hamptons next weekend for my birthday. I’m hoping I’ll see you there. What do you say?
What I’d like to say is “I have no choice,” but since I can’t, I reply:
I’ll be there.
“I don’t know how you resist that man,” she says.
Again. This happens anytime he’s mentioned.
“He’s tall, gorgeous . . .” I drop the phone back into my bag, hoping to get away from life for a little bit.
“Okay. Okay. I won’t go on. Though if you don’t want him, you could at least introduce me.
” She laughs, but I don’t, as it finally dawns on me.
“That’s actually a great idea. What are you doing next weekend?”
She smirks. “Whatever it is, I’m in.”
“I’ll send you the details when I have them.” Taking a deep breath, I do something I never do. Gossip about my dating life since we’re circling the topic. I whisper, “You won’t believe what just happened.”
I’m not one to open up about certain things—Keats being someone off-limits to even mention although I still keep him burrowed deep in my heart.
Am I protecting something so precious that speaking of it will make me realize we were only an illusion?
Holding back hasn’t helped me recover. Maybe talking about it will.