I'll Be Seeing You

Epilogue: 5 Years Later

Lydia idly wondered if it would surprise anyone, their friends, their family, that they hadn't ever quite broken up. It had been five years and nothing had changed.

She had chosen to take the train. It seemed fitting that the L train that had carried her to his door would also be the train to carry her away from him when all of this was done. She wanted one more nostalgic walk in the neighborhood. How many times had she walked down Bedford Avenue and glanced in the store fronts or hustled down the street eager to see him? How many times had she pushed the nauseating feeling in her body down, as far down as it would go so she didn't have to think about the fact that she was betraying herself and her own rules each time she ran to him. As she walked down Bedford Avenue towards his apartment she rung her hands in her lap. This time was different. It had to be. She couldn't do this anymore. But how many times had she said that?

"We need to talk." She'd texted him a week earlier. He'd replied that he was available but not for a week. Why rush a conversation he didn't want to have, she thought to herself as the familiar scenes of Williamsburg buzzed around her.

"Don't do that thing you always do where you put off the conversation and then think I've forgotten about it." She texted back.

"I'm not doing that. I promise I'll get to it. I'm just swamped this week." Jaime, always with the excuse. Always ready to evade any whiff of a real conversation.

When he hadn't texted in seven days she had sent a follow up text. "You're doing that thing."

"I've been busy." His reply came swift and succinct.

"We need to talk." She'd repeated. About what, she still wasn't certain but she needed him out of her bones. Out of her system. She needed to be done with him and this version of herself.

"I'm free this weekend if you are." He said.

"I'm away starting tomorrow morning." She had replied. It wasn't true but she wasn't going to wait one more moment for him to push this entire thing off. She'd waited long enough.

"Okay, how about any hour?" She'd sat back pleased that she'd gotten him to yield. He didn't have plans. He wasn't busy. There wasn't something more important than her. He just didn't want to handle it

As she walked down the block and turned the corner to, her hands shook. She was nervous. It felt like an earthquake inside of her but something deeper said, this is right. This is good. This is what you're meant to do.

She walked through the doors of his building and didn't bother waving at the doormen. They'd never stopped her in the twelve years they'd been sleeping together. She had initially thought it was because they recognized her. Now she knew it was because he had an open door policy for any woman and the doormen were instructed to let them through.

She resented him. That much was clear. The nervousness was masking the anger she felt welling up inside of her. How many times had they done this? How many years had she wasted waiting for him to choose her and he never could. Why was that? So what if his family situation was shit. So what if he wanted independence? You could be independent and love someone at the same time. She'd seen plenty of people do it. But Jaime? No. Jaime refused her over and over again.

She knocked on the door and realized that his apartment was silent. Normally there was techno music playing from behind the door so loud she had to knock repeatedly. But this time, there was nothing. Not a peep. Despite that, she knocked again.

"Coming!" He called from somewhere beyond and when he opened the door he looked at her cautiously. She turned her head when he tried to kiss her. Her skin brushed against his beard and she refrained from wrapping her arms around his waist. She couldn't lean into him. It would break all of her bravado.