When We Were Young

Part I

Prologue

I didn't realize how much I missed New York City until I saw the skyline from the taxi as I approached the city. The city was the old friend that I hadn't stayed in touch with when I left over fifteen years earlier. It was a reminder of the life I lived, and everything I lost. 

But seeing the new buildings piercing the sky, and knowing that beneath the quiet of the oasis in the distance there was a roar of life and memories to be relived. I was home. I didn't plan on revisiting my old friend, my old life, but a phone call broke the protective shell around my new world.

It had been a long week of work with one too many meetings that held no purpose. The rain hadn't let up either. It felt like it had been raining for weeks in London, only adding to my irritability. I constantly felt chilled and damp, never able to get dry. By Thursday night, I needed a drink.

Sitting in the pub with some mates who were also trying to drink away their week, we barely spoke a word and instead just stared at our phones and at the TVs wedged into archaic dirt brown bookcases. Mindless TV so we didn't have to think. I was faring well until my mobile rang. I glanced down. U.S. number. I shivered, not sure if it was from the rain that had drenched my pants from knees to ankles, or for the fact that each time someone from New York called me I grew nervous thinking about who it could be, who I wanted it to be, and sometimes who I hoped it wasn't.

This call was a combination of all my fears.

It took less than one minute to uproot my entire life that I spent almost fifteen years building. But there were no excuses to keep me from going - the magnetic pull was still there and in the morning I was on a plane. I hadn't been living since I left, only waiting for the devastation to return while existing in a state of denial. I sat alone in that devastation thinking about Skylar Shaw. She was the reason I left New York City. Now she was the reason I was going back.

There were only ever going to be two endings. It would last or it wouldn't. I was too young to really know that in the beginning. I only just wanted to be with Skylar.

When I stepped out of the taxi, the smell of the city hit me. New York City has a certain smell to it. Sometimes not so nice, but it is always distinct and original. A combination of food, cars, pavement, and the river, it is complex and layered, and you either love it or hate it. Having been away so long, I forgot how much I loved it. And it made me feel like I had never left.

There was time before we were to meet so I needed to keep myself busy. I called Cait first to tell her that I arrived, and then decided a shower and something to eat would fill the time. Not knowing what was going to happen kept my nerves alive like an electric wire that frayed at the ends and sparked now and then.

October in Manhattan is the best time of year, as far as I'm concerned. The summer humidity has disappeared and the autumn coolness has settled in. I needed a light jacket as I hurried out onto the street. As I rushed down the sidewalk, remembering to keep the pace so I didn't get trampled by busy New Yorkers, I wasn't expecting the memories to come back so quickly, but then is the past ever truly just the past? Memories are in your bones, graphed into your skin, and hiding in your blind side until something rattles them into focus and brings them back alive. That call rattled me and made me remember. The memories rushed forward like a flood, knocking me down. They weren't gentle.

How could I ever really forget? How could I forget someone who I loved so much that I couldn't breathe without her? I survived, I know. I waited for the day when I didn't love her.

I know now that day never came.