S A R A

Ch 49

49

In a slightly awkward way as one that would take the bus after 10pm, slightly buzzed, would – I did.

Quietly, I hopped on, hoping I wouldn't run into too many crackheads or something. But luckily, it was mostly a few young people scattered around with their noses in their phones. Probably not going to a party.

It feels weird to even say party since I was...alone.

But isn't it like that, always? Even together, we dance alone.

I got out at the stop that Google Maps told me to, and it was still a brisk 5-minute walk to the place itself.

The streets were relatively empty, and I made it through and into the night.

Once inside the warehouse, I got to coat check and even though I wasn't the very first person in there, the dancefloor was relatively scarce. But it also made it really beautiful. The lights, the smoke, the visual art projections made it seem grimy and hard like what I would imagine a Berlin club to be.

It wasn't my usual 'scene'. And I loved it.

I got a drink at the bar, trying to find something to do so it wasn't totally strange for me to stand there though.

The DJ was not on. Instead it was an obscure local act, more like 3 of them on stage doing something on the board, but they weren't half bad.

Once people began to fill in, I went back to the place I first stood when I saw the whole scene and snapped a few pictures on my new iPhone.

Isn't that what it's all about, and probably the feeling we most chase – the first time we caught a glimpse of something, the first experience, the first moment that our eyes took it all in and sent it to our brain and told us what this picture that we were experiencing was.

How much do we chase experiences? Because I think I'm addicted.

Ever since I met him, it opened my eyes to how much more there was to living that I didn't know about. Didn't realize yet.

I posted that first picture to my Instagram story.

I'll admit, that having sorta holed myself up in my parents house the past few months, before New York, I sorta lost touch with a lot of people and these days all my phone notifications were form either the family chat or, most often, memes from my dear brother or sometimes my sister.

So, one can only imagine my surprise when, once I was near the back of a growing crowd facing the DJ and having just finished my drink, I look down at my phone to see that my story got a reply. And half expecting it to probably be some extended family, I blinked twice to see that it was him. Haden.

I didn't know what it was but it didn't matter. Because all these repressed thoughts and feelings that I've been working so well to hide form myself and others has worked so well up to this point now that I was here. I admit that the scene took me by surprise in the beginning, partly because how much it felt like him. I remember seeing photos of places he loved and shows he went to that he would show me, and some of them looked so much like this. So maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. And yet...

I swiftly walked to the second bar and ordered a rum and coke – my party drink - having a strong urge to lose myself in something. The music, this place, him...

I took a sip and opened the preview on my phone. It was one thing – a fire emoji.

As if our whole relationship life and my tumultuous experience could be summed up after all this time by one little emoji. A flame.

Little does he realize that fire warms but also burns down everything in its path.

I admit, it was so long since I even entertained the possibility of him and me and me and him. And I missed it. I missed the intoxication of it.

Yes, I was now stable and content, but I missed the highs just as much as the lows may have hurt me.

I debated whether I should reply anything back now, or what any of it even meant, and decided to just spend the rest of the night, here. Alone, with the knowledge, that in my phone is an unopened message from Haden.

The main DJ ended up coming out at 1am, and this definitely wasn't one of my Taylor Swift concerts because though people were just beginning to get r o w d y I didn't know it was going to be like this and probably stayed for 15 minutes until calling an Uber. I had gotten more than what I came for anyway.

I went to bed that night, nearly running out the headache that I have been sustaining for months now, ever since I left him, thinking that just maybe it was slightly less.

-

The next day, I 'liked' the message. And it was slightly startling to see a heart so plainly between his name and mine, even if on the screen.

I half expected nothing to happen, half expected something to happen.

But nothing happened.

As if it was all some sort of dream.

I thought to myself, I couldn't let my life be define by my interaction with him. And yet, there we were. As if everything between us was just a convey to get to each other. The in-between, though playing a role, meaning nothing. Us, everything.