What Happened in Florida

i will never forgive you

    It was after 3:00am when the apartment finally got quiet, but I couldn't sleep. My mind seesawed from thinking about Sarah to thinking about Will. I laid in bed and wondered when I had started ruining everyone I touched.
    The last words Sarah said to me echoed in my mind. "You ruined us. You did that. And I will never forgive you."
    Why did I do it? Why did I ruin the one good thing I had? I guess it doesn't matter. What's done is done. But I can't move on. How can you fix things when you've burned them and thrown the ashes into the sea?
    I picked up my phone and went to my emails. I couldn't help but look at my messages with Sarah. Her last email to me was in 2010. I still couldn't bring myself to delete it after ten years. It said, "Don't ever contact me again." And my last email to her was, "I can't even tell you how sorry I am."
    Sarah had moved to Florida for college and told me that she would come back to New York after she graduated, and we would get married and live in an apartment near Times Square. At the time I believed I could wait for her. I really loved her. But four years is a long time.
    It was so easy to hide my new girlfriend from her. I'm just lonely, I told myself, I need someone to touch me, but it doesn't mean anything. It's just until Sarah comes back.
    But Sarah came back too early. She wanted to surprise me during the summer after sophomore year. She flew to New York to find me in bed with another girl. She went back to Florida and didn't come back to New York after she graduated.
    One of my friends stayed in touch with her and one day he told me that she had cancer. Guilt possessed me to fly to Florida to see her.
    I walked into the hospital room and she didn't say anything. She had breathing tubes in her nose and was hooked up to an IV. She didn't look surprised to see me.
    "What do you want, Tina?"
    "I... heard you were sick, and I wanted to see you."
    "That's funny, because I thought I told you to never contact me again."
    "Sarah, I know what I did was wrong, but-"
    "No, you see, I don't think you do know what you did. You had me believe that I could go get my dream degree in theatre and come home to a loving wife. You said you were fully on board and you swore to me that you would wait. We could've been living together in New York for the past six years. We could've had kids by now, maybe I would've been on Broadway. But you ruined it. You ruined New York for me. After I saw you in bed with that girl, I walked around Times Square. I walked past every Broadway theater and you know what I felt? Nothing. The marquees didn't shine as brightly as they had before I left. I walked past my favorite actor on the street and didn't get butterflies. I could never go back to New York because it wasn't the same. And I hate you for that. You ruined my life, and now I'm dying, and you have the gal to waste what precious time I have left by making me talk to you." She took a deep breath, wheezed and coughed for a while before she could continue. "I'm gonna die and stop hurting. But you... you are gonna live with the fact that you ruined my life. You ruined us. You did that. And I will never forgive you."

     I looked at the bottle of Whiskey on my night table. I went out on the porch and dialed Will's number.
    He answered. I knew he would.
    "I'm not ready to talk about what happened in Florida. But I am ready for you to be in my life again. I know I'm selfish and that I don't deserve you, but I need you. I really do, and I'm sorry."
    He was quiet. I looked at the sky. The stars were blurry, and I let the tears run down my face. I thought he had hung up, but I finally heard him sigh.
    "Okay."