Saudade

"I'm scared of graduating with a degree that won't guarantee me a job. And because I don't know what to do with my degree I'll end up working for minimum wage at the local grocery store, where everyone I went to school with see me every day and I could hear them thinking, 'Look how she ended up, must suck'. My family too, will be disappointed in me for wasting four years in college with no job as proof of what I studied because the degree doesn't mean shit if I don't have a job." I haunched over, elbows on my knees, and tears began to roll down my face, splattering the cement beneath me, one after the other.

I can't stop it. Gosh, I wanted to stop it so bad. I didn't want to cry in front of him. I didn't want to talk about any of this with him. He's the last person I wanted to run into on a night like this.

I didn't want to rely on his comfort because I knew it wasn't the same as five years ago. He wasn't the same as five years ago. He grew up. I grew up. We're strangers in different eras of our life. I shouldn't expect him to take this seriously, he's seven years my senior for crying out loud, he probably thinks I'm some child acting out about her millennial problems, despite being twenty-one.

Hell, maybe I am being childish after all.

A hand taps my back in an attempt to be soothing but all I want to do is launch myself into the ocean before me so I could disappear.

"It's okay, it happens to the best of us," he says softly.

I sob.

At this point, I'm not even crying about my prediction of my future but because he is seeing me like this. In the four years, I'd known him during my teens I had embarrassed myself in front of this man more times than I can count on two hands and five years later the first thing he sees is this. A sobbing mess.

"Do you want me to hug you?"

God no.

I quickly wipe my tears--not that it matters--and face him with a wide smile. "I am so good but thank you!" I said quickly and ran.