a hug

A gentle knock at the door interrupted the comfortable stillness of my uptown studio. I wasn’t expecting visitors, though my visitors rarely announced their intended arrival. I gave it a moment; I was in no mood to deal with another aspiring novelist or disgruntled student from my writing classes at the city college. I had my own problems. The knock came again, this time more persistent. There was urgency in this knock, it had the character hardly befitting a timid student. I was suddenly intrigued by this knock that shattered the comfortable silence of a humid Sunday evening.

“Hang on, I’m coming,” I directed toward the knock at the door. A quick glance in the mirror told me what I already knew; I wasn’t getting any younger. An aspiring writer, quickly approaching thirty, but my eyes were decades older after abuse from the perpetual party scene. Those days were behind me, and all I had to show for it was a couple of rotten stories picked up by obscure, independent lit mags and my writing classes at the city college. My dreams had faded, as had most of my friendships, let alone my relationships. It was romantic to be a writer with a dream in your early 20s, it was pathetic not to have anything significant published ten years later with the dream nearly erased. I was alone in every sense of the word.

I opened the door, and my heart stopped. It was her. I remember the exact moment I watched her leave for the last time at Los Angeles’s Union Station. I remember the way we held each other, promising safe trips, and frequent calls, holding each other so tightly, never intending to let go. I remember the sadness I felt in watching her turn to get on a train that would take her to San Diego. I remember the emptiness consuming my entire being when I got on the plane to go home to Minneapolis. I remember the pain in knowing that it would be months before I could hold her again. I remember the shock, the anger, the heartbreak when she told me a week later that I was too far away to be a practical love interest, and besides, she had met someone else. This was eight years ago, we hadn’t spoken since.

“Sean…” she spoke my name softly. She was still striking, looking much younger than I, though only a couple years between us, and my cute, charming girl next door whom I had fallen ridiculously in love with had grown into a confident, beautiful woman. And she was standing in my door.

“Why are you here?” I asked, feeling cheated. At the time I was absolutely convinced that there is one perfect match for everyone in this world, and I had known it in my soul that she was the match made for me. It had taken me years to get over her, to forget how beautiful, how wonderful she was. How special she made me feel about myself. To forget that last weekend we spent together in LA. I had successfully buried her in the depths of my subconscious, I had placed her on a corner shelf in a dark closet located on the outer most edge of my being. And suddenly she was at my door.

Her face had a determined look on it. It was obvious she had rehearsed what was about to come next, but her eyes told me she was struggling with the words.

“Sean, I’m getting married next month. I needed to do so with a clean heart. I needed to see you again.” Her voice was trembling now, I wondered what she was afraid of. She was the one who’d broken things off with me, I was completely in love, I was completely blindsided.
“I had to see you again,” she repeated, a little stronger this time “to make sure the feeling was gone, that I made the right decision.” This sounded very scripted, her eyes were seconds away from tears. She was so beautiful. It had taken me so long to forget her. I wondered if she had any idea of the pain she’d caused me. Of those sleepless nights when I replayed every conversation, every interaction, every emotion that I felt for her, that I had assumed we felt for each other. I wondered if she knew at all of the endless hours I put in on my bike, driving myself onward, aimlessly around the city, my legs burning in hopes that my heart would stop hurting, never succeeding.

Suddenly she burst forward into my little studio and threw her arms around me, pulling me close, holding me tightly.

“God, I’ve missed you” she whispered. My arms remained at my sides, neither embracing her, nor rejecting her embrace.

I got lost in her hug, her small yet powerful arms holding me, just as she had years before. The smell of her hair was the same, the feeling was the same, and then I was back in LA. I remember how that entire weekend she had hugged me without notice, holding me tightly as I returned her embrace with equal force and passion.

We’d lived so far apart and our times together were so occasional that we made our affection as tangible and as frequent as possible. We’d held each other so tightly back then, as if by not letting go we could escape reality. That she’d never go back to San Diego, that I would never leave for Minneapolis.

To me, her hugs had been an affirmation of her love for me. I was fully and whole heartedly in love with this girl, and to hold her close meant that everything was right in the world. I could get lost in her hugs, consumed by her passion. To her, I could only guess that her hugs had been a way of saying goodbye. Of giving me a little piece of herself to remember her by when she would inevitably break my heart. Which she inevitably did, one week later.

“You have to go,” I said, with more conviction than I could possibly feel. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“But…” she started to protest.
“No, leave.” I snapped, quietly but firmly. She looked up at me with those adorable eyes that I will forever be in love with. I could feel the sadness, I knew it all too well, it was the sadness of rejection that comes from being told that the passion you share for another person won’t be returned. Her sadness was my own, eight years ago. She turned and headed down the stairway of my building, pausing, she took one last look at me and without a word she was gone.

The greatest thing that had ever happened in my life had just left me for the second time.