Sick

Staring out the window, you watch as the cars pass by. It’s late. You really should be heading home. I sit just across from you, wondering what could be going through your mind. Sprawled out on the table in front of us is our food, which we bought on impulse as soon as one of us had money. In terms of quality, it wasn’t great, but neither of us cared. The food wasn’t what mattered to us. Our chatter has diminished, those long conversations shifting to just sharing our presence with one another. You turn your gaze back to me, a smile on your face so warm and gentle, a stark contrast to the cold and dark city landscape just outside.

You propose an idea, one that could make the night last longer. Hindsight may tell us that this idea is not a good one, but I can tell that you don’t care. Like me, you would do anything to keep this moment lasting forever. As we leave the restaurant, embracing the cold, harsh city, we're unaware of just how fast things are about to change. Phones ring, but we ignore them. We continue walking, hand in hand. On your face, I can see a sense of hesitation, a fear of if this is the decision you want to make. I told you I would support you through anything, no matter what happens.

The night ends in the way we never wanted it to. Your parents’ car rolls up beside us, a vessel carrying the harsh truth of reality. In retrospect, I wonder if that was the true catalyst for everything that changed between us. I’m not quite sure that you ever forgave me for the words your parents said to you. Tear-stained cheeks became a symbol for that night, an indication that our luck had run out. Even in the weeks that followed, things never returned to normal. It didn’t even end in a blazing ball of fire, it just ended one day. With the turn of the new year, I went from having you to not. 

Seven years pass quickly. The details about you that I once knew by heart are now but a faded shadow in my long-term memory. I find myself wondering if you remember what you meant to me, or what I meant to you. Parts of me wonder if things were truly equal between us. It’s easy to contemplate these things now; wounds turn into scars that hardly feel different from the skin they were inflicted upon. Yet, there was once a time when everything I wanted, everything I aspired for, revolved around you. 

That restaurant is still there, though it’s been remodeled since that fateful night. The table we sat at is likely long since destroyed, and the window you stared out of is covered with advertisements. Our social media pages have been scrubbed of anything to do with the two of us, the pictures from that night long since deleted. Everything that once connected the two of us together no longer exists. In any way that matters, you’re just a stranger to me. So why do I feel so sick?