We drove and drove to the edge of Park Slope and by the time we arrived I didn’t feel like seeing him anymore. We were meeting at a bar in what felt like the middle of nowhere. It had big wooden benches and a smoke-filled back patio and cute lights hanging over the fire pit. My mind was drowning, submerged in the stories I had drafted up. Stories about what he looked like now and how he was going to sound and what he’d be wearing and what we would talk about and what we were going to avoid. They were multiplying like little cells, outweighing all of my other thoughts desperately competing for the airtime. But before I could fully psych myself out, I felt a tap on my shoulder. There he was just as I remembered him. Like he had just walked out of a L.L.Bean catalogue. We shared an awkward hug and stood talking in middle of the bar. He had the same haircut. The same nerdy laugh. I felt 24 again, with the exception of a few more grey hairs and a slightly more furrowed brow. I kept picking at my cuticles and playing with the gold chain around my neck. I knew better than to keep moving like that. It reminded me of our first few conversations and how nervous I used to get. That feeling never really went away I guess. It just changed forms and moved across the country and tried its best to blend into new surroundings. And it was the strangest feeling to hear his voice again. Something in the vibration shot a dull pain through my body. Maybe because of how much time had passed. Or maybe because of how quickly and easily it had disappeared. Or perhaps it was because a part of me knew that seeing him again felt much closer to a goodbye than it did a hello.
