The Way We Were

Is he going to be there. She wonders about that, about running into him in a city of millions of people, of countless neighbourhoods and boroughs, hidden pockets and sharp corners. Is he even still there. It's been a long time coming; years after the two and half years where they promised each other every day they would be here, in this city; partners in crime, living through shared lessons in life and love and loss; encompassing everything, enveloped in each other's beings. If he is still there, will he be hidden or in plain view. How will she find him. She'll turn around on the platform, crossing from one train to the next. He'll be climbing a stairwell as she descends; crossing the street, ordering a cup of coffee, wandering in Central Park, singing in Washington Square, sipping cafe au laits in Greenwich just like they planned when they were one, when he was her person and she was well met. She tries to forget but he keeps coming back to her, unexpectedly, in dreams or a passing thought; in the smell of the city, the noise in her head, the shape of his shoulders and sway of his back; in words imprinted on her flesh. His wrist. His hands in her hair. The Dax marking her pillow, the oil stains in the driveway, the socks he left rolled up in a ball under her bed. They disappeared, along with his trumpet and guitar, his letters to a friend shot dead and pieces of her self she gave away freely, unknowingly. Is this longing, nostalgia, or the rewriting of history to suit her present desires. She doesn't know him, who he is, what he may have become. A faint scar, a first tattoo, hundreds of miles on these shared wheels later and she wonders if he will be there. Was he ever really here.