Forty-Eight Years Ago

Forty-Eight Years Ago

"Liam?" she said.

He knew who it was before he even turned around. He knew it from the sound of her voice, quiet beneath the snow and the wind and the loud street. He knew it from how the air shifted, making room for her again, giving all the room to her, even if Cory wanted to pretend it was a question.

This was his first Christmas going home. He'd avoided going back to Midwood for the holidays. He'd avoided going home for more than two years. The only exception had been at the end of his sophomore year, when he had to come back for Joe's high school graduation. Which, of course, was Cory's graduation too. He saw her standing there in her graduation gown, her floral dress peeking out beneath the lapels, her curls in a matching hair clip. She'd looked beautiful and happy and sure of herself.

He'd walked the other way, wanting to be generous to her—to not make that day about them. But that wasn't the only reason. It was also about protecting himself. He knew what would happen if they met face-to-face. Exactly what was happening now in front of the damn liquor store on Avenue J. His unraveling.

She was wrapped in a thick scarf and a beanie, her curls long and wild around her shoulders. Snowflakes dotted her black coat, dotted the wine bottles sticking out of her paper bag. And it was as if not a second had passed, not one, looking at her again. Where had he been that mattered more than this?

"Cory," he said.

"How are you?"

"Fine. Good."

He was neither thing. If you had asked him yesterday, he would have insisted he was better than good. He was thriving at school in ways he could calculate (his grades, his classwork, his extracurriculars) and ways he couldn't (his daily sunrise run from his residential college to the library where he couldn't believe he got to study, where he couldn't believe he belonged).

Looking at Cory again, that all disappeared. Everything disappeared. There was only her.

"How about you?" he asked.

"Oh, you know."

She forced a smile, offered a shrug. She'd made it so easy for him to disengage from her. He'd tried calling at first, those early weeks of college, and she never came to the phone. And while he imagined taking the train home from New Haven and showing up at her front door, he never did it. And then he started to get busier and stopped imagining doing it. He eventually did his best to not allow himself to think about her at all.

"Joe told me you're at Brooklyn College," he said. "How's that going?"

"I love it."

"What happened to Wellesley?"

"What do you mean?"

"I thought there was that professor there you wanted to study with."

"Well, Brooklyn College gave me a full ride and I can commute from home, so it made more sense…"

He nodded.

She tilted her head, took him in. "Does that disappoint you?"

"Why would it disappoint me?"

"Because I know you," she says. "And you think I should have gone farther than across the street."

"Brooklyn College is a good school."

"Nothing to do with anything in your mind."

He looked away from her. This wasn't going how he wanted. What did he want? If he was being honest, he wanted to take her hand, like he had any right. He wanted to lean in and feel her cold breath. He wanted to put his arm around her and get her inside out of the wind and the snow. Like she needed him to do those things.

"Picking up last-minute supplies?" she asked.

"Sorry?"

She motioned toward the wine store. "Joe told me you guys are having a Christmas party tonight. He invited me."

"Yeah. Really our folks are, and it's not going to be much of a party. Just a few of their friends…"

"Don't worry, I'm not coming."

"I wasn't worried."

"I don't think that's entirely true."

She smiled—her real smile. And it nearly killed him. Two years. Four months. Eighteen days. Wasn't that supposed to ease what he felt when he looked at her? When he took in that smile?

"You should come," he said. "I'd like you to. We can sneak up to the roof. Drink hot toddies."

She nodded. She didn't acknowledge the weakness of his invitation by responding. Two years, four months, eighteen days.

"It was good to see you, Liam. Take care."

She hoisted her wine bag higher in her arms and turned to walk down Avenue J in the direction of her house. He didn't say it was good to see you too. Because what he wanted to say was something else entirely. Which was that it was awful to see her. It was awful to remember how wrong it felt to not see her every day.

He watched her retreating, the angles of her hair and her back, still within reach. Let her go. Let her go. He turned and opened the door to the wine store, the forced heat and peppermint candles and holiday music making him want to vomit. The bell above the door. Let her fucking go.

This is when he heard her voice for the second time.

"I may be open to another offer though," she said.

The relief he felt. The amount of fucking relief. He turned around. She was standing right outside the doorway.

"What did you have in mind?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't want to go to your party and I don't want to go to my house, but pretty much anything else will do."

He let the door to the wine store close behind them. The heat gone. The cold night air and her skin and arms and face inches from him.

He took the paper bag out of her arms to carry it for her. He put his free hand on the small of her back.

"Then let's do anything else," he said.