I had met her many years earlier.
She didn’t like me then, and from what I could tell when she recognized me as I walked into the coffee shop on Fourth Street near the park, that hadn’t changed.
So many years ago, that drama had been about a boy. I think.
Erica never confronted me on it, just shot me looks from across the room, her dark brown eyes thin but focused, eyebrows pointing down in the center, her mouth coming to a slight pucker as she clenched her jaw shut. I never had a problem with her, until later. And even then, it wasn’t about her.
Mark had been with me then. As loosely as you could define with. He had issues with calling me his girlfriend or letting me call him my boyfriend. I just figured we were young and it was early for a commitment. And he said he wasn’t ready.
We were – something. Something real, but without an exact definition. I didn’t want us to be so loose, but I believed he was worth the wait.
He may have been, if he were willing to open up to me. But he wasn’t.
I found out later that he had a serious girlfriend before we met. He thought they were forever. And she killed herself.
I’m not sure how to describe my reaction when I heard that. I had no idea what to do, what to say. I had no breath left. Just empathy, compassion and some freaking out all smashed together. And a small click of why he thought he needed to keep me at a distance.
He had no warning and felt responsible; he was devastated and shut down. It was too hard to trust anyone else because he was afraid of them leaving him – again.
I would have clung to him and never let him go. No matter how he treated me. I would have made sure he could count on someone. Period.
But he never told me about her. Apparently he didn’t see me as someone he could talk to, someone he could trust or confide in. I had fallen so hard for him and he kept the biggest things in his life from me. He kept me at a distance when all I wanted was for him to let me in.
I never had the chance to show him how much I cared before he broke up with me, if that’s what you can call it when you aren’t really together in the first place.
I must have been blinded by my feelings, because I didn’t see what was right in front of me: I wasn’t what he wanted. I wasn’t who he wanted.
Even the words he used left me confused. Were we broken up? Were we still together? Because you can’t tell someone you are breaking up if you never acknowledged that you were together in the first place. We could still be friends though, he said. But something in his tone made me pretty sure it was over.
That became totally clear when Mark’s friend told me she had moved in. It had only been two weeks since our break-up. Or whatever term he wanted to use as a replacement.
Two weeks. And they were living together.
I had so many questions and I never fully found out the answers. How long had they been together? Were then together when he and I were together? Or whatever we were? I knew he hadn’t been ready to commit, but we were a we – an us. At the time, I would not have defined us as sort-of-ish anything. We just were.
But apparently I had just been the substitute girl, the for now girl. Other than a couple emails and a reluctant wave when he accidentally made eye contact with me across the quad, we never talked again.
Mark and Erica got married the following year.
Married.
So much for us being young, and him not being ready to commit. They eloped. In Vegas. So prosaic. And I guess weirdly romantic-ish.
Fast forward two years and they were divorced. Already.
I never knew the why behind that.
Seeing Erica now, I wasn’t sure what to say. We had never been friends and she clearly didn’t want to be friends now. So I just went with the basics: “Sure is cold out tonight, huh?”
She could have played it off that she didn’t know me, that we were strangers making awkward conversation. Or she could have just said, “Yup.”
But her face betrayed her. Recognition was displayed in those same eyes, same eyebrows, same puckered mouth.
She had won. And he still left.
She glared at me, her eyes getting even thinner than before. She looked toward her friend on her right and blew all the air out of her mouth in a short breath, in a quiet whoosh. Then she stood up, turned toward the door and walked away.
I wonder if she had been waiting for him to realize he missed her, that he made a mistake. So many years ago I had been wishing something similar, but I had nothing to base that wish on. I had been waiting for something once that would never come, and I moved on.
But he was her husband.
The door slammed closed behind her and the wreath with the red, yellow and orange leaves on it crashed and bounced against the glass as I watched her leave.
The pavement was wet from the rain a few hours before, and her footprints reflected on the sidewalk.
Almost-perfect, slightly blurry boot-marks imprinted in the melting water, like the memories of him that he left – for both of us.
*Fiction