And afterwards she’d gone to Manhattan. Because in the fall she was leaving for Ghana; but in the meantime, she had left to go live in her parents’ apartment, and that was where she was from. And as for me? Well, my coping strategy was to nearly die while I snorted my way through the summer.
Because I simply didn’t care about living. I was crushed, and being a romantic, I couldn’t envision how things would ever get better. For I was, after all, just a kid then: young and dumb, I had taken advantage of where I lived to drink and take drugs with abandon.
But that wasn’t where everything ended. Because we’d foolishly kept on talking; and in July, she had begged to see me one last time when I’d called her from the depths of the bender. Stupidly, I’d drunkenly agreed to go to New York in an adderall-and-whiskey-fueled error.
And I was there within twenty-four hours. I was a wreck, and hadn’t slept for almost two days due to all the things I’d been snorting. But I’d had to go there and see her: no matter what, I was determined to convince her that joining the Peace Corps was nothing compared to our love.
But I’d had less than a day to work with. Because her parents had owned a cottage; and that night, she was leaving the city for a family vacation that would last ‘til she left for Ghana. Just as heartbroken, she had desperately asked me to make the trip, because it would be years until she could see me.
But I should’ve stayed in Ann Arbor. We just fought, and things got nasty and time ran low and my drug-addled brain grew frantic. And I also broke my toe there: after a final kiss, I tripped on a curb as I chased a bus that was pulling away for the airport.
And that was the last time I saw her. Because I heard that she left for Ghana; but after that, I haven’t the foggiest of where she went or what she does for a living. I sincerely hope that she’s doing well and that she’s married, if that’s what she wanted.
But here’s why I told you this story. It’s messed up, and it makes me hate time for how it loots so many things that we cherish. Because I cannot remember her face: though it was so dear, it inevitably escapes me when I wrack my brain, and I’ve never been one for pictures.
And before a storm, I can almost see it. Because the toe I broke starts throbbing; and as it does, I’m back in Manhattan on that awful day when we’d fought and said our goodbyes. Just out of reach, her image barely eludes my mind, as it does now because of the weather.
But then the storm breaks — and so does my heart, for a face that’s forever vanished.
About James Curtiss
