By Isabel Warner
Typically, I go the long way and steer clear of your hometown. I have grown to hate those roads we once drove together. We sang loudly to songs that reminded us of our childhoods and laughed until we couldn’t breathe. For a while, I didn’t know how to stop the memories. I thought of sitting in your passenger seat, looking over at you, admiring your smile and how the California sun lit up your face. Flashbacks of nights spent next to each other reading our favorite books raced through my mind. How odd it is that sometimes we grieve someone who is still alive.
You left your backpack at my apartment. Its contents spilled out onto my bedroom floor. I avoided the mess until a postcard from the hotel we stayed at in Maine two summers earlier caught my eye. I picked it up and held in my hands the beginning of the end. I traced your handwriting across the thick piece of paper. All of my suspicions finally answered: your heart belonged to someone else. Loving another writer can bring you together, but it can also pull you apart.
We haven’t talked in months. I still wonder how you’re doing. Did you finally tell her how you feel? Does she love you back? Did you even care about me?
A year after finding the postcard, I stood in the Whole Foods line with a Sunflower bouquet in one hand and my favorite chips in the other. A quiet, unfamiliar voice says, “Those chips are my favorite.” I turn. He has dark brown hair, striking blue eyes, and is wearing a Boston University hoodie. We chat for a while about our majors, favorite classes, books, and our hometowns. Before we say goodbye, he tells me to wait. He goes into his car, and when he returns, he hands me a receipt with a phone number scribbled on the back. A new beginning.
As I walk away, there is a battle in my mind. Am I ready to start over? Could this be a leap worth taking even if it means possibly falling down again? After a long walk to my car, I ultimately decide that falling is inevitable; it is the getting up that matters most. I don’t know what will happen, but I know it’s time to try again.
In my car, I open my bag of chips and look at the receipt with the number on it. I think; this is starting over.
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