Always You

we meet again (it's always winter)

It has been four years since her. Feels like eternity. 

Sometimes in my sleep I see the halls of that upstate school building, nowhere spaces, like a place that existed only in my dreams. I see the faceless figures that haunted the Bedford streets. I see the neon signs of motels flung out on lonely roads. I see a bed of untouched snow. I see a soft hotel room with a single bed, and sometimes I can even feel the starchy sheets. 

But I never see her. 

Pills don't take me to the haven of her arms. Poetry flickers out in my head. My fingers close over what I think is her golden hair, but I flail instead at empty space. I never hear the rumble of her voice in my dreams; I never see the catlike eyes that wink at me across a coffee-stained diner table. I sleep alone in an unheated flat I rent out with three other students of my college, and too often I jolt awake in my bed in the dead of night, thinking she had called me and I've just missed her. 

/

Cate's coming down to the city. When I last called her she was still teaching English at Bedford High. There was a hollowness in her voice, a rough edge that hadn't been there before - or had I imagined it? Even after all those words and fevers, sweet kisses and slow nights, I can't dare to believe I meant enough to her to break her heart. I was young, she was lonely; we met and sparks flew - we fit like a glove. Yes, we spun to the stars. The passion was as strong as vengeance. Even our moments of tenderness had the cutting edge of desire. But we still stood on such separate planes: she a mother, I a child. 

Which was why I didn't feel shocked when she told me she was engaged. 

"My parents found him. Found him - " She gave a low chuckle, amused at her slip in words. "Like a stray dog - no, they thought he'd be right for me. And he loves Ruby like his own daughter."

"What's his name?" I asked. 

"Andrew. He writes plays. Directs them, too."

A guarded tone in her voice. Defensive? I felt that there were things she held back from me, a storm of words, angry truths. I would have preferred that she swore at me, shouted, cursed through the phone. But I'd lost claim over her truths. Hadn't I been the one who left her? To work on me, to try to fix me. But in doing so I had chosen myself over her.

She told me they had plans to move to New York City. "Once Ruby starts first grade. We found a nice elementary school in Manhattan. And Andrew is aiming to get to Broadway."

A pause. 

"Maybe I'll see you then," she said, uncertain.

I gripped the phone and braced myself against a cold gush of wind that came through the window. My eyes were closed; when I opened them I felt the hot tears streak my face. But my voice was steady as I replied, "Yes. I'd like that."

/

The day draws near. It's the zenith of February. By now I know Cate has moved in with her family. I picture her new place: a distinguished townhouse on the Upper East Side. Sprawling view of Central Park from the window. Antique furniture polished by the hands of time. And what an image: the perfect family, a doting father, a beautiful mother, a beloved daughter. 

My own city fixture looks pathetically laughable in comparison: a dilapidated apartment somewhere near Morningside Heights, just brushing elbows with Harlem. There's no heat, the water runs sporadically on Mondays, and you're always woken up in the middle of the night by the yowling noises of alley cats in heat. 

We're supposed to meet at a restaurant on Fifth Avenue, and I went without dinner or subway rides for six months to save up my paychecks so I could pay for the meal. I'm as nervous as a teenage boy on prom night as I remember the phone call. How had it become like this?