1
Henry
I watch her from afar. I follow her down the street.
I see her laughing, tossing her hair back. She smiles and disappears around the corner.
I see her moments later with her face buried in her phone. She's reading my message but she's not replying.
I have called her a number of times, too many to count. I don't want to be a stalker and yet here I am, watching her, following her, forcing myself into her world.
I know that what I am doing is wrong, but I can't stop it.
I want her back.
I need her back.
My life doesn't make sense without her.
Does hers make sense without me?
When Aurora stops outside a store, she stands with her arms crossed peering at the books behind the glass. Tempted to approach her, I imagine myself walking up to her and giving her a hug and a kiss as if she were still mine.
I press my fingertips into my palms and notice the whites of my knuckles. I take a deep breath even though my chest tightens along with my windpipe.
The next breath is just as laborious, if not more so. It takes everything in me to pull myself away from her.
Aurora doesn't know that I am in New York because I shouldn't be here.
No one knows that I'm here. Not my editor, not my boss, not my boss's boss. I flew here from Kentucky on my own dime and I have to be back at LaGuardia airport tonight.
That's all the time that I have to figure out what to do, or perhaps what not to do. When I got the ticket, I thought that I would come here and find her and tell her that I love her and we should get back together. But watching her ignore my calls and my texts, I don't think I have the strength to face a rejection face-to-face.
Aurora and I had a fight, one of many, which resulted from distance and pain and loneliness. We let our frustrations push us apart, and I regret ever saying that I wanted to take a break.
At first, she was upset. She called me a few times and I let those calls go to voice mail.
When it was my turn to call, it was her turn to push me away.
I'd like to say that I don't believe in regrets because it's a cool thing to say.
It's as if in today's world, we should all embrace every stupid thing that we have ever done just because these moments are the ones that have ’made you the person that you are today’.
But the truth is that I don't believe in any of that.
It's bullshit.
Not everything that I have ever done contributed to me becoming a better person. Many things were just fucked up and unnecessary and plain old mistakes that I wish I could take back.
Forgetting about Aurora's graduation, focusing too much on my work, and then telling her that I'm tired of us even though at that moment, I was just tired, are the mistakes that I wish I could take back.
Saying those words to her set everything in motion and now there is no going back.
I watch Aurora disappear into the bookstore and wish more than anything that I could follow her.
Yesterday, I thought that I would.
I thought that I would get off that plane and go straight to her house and tell her everything that I have been feeling ever since we broke up.
But now, I can't bring myself to do it.
It's not because I don't miss her. I miss her more than I have ever missed anyone.
Without her in my life, I feel like a part of me is gone.
If I were to suddenly lose a limb, I would probably miss it a lot less.
I touch the door to the bookstore, running my fingers over its ornate design. I grab the handle and hold it open for a customer with her hair slicked back into a severe bun.
I linger for a moment and then watch a customer walk out. She doesn't look up from her phone but gives me a brief nod, a thank you.
Go inside, I say to myself, go inside or you'll regret this the same way you regret everything else.
I take a deep breath and step over the threshold. I look for Aurora in the front near the registers and search for her through the aisles in the back.
The further back I go the more disorganized everything gets. The aisles are all labeled but most of the books are miscategorized and some are shelved with their spines in. I walk past aisle after aisle searching for her, finally spotting her all the way in the back, in the romance section.
Her shoulders move up and down with each breath as she turns the pages delicately. Holding the book up to her face, Aurora's nose is quite literally buried in it.
"What are you doing?” she asks when I take a step and the floor makes a loud creaking sound.
"I wanted to talk to you," I say.
"So you followed me?"
"No, no, I mean yes," I stumble.
"Which is it?" Aurora cocks her head and narrows her eyes.
"Can we talk?" I ask.
"We are talking," she says.
She knows perfectly well that that's not what I mean, I don't know how to help her get past this angry part so that she will hear me out.
"You were supposed to be there," she says, walking around me and toward the register.
"I know, I'm really sorry.” I rush after her. "I was just working on a story and I got really caught up with it."
"I know that you have this career that you are really passionate about, but I have my own life and my own drama and I thought that I could rely on my boyfriend to be there for me."
"You can," I say.
"Really?"
"I'm sorry," I say, taking a deep breath. "I know that I fucked up. I should have never suggested that we break up. But I tried to call you so many times afterward…"
I stand here next to her and wait for the cashier to run her credit card and for her to enter her pin number.
"I'm really sorry about how everything turned out," Aurora says when we get outside.
The rush of the traffic startles me for a moment. I have been in Kentucky for too long, I decide.
"So is this it?" I ask.
She shrugs.
"Do you not wanna talk about this anymore?"
She shrugs again.
Aurora puts the weight of her body on the back of her foot as if she's about to spin and walk away, but something stops her.
"What do you want to happen?" she asks.
"I want you back," I say without missing a beat. "I am really sorry about everything, especially about missing your graduation. I love you, Aurora. I miss you more than you could ever imagine. I need you back in my life."
Big fat tears start to well up in her eyes. Her face contorts as she tries to push them away.
Aurora covers her mouth with her hand and shakes her head mumbling, "No, no, no."
I reach over and put my arm around her, but she pushes me away.
"No, I can't," she says.
"Why not?" I whisper.
It feels like there's something that she is not telling me.
But the harder I push, the further away she gets.
"I have to go," she says, wiping her cheeks. "I can't see you again, Henry. Too much has happened."
2
Henry
When she walks away, she takes my ability to breathe.
Is this what it feels like to die?
Folding in half, I wrap my hands around my knees and start to sob, not caring who can hear me.