The thing you regret most is that you let her leave before you told her. Or before somebody else did. Whatever. It doesn't even matter to you at this point. She doesn't know. She never knew. All the horrible things that could've happened and all the wrong ways that she could've found out, fine, whatever, you don't care. You just wish she'd known.
But whatever. Right? Whatever. It's just some high school crush and you'd be over it when you were gone and you were off in college getting drunk and getting laid and falling in love and writing because everybody always told you that you'd be an amazing writer when you were older.
When you were older. Everybody always says that. You'll be amazing when you're older. You'll understand when you're older. It won't matter when you're older.
They're lies. They're all complete and absolute lies. They're all trash that parents feed their children to make them look forward to growing up and leaving everything that they've known for some shitty life. For day after day after day of coming back from a horrible day at work and dumping your shit off at your apartment and wishing that you were home, but you realize again and again that there is no home.
You wish she knew.
It never went away. Never. They told you not to tell her because she's your best friend. Because she's your best friend and she has been for for so many years and you don't want to ruin something like that, because not everybody gets a friend like that. Not everybody gets to be happy like you do with her.
They said you'd grow out of it. Another lie. They tell you that you'll grow out of carsickness and being scared of the dark. Like when you get older, all the bad things in life and all your fears will be gone and you'll be happy.
Well you're still scared of the dark.
And she's everything now. You didn't grow out of it. You grew even more into it. You built your whole world around her and it and you don't even completely know what you mean when you say it. It. It. It. You. Her. The way she makes your heart beat way too fast and the fact that she gives you goosebumps and she takes your breath away.
You're in love.
Everybody told you that you'd fall in love at college. You'd find some great guy (hah, right.) or some great girl (well, the ones that you told about you, anyway) and you'd be happy and you'd get married and you'd have a kid and you'd write books and paint and you'd have a nice house and you'd have a nice life and you'd be happy. You'd graduate college and you'd have a great job and you'd make money. You'd make lots of money and you'd never end up in a shitty apartment in Toronto that you can barely afford the rent for and you hear the neighbors arguing through the walls in.
You fell in love when you were in college. You fell in love with a girl who's been your best friend for years and years and you've always wanted to kiss and touch and tell her how beautiful you thought that she was but you never really let yourself love her. You never let yourself admit that you loved her until she was gone and you thought about her for hours and hours every night and you just wanted her that much more.
You couldn't forget about her. You couldn't just make the image of her face go away or the sound of her voice or the way she smelled or the way she'd snuggle up against you at night whenever you slept over at her house and she got cold and she was sleeping but you couldn't ever fall asleep first so you were awake. God, you'd never forget that. How well you fit together. Which sounds so dumb, but it's actually true with you and her. You've never felt comfortable and safe and whatever whenever you slept next to whatever their names were and you always felt stiff and robotic when they tried to hold you.
Not her. She made your heart melt. She made you warm and safe and she made you home. You never felt at home in your own house. That's why you spent so much time with her at her apartment. That's why you slept over there so many nights. You were safe. You were happy. You were home.
And now she's gone. Gone to college in Boston and gone to go and live life in California. She's living. She alive. She's happy.
She's thousands of miles away. You're not even in the same country anymore. You're in fucking Canada. You always wanted to live in Vancouver, so what the hell are you doing here?
God, you have no idea. You hate Toronto. You hate the food and you hate the weather and you hate the stupid lake and you hate how it always feels like it's gray and cold and alien, even when the sun's out.
You miss New York.
Nobody would've ever guessed, but you went to NYU. You graduated with a 4.0. Everybody always thought you were such a You always thought you were such a failure. You still do, because why else would you be stuck here? But whatever. You proved them wrong. Good, solid proof that you're right and they're wrong for at least one glorious time. They were wrong about you. They were so, so wrong about you. You weren't an idiot. You got into a good school. You're going to be something.
That's what you keep trying to tell yourself, anyway. But you're still here in this run down building, smoking cigarette after cigarette on the balcony and staring down at gas station after gas station and neon signs and all the little Canadian flags and the chairs and tables that people kept on their balconies. Not once have you seen anybody but yourself using them.
They're all deluding themselves even worse than you are. And that's saying something.
You miss her. You miss the way it felt when she'd touch you and miss her voice. God, how you miss her voice.
But it's not like you can call. She's in the States. In California. And you're in Canada in Toronto and you're broke even in Canadian money and it's not like you could afford long distance. She could, you're sure. She's living in Los Angeles. People in Los Angeles can afford anything and everything, can't they?
You wish she would call. God, you wish she would call.
Then again, people said that if you lived in Manhattan could afford everything and everything. Which is why for a month when you first got there, you lived off of nothing but Taco Bell and ramen noodles. Of course.
You still wish she'd call.
Oh, god how you wish she would call. You don't remember the last time you talked to her. It hurts. It fucking hurts even after all this time, being away from her for this long.
You don't even know what she looks like anymore.
And that hurts even more.
--
You'll send her a letter. An actual, physical letter. Not an email or something. You feel old fashioned today.
It gives you the fleeting hope that maybe it'll get lost. Maybe it'll get opened along the way and somebody will know how much of an idiot you're being and they'll see that you're making a mistake and they'll save you. And it'll take days. Weeks. You have no idea. You never sent any mail when you were a kid, cause, hey, you were a kid. What 4 year old has mail to send to anybody?
Come to think of it, what 4 year old knows how to write?
Okay. A letter. That'll work, right? That'll be good enough, right? You're a writer. You went to college to be a writer. People who you trusted enough to show your writing when you were a teenager said that it was beautiful. That every word you wrote was like magic. Or something.
You're a writer. Your words should be plenty. You're a writer. You have the words for everything and you know how to make people feel what you want them to feel and you know when to leave out comas and periods and colons so she can read your words the same way you would say them. You know when to scrawl and scribble and make your handwriting just barely legible so she knows that you have so much to say and you want her to know everything.
Fuck. You're such a fuck up. Your life is such a waste. You're such a sad, pathetic girl. You're sitting here and you're 26 years old and you're in love with your best friend from middle school. You're in love with her and she still has no idea and you let what were supposed to be the best years of your life slip past you because you were too busy watching every little move she made and now she's left you and she's gone out and she's alive and you've got nothing without her.
You make it sound like it's because of her that you haven't gone anywhere yet. Why you're still in Toronto and why you haven't even started the novel that you moved up here to write. You make it seem like if it wasn't for her, your life would be great. That's a lie. That's such an absolute lie. You don't have a clue where you'd be without her.
You first learned you could write the first time you ever tried to write her a love note. If that says anything.
God knows where Freddie ended up. You have no idea. You don't really care. You hope he's gone and locked himself into a lab to help make microchips or something. People thought that you didn't really hate him. People thought that deep down, you and him were secretly in love or something. They were wrong. Again.
You hate him. He got to have her. For only a few fleeting moments, in the grand scheme of things, but when it happened it felt like an eternity. He got to have her. It wasn't long. It was only a few months, but it was infinitely more than you're sure you'll ever have. No matter how much time you spend sitting around and moping and dreaming, you know deep down that you'll never have her. Ever.
It's not fair. You remember in 8th grade, you always wished you could be a boy. It wasn't like one of those passing thoughts, like it was for most kids when they wondered what it would be like to be the opposite sex. You really, honestly wished you could be a boy. Why? Because then you'd have a chance with her. Then you could be with her and she's be happy and you'd be happy because you'd be hers and she'd be yours and you'd be perfect.
You always loved seeing her smile. It was really the most amazing thing you've ever seen.
Especially when you could make her smile. That was really the greatest thing that anybody or anything had ever made you feel. You've done your share of drugs and you've been drunk more times than you can count and you've had plenty of sex with plenty of faceless men and women and none of it can even come close to what she does to you.
You can't take it here. You're going to waste away in this shitty place in this shitty city. God only knows why anybody could possibly love it here. You're used to New York. You grew to love New York. You love New York. You miss never driving and you miss people being out at all hours of the night and you miss the sounds and the smells and the sound of the subway outside your apartment at 4 in the morning. You miss saving up spare change and going to Montauk every couple of weeks.
You're going back to New York. That's final.
--
You sold your furniture and bought a train ticket. You shoved everything you could into 3 suitcases and your backpack and you left Toronto behind and it didn't surprise you one little bit. You knew you would. You knew it was coming. Anybody with half a brain knew that it was coming.
You blew the last of your Canadian coins on half a dozen chocolate bars and a bag of chips and some water, which you supposed was plenty of nourishment for the 13 1/2 hour train ride. Except it was never 13 1/2 hours. There were always weather delays and engine problems and you always got hung up at the boarder but whatever. It wasn't like you had anything better to do.
You can still taste your last cigarette outside Union Station at 6 in the morning. Your last cigarette for at least another 8 hours before you've even had your first cup of coffee.
How depressing.
Not that you would ever buy coffee on Amtrak or VIA rail or whatever the hell it was that you were taking. Okay. Fine. It's VIA Rail in Canada but it's an Amtrak train. So Amtrak. Wonderful, reliable Amtrak.
You're sitting on the train and the door's broken and even with your coat wrapped around you like a blanket, you're freezing. You're staring out the window and you're watching the sun and the snow and Niagara Falls and Buffalo and Rome and Syracuse all fly by and you still haven't written a word of that letter. You can't. You're feeling your heart breaking all over again and you don't even really know why but you almost feel like she's next to you and you always do this. You always pretend that she's going to come back into your life and she's going to never leave and she's going to hug you and she's going to sit on the shitty day long train rides with you.
You always wanted that. You always wanted somebody to travel with you.
You don't even bother getting up for a cigarette when you get the chance. Whatever. You always feel guilty smoking your horribly overpriced Marlboros anyway. Maybe if you didn't smoke as much as you do, you'd actually have money. You'd be able to afford decent food and a coat that could keep you warm when you were inside a train.
Well, at least that'll go away when you get back to New York and don't have to pay $10 for a pack of cigarettes (after you go through the effort of hunting down a tobacco store, because apparently that's the only place you can get cigarettes in Ontario) and it's Canadian dollars, but still. What the hell.
You wish you could just write your novel. You wish that something brilliant would come to you and you'd be rich and you'd be famous and you'd be a New York Times Bestseller and you'd actually be something. You'd have money. You'd be able to call California.
Hell, you'd be able to go to California. You'd be able to see her in all her glory and you'd be able to touch her and hold her and see her smiling again.
You act like she's some long lost lover.
Take the r off lover and you're right.
Nobody's even on this stupid train. There's 3 other people in the car that you're in. That's it.
God. Fuck. You want some real food. You don't even want chocolate. You haven't even touched it. You want a hotdog. Fucking christ, a hotdog sounds so good right now, you're thinking, feeling your stomach clenching and growling and planning how it's going to kill you if you don't feed it.
You fish around in your pocket and you hope to god that you still even have American cash on you. Fuck. You have no money.
Well, no, not true. You've got a few hundred dollars sitting in some bank in New York and you've got a couple hundred in Canada but you have no idea if you have any American cash on you. You can't even remember the last time you saw American money. You remember when you first got to Canada, you were hopelessly amused by all the different colors on the bills and the fact that everybody used $1 coins, instead of just the poor souls who used the MTA ticket machines and the fact that $2 coins were real.
You're even sick of the money, at this point.
Oh god. Thank god. Thank fucking god. You have American money.
You could kiss somebody. You want your hotdog. You want a thousand hotdogs. You want every hotdog in the universe and you're going to get them.
Hotdogs are so amazing. Life is amazing. God bless America. God bless Amtrak.
--
"Last stop New York Pennsylvania station, arriving.."
You don't even bother paying attention after that. Nobody's coming to meet you. Nobody needs to know what time you're getting in or what track you're going to be on. You yawn and shift yourself around in your seat and you stretch your arms and legs and then you yawn again. You've been sleeping since the train pulled into Schenectady and you don't even want to know how many hours ago that was, but considering the way your neck's cramping up, it's been way too long.
Christ. You'd been planning on getting off for a smoke at Albany. So much for that. Fuck. Somebody let you off this train right the fuck now.
You're tugging your bags from the overhead rack and you're trying to figure out some way to manage to carry all 3 of them and your backpack and not kill yourself or fall into traffic or something. Shit. You have no money. It's midnight. Where are you gonna go? You can't get a room this time of night (actually, yeah you can, but whatever) and you don't want to waste the money. They'll be at your door 10 hours after you check in and they'll be bitching at you to leave and you won't even get a chance to eat breakfast and then you'll be really, really screwed.
Fuck. You have no idea where you're staying. You have no idea where you're going to live or work or anything. You have nothing.
What the hell were you thinking, leaving Toronto?
Okay. Whatever. You'll manage. Somehow. You'll sleep in Penn Station. If you hide your bags or something and sleep in the Alcea section it shouldn't be that bad. You've slept in train stations before. You'll be fine. You never really completely fall asleep anyway, so if anything is going to happen to you, you'll be wide awake and kicking in seconds.
You'll be fine. It's not like when you were a kid. It's not like anybody's looking for you or anything.
Actually, that makes you feel worse. Nobody'll notice if anything does happen to you.
"I love you. Always. Sam." Was all you could write.
It's enough. It's everything. You stare at it. So many years of sitting and staring after her and dreaming about her and letting her invade your every thought and dream and hope and wish and all you have to show for it is 5 words.
But it's enough. She'll know. She'll understand. You're sure she will. She always has. She's known exactly what you've meant and how you've felt when you haven't even said a single word.
Then again, if she was really that good at reading you, then how come she doesn't know yet? Then how come she's so completely oblivious to everything that she does to you and everything she makes you feel and how you feel and fuck, why doesn't she know anything that actually means anything?
Maybe you're just a good liar. You know you could always get beer when you were 17. Maybe this is the same type of thing. You think that everybody sees right through you but you're really a much better actor than you realize.
Hey. You never know.
Whatever. Once she knows, it won't be so bad. That's what you keep telling yourself, anyway. Once she knows, it'll be easier. You won't walk around with this weight in your chest like, "God, I wonder what life would be like if Carly knew how ridiculously, madly in love with her I am," even though you know perfectly well exactly how this is going to turn out.
You need to do it though. You've always been an optimist at heart. You're sick of all the what-if's running through your mind at every free moment.
You're staring at it. At your stupid letter and your stupid attempt to mean something to somebody.
It's worth it. Isn't it? It's worth trying.
And then you're folding it and shoving it awkwardly into an envelope and sticking some stamps on it, above her address and her name and her zip code and blah blah blah. You always loved how it looked when you wrote her name.
There's no return address. Partly because you don't want it back. Because if it doesn't get delivered, fine, that's life's way of letting you off easy and telling you that it's never gonna happen. Ever. That you should just resign yourself to a life of being lonely, or you should just move on and (somehow) find somebody else to love. Partly because, hey, what would you put anyway? Amtrak Concourse, New York Penn Station, 34th street?
Right. You're sure that would work out great.
Besides, you'll be out of there by tomorrow morning. At least, that's what you're planning on doing. And hey, while you're wandering around, if things haven't changed, there's a Taco Bell in the Long Island Railroad concourse. Not that you really like Taco Bell all that much anymore. Then again, when they'd lived off of it for a month, who would still love Taco Bell? But whatever. It's cheap. Cheap is good. Cheap is all you have.
Anybody who knew you 10 years ago wouldn't be surprised at all by your position. Sure, they'd be amazed that you even got into NYU, let alone left with the grades that you'd left with. But that doesn't really matter right now. It's not like it's helped you. At all. Ever. They wouldn't expect anything more from you than getting off a train and having nowhere to live and only a few hundred dollars (you really don't even know) which, in New York City, is absolutely nothing. And now you're in America, so you can't use the "Oh, it's Canadian money, so it isn't as valuable so it's okay that I blow so much off on candy and weed and cigarettes," excuse anymore. Fuck. They were right. They'd expect you to be stuck sleeping in a train station. In a sketchy, creepy train station like Penn.
Whatever. At least you're thinking. At least you're trying to come up with some kind of plan. At least you're not completely broke. You could probably get some cheap hotel in Times Square tomorrow. That'll be cheap. Cheap is good. Cheap is always good.
No, that's a lie. Cheap is shit. But it's what you need. You need shit.
And a post office or something. That'd be nice.
You're glancing out the scratched up windows and you're realizing that you're there. You're here. You're back. You're finally, finally back. You're grabbing your bags and you've got this burst of adrenaline and fine, you can't exactly go around and rediscover the city yet with all these bags, but it'll only be a couple of days. You're finally back. You're not in Toronto, which after being used to New York, you can barely even call a city. If you can drive in it, it isn't a city.
You're home.
You found home.
--
"Hey. Carly?" You asked, fingers twirling nervously around the phone cord. You called. Fuck long distance. It isn't that much. And you're not in Canada, so there goes that charge too.
"OHMIGOD. SAM?" She's squealing on the other end and you can't help but grin. She's still her. Nothing's changed. Nothing's ever going to change. Thank god.
"Maybe?" She can hear that you're smiling. You know she can. She always can. She always knows everything.
Not that anybody would expect anything different. She's your best friend, after all. Best friends have magic powers. They know everything. Always.
"SAM OHMIGOD WHY HAVEN'T YOU CALLED?" You feel so freaking bad for anybody standing within 10 miles of her. You switch ears and rub you poor, victimized ear.
"I've been in Toronto, remember? Long distance and whatnot. And I'm pretty much broke," You're admitting, laughing nervously. Not that it should've mattered if you had a million dollars or a million pieces of lint. You should've called. She's your best friend. But whatever. Right? It doesn't matter anymore. "I moved back to New York though,"
"God, you and your little scheme to finish that book of yours. How'd that turn out?"
"Well.. I haven't exactly started," You admitting sheepishly.
What a waste moving to Toronto was. There's no good food there. Anywhere. You should've moved out to Vancouver. You love Vancouver.
Actually. Fuck. Why didn't you? Vancouver used to cost more than Toronto but now it's the other way around and it's not like you couldn't find work in Vancouver or something. You're a writer. You can find work anywhere.
"Wellll.. Are you gonna ask what I've been up to?" She's asking excitedly.
"Maybe," Your response to everything. You can't even remember when or why you started doing that.
"C'mon, pleaseee?" She's squealing.
"Okay, what've you been up to, oh crazy one?"
"I'M GETTING MARRIED!"
What?
Your world just fell apart. Plain and simple. Your heart just broke and shattered into a million pieces and fell into your stomach.
It's like somebody just slapped you. No. Not good enough. It's like somebody just punched you in the face and ran you over with one of those giant trucks that they use for mining up in Alaska and then they pushed you into the Grand Canyon and now you're freefalling.
And now you're dead.
"Really? T..that's.. can you hold on a second?"
"Sam? Are you okay?" You can hear her digitalized voice asking from the phone laying on your bed next to you.
Fuck.
And then you're in the bathroom and there goes lunch. And breakfast. And all the little pieces of your heart.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Now what?
--
You're sitting in your apartment in Brooklyn and you're staring out the window and you're thinking that you're not that bad off. You've got a job and you have your laptop and you have enough money that you can go to Long Island on the weekends and you can write on the train ride. You're not living off of Taco Bell anymore. You got out of Times Square.
You're doing okay. You should get a pat on the back or something.
You've got 50,000 words of your book. 50,000 words in 4 months. That's okay, right?
Not really. You can do better. You can do so, so much better and you have. When you were a teenager. When you were in school. You wrote 50,000 words in a week once.
But you're not a teenager anymore. You don't have a week to just waste away writing and. Fuck. Actually you do. Besides work, you don't have anything you have to do. It's not like you have a girlfriend or anything.
Carly hasn't called. She must've gotten your letter. She must be married to whatever his name is.
You always felt like you were alone when you were living in Toronto. That's a lie. That's such a lie. At least you had some shred of hope. You had somebody to obsess over.
Now you're really alone. You have you and your computer and whoever you decide to create and kill and make love who. That's what you love about being a writer. You can make all these amazing other universes where everything works out exactly how you want it to and if you're good enough about it, other people care. Other people read about your other universes and they go out and if you're good enough, you stay in their minds. You let them into this amazing world that you made and they stay in it.
And you get paid to do something you love more than anything.
That doesn't really hurt either, does it?
At least, if that was how things were for you right now, it wouldn't hurt. But they aren't, so it kinda does. It really really does.
God, you miss her so much. You miss everything. You miss being a teenager and you miss doing that stupid web show and you miss sleeping next to every night. You miss how she knew everything and she never judged you for it and she knew when you were sad and she knew how to make you feel better.
You're sad. You're so so sad and you can't completely grasp why it is that everything hurts as much as it does but it just does. You don't really need to know anything other than that anyway, do you? You're sad. It sucks. Boo hoo. Poor you.
Yay. You're a poet and you don't even know it. Goooo Sam. You're awesome. You get a gold star.
Fuck this.
You're going to the beach. Yeah. The beach. The beach is good. The beach is great.
Except when you're alone. And you're alone. You're always alone. And you're finally starting to accept that maybe, that's just never going to change.
--
Somebody's outside. Somebody's looking for you. God knows who. You don't know anybody here. You don't know anybody in shitty Windsor Terrace and you're thankful for that, considering what the hallways of your apartment building look like.
"Sam? It's me," And it's her voice. You're sure of it. It sounds so much like her that it's shocking, but it couldn't possibly be her. Why would she be here?
Everybody wants you to just crash and burn. Everybody wants you to just fall apart and give up the second you start to think that maybe, just maybe, you could actually be okay. That you, Samantha Puckett, could ever really be okay.
What a joke.
But you're in love with her. You're so, so in love with her so what choice did you have but to buzz her in and sit there and feel, in spite of everything, hope welling up in your chest and threatening to boil over and you don't even know what you feel because it's like you're feeling everything in the world all at once.
She's probably just here to ask why you didn't make the wedding. And she's so absolutely disgusted with you that she had to fly across the country so you could see the look on her face when she told you that she hated you.
The wedding.
Fuck. Carly got married. Carly got married and she's gonna have this amazing life and you're gonna be stuck in this stupid apartment in Windsor Terrace, dreaming about her forever.
You're opening your door and you're staring at her.
What's she doing in New York, anyway? That's what you want to know. You want to know if she really hates you that much, and you must think that maybe if you stare hard enough at her, you'll know before she tells you and somehow, that'll make it hurt less.
She's staring right back at you and god, it's amazing how much she's changed.
You had no idea Carly Shea could ever possibly be anymore beautiful than she already was, but she is.
You can feel your eyes on you and it feels like it's been hours but you know that it hasn't been because it always feels like this when you're around her. She always does this to you and it still stuns you. When did she start having this much power over you, even when she's been gone this long?
Especially when she's been gone this long.
She doesn't say a word. Shit. She must be even angrier than you thought she was. In all your daydreams about all the things that could go wrong, she'd slapped you or started screaming by now.
She touches you.
Her hand's on your face and you can just barely feel her fingers in your hair and what's she doing? Why does she have to do this to you? Why can't you just be like everybody else and when somebody disappears on you, you can forget about them and move on?
You've never been able to forget about her. Ever. You've been with other guys and that was just horrible and you've been with other girls and that was better but your heart wasn't in it and it was always her that you ended up thinking about every night before you fell asleep and you even moaned her name once and that didn't really end very well and you didn't even care.
And then she's got her lips on yours.
You swear you just died. You're dead.
You're in heaven right now. This isn't real.
You don't even know how to describe how this feels.
"We broke up," She's saying against your lips, as though you'd dare bring up the wedding. As though you'd dare do anything at all to make her snap out of whatever drunken stupor she's in, or whatever's bringing this on. And you have no idea what to say, and you don't think that even if you did, you'd be able to bring yourself to actually open your mouth and make all the right noises and make them resemble words because you don't even remember how to make your hands work, at the moment.
She must know what you're thinking. Of course she knows. Of course she knows.
"I missed you," She mumbles against your lips, and you're breathing her air. You're breathing her air and you can taste her lip gloss, sugary and sweet and you can feel yourself struggling to keep your eyes open and she has her arms around your neck and you can feel her body pressed up against you and you can feel your own breath catching in your throat.
It's perfect.
You must be dead or dreaming or stoned out of your mind and "Carly" is actually the man who lives in a box outside your building and begs you for coins every morning when you leave for work
You can feel her move against you and it sends chills down your spine and you know that it must be her.
It's her.
And then you can feel her lips on you again, her tongue in your mouth and you gradually step backwards into your apartment and kick the door shut.
You knew moving back to New York was a good idea.
--
The last scene took an hour and a half to write.
The rest of the story was written between 12:30 am and 2am yesterday morning. :o
Well.. rawr :) I hope you liked it.
edit. cause i feel like it :D: btw. i'm canadian. i just spent a week in toronto. (if anybody was on my profile a couple of weeks ago, it showed country as canada. it was like WHOA :D) i friggin love canadia. (yes, canadia) and their money/canday. :p