The girl with the brown hair
Life writes stories the way it wants. No editor, no editing. No reviews. No appeals, either. Just a beginning, a middle and an end that does little to take your own thoughts and feelings into account.
Or so I thought.
I saw someone on the street today that reminded me of you. Not your doppleganger or an evil twin or anything. Just a girl with brown hair and a big smile, looking at Philadelphia as thought it's the first time she's seen a city. (Judging from the smears of mud on her shoes and the strands of hay in her hair, I'm guessing it was.)
And, of course, it's no surprise that I stare at every girl with brown hair and a big smile like she's the sunrise. The best beginning ever written. Part of my mind keeps thinking, hoping, wishing that you'll follow me to Philadelphia. You must hear from Luke how I'm doing, although you really should hear it from me. I regret many things about my life. The way I treated Luke is close to the top of the list. Not graduating from high school. Not being nicer to your mom. Heck, not being nicer to my mom. But nothing as much as the way we left things. The way I left things. I regret not kissing you goodbye one last time, cupping your face in my hands and letting you feel my love. I regret not buying you one last cup of coffee, not discussing one last book, not disparaging of one last movie. I've run into a few guys who own a small printing press and they've been surprisingly immune to my many faults. They've even published a book I've written. I keep a copy of it in my bag, not to stroke my own ego or to pick up women at the bookstore, but so that I can give it to you on the day that the girl with the brown hair does turn out to be you.
And everything about my day reminds me of you. The yellowed pages of an old book I know you'll like. The loud, energetic, intellectual chatter at a bar I know you'll love. The taste of cherries. And, always and inevitably, the smell of coffee beans and French toast. I don't read a book or watch a movie without wanting your opinion; I don't follow a political scandal or international news story without wondering what your take on it is. So many of my thoughts remind me of a Nora Ephron movie. Would you have believed your taciturn Artful Dodger capable of such emotion and feeling? I should write a script and sell it to Hollywood, make some money off my misery. Set it to the tune of a Fleetwood Mac song and have the world commiserate.
(Hemingway would've punched me in the nose by now and told me to edit.)
Except I have a lingering feeling, a niggling though, an itch at the back of my heart that won't go away. Like a shoot that grows between the cracks of a pavement, a green shot of hope against the concrete reality. Life hasn't finished with us yet, Rory. We've gotten a beginning. We're living the middle. There's still a story left between you and me, between the young hoodlum in the back and the girl with the brown hair.
And I think the end is going to be epic.