“Well, maybe we can be rare then.”
“Maybe you can.”
“Do you think so?”
“I’m not going to predict,” she says. “You know what I think. You know the risks. You don’t even know if he’d want you back.”
I nod. “I know. He might have moved on. He probably moved on. But I’ll never know.”
“Unless you try.”
It’s as much a blessing as I’m ever going to get from anyone, so I’ll take it. But more than getting a blessing, I have given myself permission. I have given myself forgiveness. And I have given myself a clean slate.
She nods, and then we’re both quiet for a moment. But what I really want to say is I hope someday I’ll go inside again. I hope someday I’ll ride in the elevator up to the sixth floor. I hope I’ll knock on his door. I hope he’ll be waiting for me. And I hope I’ll be ready then.
But I can’t ask him to wait. I can’t ask myself to wait either.
I can’t live in the future, and I can’t live in the past. I have a test to take, and friends to get together with, since Catey, Lane, and Amanda are all coming over for a mini holiday party at my house in a few days.
When I finish my final exam the next day, I text Catey that I rocked it as I head to midtown to meet my dad for lunch on Forty-Fourth Street, the heart of the theater district. I send the text and look up from my phone. But I stop in my tracks as I walk by the Belasco Theatre. My feet can’t move. I am glued to the sidewalk.
The whole world turns still, and I swear I’m seeing things. I blink several times, as if the mirage in front of me will stop shimmering and return to what it used to be. But the poster … it’s here. It’s real and it’s beckoning to me. I step toward it, tentatively, one hand out, as if I need to touch it to prove it’s real. It’s happening.
A sign.
A sign for Chess.
The revival. Opening in three weeks. I’ve been so immersed in school and my new world order that I missed the news that it had moved beyond workshop and into production and rehearsals and casting. I bring my hand to my mouth, pressing my fingers against my lips as wonder spreads through me. My heart skips all its beats, my mind races forward to the future, to the prospects, to the possibilities.
I push open the door to the lobby. The ticket window is open. I don’t even have to think twice. I buy two tickets for opening night.
Then I go to the bank, visit my safe-deposit box and remove the only thing I have that’s priceless. Carefully, I slide the letter into my bag. When I return to my dorm, I re-read the final line I wrote that night, then I add some new ones. They are as necessary as all the words that came before.
I ride over to Noah’s building. The doorman lets me in. The elevator takes me to the sixth floor. As hope floods my body, I walk to his apartment and I slide it under the door.
There are no guarantees. I have no claim to him, and no right to expect anything but a rebuff. All I know is, I’ll never know unless I try.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Three Weeks Later:
Noah
I read the letter again for the fiftieth time. Maybe the five hundredth. I adjust my tie, look in the mirror, and run my fingers through my hair. Then I take off the tie, tossing it on the floor.
The day I received the letter three weeks ago knocked me to my knees. I almost didn’t open it. I crumpled it up, threw it in the trash and walked away. Ten minutes later, I grabbed it from the top of the wastebasket and smoothed it out.
I started to read it, making it through the first three kisses before I shoved it to the other side of my coffee table and slammed the door behind me. How the hell could she send me that letter now? After she walked out and left me with another open wound?
I went for a run, up and down Madison Avenue, trying to burn her off in the cold night air.
When I returned, the damn letter called out to me. I made it through more pages.
With each word, the desire to punch a wall intensified.
Maybe that’s how I was supposed to feel. Angry. I don’t like being jerked around. Nobody does. And here she was sending me the letter that split us in two. The letter I said would ruin me.
It did.
But then I was ruined long ago.
Way before a letter.
I read it again the next night, and then the next, and the next. With each time spent reliving us, my anger began to fall to the ground like snow dissolving on the street. In its place were only memories of all those days and nights, kisses and laughs, plans and feelings. So much more than I ever expected.
So much more than I’ll ever have again.
Reading her story of our kisses was like watching our love affair on the screen, from that early spark of awareness to the tipping point before our first kiss to the night in the park when we were no longer falling. We’d fallen. We were in love.
We are.
I’ve dated since we broke up again. I’ve had a few interesting dinners, movies, and shows. Even laughed a few times. I haven’t monked up. But nothing has compared. They are all black and white and she is color. She is all my colors.
Because I know who I am. My story is simple. It’s not complicated. It’s not unusual.
I’m just a guy who’s in love with a girl.
I head to the lobby and hail a cab. Along the way, I open the letter once more and read the final words again. The last line of the letter itself sparked that dangerous hope in me again – What if time was on our side? But after so many words that melted my heart, it’s the practical ones that matter right now. I turn the page from the final sentence to the next page.