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I think about that for a moment. Back then, I was only eighteen years old and I thought I knew exactly what I wanted and what I didn’t want. But Hayden was a surprise. He was a light that lit up pieces of me that I didn’t even know were dark. He brought out a playful spirit in me that I never knew existed. He helped me to come alive in new and exciting ways. He truly brought out the best in me.
But part of me died with him. The light, the joy, the playfulness he tugged out of me. It’s all dead.
David is almost the complete opposite in ways. Where Hayden was bubbly and animated, David is calm and peaceful. Hayden pulled out these new pieces in me, and they broke when he died. And now it seems that David is soothing those broken and jagged edges. David is still playful and warm, but he’s…different. Not in a bad way. Just, different.
“But you don’t have to force or rush anything. Like you said, don’t set expectations of yourselves or each other. There’s plenty of time,” she says. My heart tightens at those words. Painfully.
I shake my head, wanting to tell her that she’s wrong. That there’s not plenty of time. Time is a lie and believing that you have an abundance of it sets you up for disappointment. You never know what is going to happen. Hayden and I treated our relationship like we had all the time in the world. And to two eighteen year olds at the time, we thought we did. We thought that the whole world was ahead of us. We treated our time with carelessness, with the false sense of confidence that it would never run out. Part of me is angry with that mindset we had. Why didn’t we do more? Why didn’t we take more from every second?
I’m so thankful that we got four years together, but four years was nothing in the grand scheme of our plans and future. It wasn’t enough.
But if he had lived and we spent forty years together, would that have been enough? Is there any amount of time that can be considered ‘enough time’ when you are spending it with someone you love so deeply and truly?
But I don’t say any of that. Instead I say, “Yeah you’re right.”
THIRTY-NINE
THEN, SUMMER, TWO YEARS AGO
“It’s not that funny,” Hayden is yelling playfully, amused yet embarrassed.
I laugh even harder, tears starting to roll down my cheek.
“Ana,” he shouts, laughing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, wiping at my face and trying to take a deep breath.
“It just sounds like it’s the same,” he mumbles and I start cackling again, great big bellows of laughter and I can’t stop. My stomach starts cramping and he can’t help himself as he joins in but then starts to try and pinch my side.
Over the course of our three years together, he has really tried to incorporate Spanish music into his musical repertoire. I showed him some of my favorite Spanish artists, with Bad Bunny being at the top of the list. He thought it was a cute name at first, but when he looked up a picture of him, he gave me a knowing look and said, “I see the appeal, Ana.” I laughed at that. But Hayden actually has grown to love his songs.
He made the mistake of asking my mom about her favorite Spanish artists one weekend at home and she sat him down and taught him all the classics. We listened to Tito Nieves, Eddie Rivera, Gilberto Santa Rosa, El Gran Combo and El Niche all day. José, Isa, and I started piping in with our own favorites like Maná and La India as a close second. José then tried to convince him that we were related to Daddy Yankee, who our family considers the godfather of reggaeton. Hayden believed him for a few minutes before I gave him a look that said, ‘really?”
I told him about the time when I was thirteen, and I wanted the new Maná album, Suenos Liquidos. My abuelo searched far and wide in all of the Spanish ‘mom and pop’ music stores to find me the CD. He surprised me with it as an early birthday gift. But the album cover has a half naked mermaid type creature on it. Her goodies are covered but it was still a bit mortifying to accept from one's grandfather. I couldn’t stop blushing for days every time I looked at the cover.
We’re also Marc Anthony fans in our house and grew up singing “Aguanile.” Whether it was cleaning the house on Saturday mornings or on our way to the grocery store. When it came on, we screamed it.
Hayden was fortunate enough to witness one of these moments at my parents’ house one day and watched me and my siblings sing our hearts out. While he watched me he had this surprised and amused expression that said, ‘who the hell are you?’
Today though, I happened to turn the radio on and “Aguanile” came on and Hayden yelped with glee as he turned it up. But he sang, “Gasssoliiinnnaaaaaa” instead of ‘Aguanile’, confusing it with Daddy Yankee’s song. I completely lost my mind, doubled over in laughter.
“You’re embarrassing me,” he says, even though I know he rarely gets embarrassed, but his cheeks are still pink in amusement. “I got confused, and it could totally work both ways!”
Once I stop laughing, I grab his face between my hands and kiss him over and over on the lips, before saying, “Eres la cosa más linda del mundo!” You’re the cutest thing in the world. He puts his own hands on my face and starts covering me with wet sloppy kisses that have me screaming and laughing.
“Stop, you disgusting man-child,” I yell between breaths of laughter.
“Stop laughing at me,” he says, and I dissolve into another fit of laughter.
I stop laughing eventually and sigh, “What am I going to do with you?”
He quirks an eyebrow, “Right now? Or for forever?”
“Both,” I say with another laugh. He flicks my nose.
He leans back into his seat. Then pushes his hands through his hair, taking his hair tie off his wrist and gathers all the wild pieces of hair before tying them back in a messy knot. “I can’t believe we’re about to be seniors in college.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know. It’s wild.”
