As I walk down the museum stairs, I watch this couple overflowing with enthusiasm.Hugging, kissing and taking pictures.
Pictures of her hand.
I guess a proposal just happened right here a moment ago.Their happiness catches my attention, and I can’t help but walk all the way to the sidewalk, still staring at them, like a child with no concept of personal space, continually observing the happy couple, a constant smile on my face.
Oh,love.Love and excitement for the future.Have I felt and shown the same excitement that this couple overflows with, when Bill proposed to me in Verryn?
Maybe not everyone feels love the same way.People are always saying how there are different types of love.Or maybe we all feel love the same, but we always think that the others feel it differently.
I stop my spiraling thoughts and focus on how to get back to the hotel, not really remembering which direction I came from, again.
Right across the street is the city garden: Central Park, huge, green, filled with peaceful corners of nature that disguise the city and seem perfect for a date with myself and my book later.But for now, it’s 3 p.m., and I just want to go to my hotel room, immerse in bubbles, put on music, turn off the phone, and sing to myself.
Chapter 36
Miles
December 27th, 2008
Saturday
In my twenties, I realized I had never truly learned how to enjoy being alone, or even how tobealone.I’m 27 now, and I’ve finally come to understand and appreciate solitude.
It’s the end of the day, before the sky turns pink.
I stroll alone through the city’s vast garden.I always pass by the fountain, I like to imagine the wishes that were attached to the coins that sank there.I like to sit thoughtlessly in the shade of a tree.I like to listen to the birds singing and notice how they know their place in the choreography they plan in the sky, and that there’s a specific spot where there’s always someone feeding them crumbs.
I walk through all those kilometers of green, no buildings or cars in sight.I like how this garden reminds me of a home I once knew.Of greenery, of nature, of the joy I found while learning to fall in love with the countryside, and more.
Ironic, how once upon a time, this wasn’t who I thought I was.
Nowadays, I constantly find myself changing my route to wander here, to escape the city’s hustle and bustle.
Suddenly, something slows my pace.
A girl in a long blue dress lies on a blanket in the grass.She looks all too familiar.Her hair is illuminated by the golden hour sun, and a pencil tucked behind her ear holds back one of her blonde locks.She’s wearing an oversized brown jacket over her blue dress, light blue gloves, and is holding a book up toward the sky.
I feel confused and hesitant.
My heart reacts, like someone suddenly waking up from a troubled dream.I approach slowly, my brain searching for words,any words, that might form a sentence.
It has to be.Could it be...?
It can’t be.
It’s been a while since I sawherin another woman.Since my mind last imagined her face in a stranger’s.
I don’t know what I’m thinking.But my heart apparently does.It speeds up in a way it hasn’t for some time.
“Not possible.So many years have passed, and so many times over those years you sawherin the crowd.And all those times,shewas never there,” I murmur to myself, shaking the fervent nervousness away.
Isshehere?
Reluctant to take another step forward, I stop and observe.
A few brief minutes seem infinitely long.
I see her lower her book and meet my gaze; her serene face painted with freckles.
