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As much as cooking was helping me avoid thinking about William, I couldn’t stop my brain from conjuring him up every ten seconds.
Who would’ve thought I’d meet him again? I still couldn’t believe it. It was wild.
William Carter.
We’d never asked our last names all those years ago so I hadn’t been able to stalk him on social media. I’d always considered him as my once-in-a-lifetime thing and someone that was pretty much unattainable. Figuratively and literally. I knew this. He had been this stranger who I’d look forward to meeting at the end of every day even though I wasn’t even sure if he’d show up. I’d get all the butterflies as I sat there at the diner hoping he’d be the next one to walk in the door. Every time the bell over that door rang, my heart would lurch with an extra thud. It was one week of hoping and dreaming, and even though I pretty much knew nothing would come out of it, the hope I’d felt every time he showed up and walked straight to my table had been something else.
And even after he stopped coming, every now and then when I felt alone or hopeless I’d remember our short time together and think about what could’ve been or if it could’ve been. Daydreaming had always been kinder than reality to me. And wasn’t it said that the best things are the ones that haven’t happened yet? Like the best words are the ones that haven’t been spoken yet? I think that was what William had been to me. Maybe it wasn’t the crush I had on him that was important, maybe it was just the idea of him being mine that gave me that butterflies in my stomach. Maybe if something had happened between us, it would’ve been the worst relationship in the world.
Maybe his feet smelled.
Maybe he was terrible in bed.
Maybe he hated kissing as well.
Maybe…
Sighing, because I was overthinking unnecessarily, I grabbed a plate and hurriedly served everything up.
For the time being, I was living in a one-bedroom brownstone which was owned by my dad. If it weren’t for him, I couldn’t afford it. I still paid rent, but only a third of what he could’ve gotten from someone else. It wasn’t as small as some other NY apartments and my kitchen still looked like a kitchen with limited counter space and everything, but no matter how beautiful the building was, sometimes it still made me feel like I was trapped and there was no escape in sight.
The beautiful arched windows I had in the living room somewhat made up for everything else because they were my favourite part of the building. I loved sitting on the window seat and reading a good book during sunset – not that I was ever home during a sunset – or early morning. Or just staring at the sky when it rained or snowed as I listened to my playlist in the background when I was too tired to do anything else. In the chaos of the city and my mind, those moments were my calm.
Also, I couldn’t argue with the fact that the rows of brownstone townhouses and the colourful tree leaves in the fall made for romantic scenery. I just had the feeling that it wasn’t enough to keep me there anymore.
I grated some more parmesan, because why not? Nobody was around to judge me. I sprinkled the remaining parsley on top of my pasta and grabbed myself the bottle of prosecco I’d left from a few nights ago. As I pulled my legs up and got settled on the corner of my couch, I considered turning on the TV, but gave up on the idea pretty quickly. Reaching for my phone, I grabbed it from the coffee table, paused Dermot Kennedy mid-song and called Valerie, my best friend since high school, who was currently three thousand miles away. She picked up on the fourth ring.
‘Hi! Are you home? I need to hear everything, tell me! Did you take a photo of him like I told you to at lunch?’
Smiling, I put my plate down next to me and reached for the prosecco bottle. ‘Hello. How are you? How was your day? I’m so tired.’
I heard some shuffling sounds in the background then she huffed. ‘Oh, shut up. Tell me you took a photo. This William guy is like the yeti of our lives. I won’t believe he exists until I see a photo.’
Shaking my head, I took a sip of my drink. A big sip straight from the bottle because I was classy. ‘Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to avoid him the entire day. So no photos.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Yep, I did.’
‘Ed,’ she called out, and I had to turn down the volume and put her on speaker to save my eardrums. ‘She doesn’t have a photo and apparently she didn’t tell him who she was either.’
