My pride would never normally let that slide.
But I found myself getting out of my car, reaching for the red and white striped package that had been sitting on my passenger seat since I bought it. For him. And making my way to the computer to plug in Penn Station.
1600 Broadway, #7C. That is where I will be this New Years. If you have nothing going on and don’t want to be alone, it is a short train ride away.
That was what he told me all those weeks ago.
They were the words that rolled around my head the entire hour and twenty-minute ride into the city, sitting beside a group of young just-twenty-one-year-olds who had clearly been pre-gaming at home before heading into the city, loud and happy. And because I was neither, obnoxious to me.
Didn’t they know that some of us were in for a long, hard night likely filled with nothing but disappointment?
Oh, to be so blithely young and unaffected by the world at large yet. Life is about to fuck you up in four years or so.
Ugh.
I was being that chick.
I looked away from the group, watching the lights in the distance before the tunnel blocked them from view.
My stomach was in knots as I ‘minded the gap’ and exited the train car, making my way through the belly of Penn Station, the smell of the food in the court reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. But there was no time for that. If I didn’t go straight there, I was going to chicken out.
And never know.
If there was anything worse than swallowing your pride and maybe getting your heart crushed, it was never knowing.
I wanted to know.
And if knowing meant that I was going to drag my ass home with a gaping hole in my chest, then so be it. At least I wouldn’t always wonder.
Cabs were a wish and a prayer on busy nights like this, so I pulled up the lapels of my jacket to try to keep the chill off my ears, and started walking.
Twenty-minutes and mostly-numb limbs later, I was standing out front of the building after shouldering past the insane crowds everywhere, trying to convince myself to keep moving forward.
“Miss?” the doorman asked, standing there in a coat that didn’t look nearly warm enough, off-white gloves on his hands, kind honey-colored eyes watching me and my indecision.
“Have you ever seen An Affair to Remember?” I asked, figuring I had a better chance at him knowing given that he seemed at least in his fifties than I would with someone my age.
“Yes, miss.”
“Remember how Nick and Terry agree to meet at the Empire State Building six months after the cruise if they still feel the same way about each other?” I asked, watching as he nodded.
His eyes roamed over me down to my feet then back up to my face. “You don’t appear to be in a wheelchair, miss. I think you can make it up there,” he said, jerking his chin toward the apartment building. With that, like the decision was made, he moved to grab the door, pulling it open for me.
The waft of warm air ushered me inside where I stood next to the elevator doors that went up, waiting for it to come back down, sliding open with a happy ding.
This was it.
There was no going back now.
I swallowed hard as I rode up to his floor, taking deep breaths to try to calm the unsettling pounding of my heart.
The ding that announced his floor was enough to make me jolt as the doors slid open.
My body felt weighted as I forced my legs to carry me out the doors then down the hall to number seven, standing outside it for a long moment before I could force my arm to raise and knock.
Softly.
Just twice.
Barely enough for me to hear, let alone someone inside.
If he was even here.
That thought had never occurred to me before.
What if he decided not to come?
What if he was back in Navesink Bank, and I was just some silly, fanciful, silly girl who…
The door slid open.
And there he was.
Like I had been hoping – underneath all the doubt and insecurity – that he would be.
He looked good too. It had been so long since I had seen him in person that I had almost forgotten all the perfectly chiseled lines to his face, the depth to his dark eyes, the seriousness to his lips that looked way too kissable right about then.
He looked slightly different though too. This was maybe the first time ever that his face was freshly shaven. I guess maybe it had grown out in the woods to what must have been a pretty full beard – one I felt a pang at not getting to see – and he had likely needed to shave it off completely when he got home. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, all those unpalatable meals in the cabin must have meant he ate as little as possible because he seemed a bit thinner.