and the rain started pelting me in sideways sheets that wasted no time soaking through my outer layers. Within seconds, I spotted a limestone townhome up ahead and took shelter beneath its covered front steps.
It was there, while waiting for the storm to pass, that I spotted a leather-bound journal lying in the cedar mulch, between the stone steps and an overgrown boxwood. The cover was damp and the pages were starting to curl, so I swooped down and nabbed it before the elements made it any worse.
By the time the rain cleared and the sun broke through the clouds, my phone rang, and I took off down the street, yapping away to my mother about her recent Alaskan cruise, forgetting the notebook was tucked under my sweatshirt.
“Fine.” I exhale. “I’ll return it.”
“Like, today,” Wren says, finger pointed in my direction.
“Yes, Mom.”
Wren disappears, and within seconds I hear the click and latch of the front door as she leaves and locks up. Lying back on her bed, I hold the journal above my head and fan it open.
“I love this woman. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything. I love her so much it terrifies me. I’m scared of what I might do to make her mine, and I’m scared of what I might do if I were to ever lose her completely.”
My mouth arches up in the corners. My only hope is someday I might find someone to love me half as much as this man loves this woman.
Rolling to my side, I flip to the next page, and the next, and the next, devouring each page like addictive little love-flavored potato chips.
“Tonight, she cried into my arms. I held her because he wasn’t around to. He never is. But still, she loves him. She loves him and he doesn’t deserve her. If he did, he’d be here, holding her, picking up the pieces of her broken heart.”
My fingers trace a few of his pen-scribbled words, and my lips well along the lower rims. I allow myself just one more page, and then I’ll make my way to Lexington Avenue, I’ll find the townhouse, and I’ll leave the notebook on the front steps.
Inhaling the leather scent once more, I turn to another section and read, “I don’t expect anyone to understand a love that I, myself, do not understand. But here I am, desperately trying. Trying to figure out how it’s possible for the sun to rise and set in her eyes. How it’s impossible to go a full hour without thinking a single thought about this woman. How it was possible for me to exist before she came into my world. It’s only ever been her. I’ve known that since we were kids. She chose the wrong man, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still love her. And I’ll never stop.”
I page ahead, eyes glued to the words, pretending to read them for the first time all over again.
“I feel her pulling away. She says it’s wrong. She doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. But she is my life force. I need her. And without her, I won’t survive. I’ll lead a pathetic, lonely existence. I’ll never love again. And not because I won’t try. But because once you’ve tasted a love so pure, nothing else will ever compare.”
“Poor, sweet Romeo.” I rest my cheek on the worn paper and close my eyes. “I hope you found your happily ever after.”
I’m going to miss this. Reading these words. Feeling the kaleidoscope of emotions that accompany them. I’ve never been so simultaneously exalted and gutted, and at times, I find myself nearly falling in love with a complete stranger. Or the idea of him, rather. Or maybe I’m falling in love with the way he loves her.
She’s lucky, that woman, to have been loved this hard.
I spend the better part of the afternoon that follows getting lost in those words one last time. And when it’s over, I compose myself, lace up my sneakers, and go for a walk, journal in hand, headed toward Lexington Avenue.
2
Aidy
It was this one. I’m sure of it.
942 Lexington Avenue.
I recognize the Texas limestone façade and the black awning above the steps with the slight tear at one corner.
The breeze rustles the leafy trees that line the sidewalk, and up ahead a woman dressed in a white pantsuit walks a fluffy Pomeranian as she gabs on her phone. A bicycle messenger flies through the streets, darting between parked cabs, and