Part 4

He went to take a nap. I booked a flight. And by the time he woke up I was gone.

The night we had, or re-met, I had found him in a crowded subway station. It was far colder there than it had been in New York and my thin leather jacket and stiletto boots left me ill prepared to traipse across Boston in the snow.

I had not seen him in years, and he looked different from what I could remember, which wasn’t much, and yet, he seemed familiar. He took my hand and led me out of the station down a maze of cobble stone roads. I was so delighted to be in his company, I barely noticed that we were obviously lost. He started to get agitated and all I could do was laugh. His dark hair was covered in snowflakes the size of silver dollars. The dead-end street we found ourselves on was dressed in perfect white, just like a movie set. And we were together. It just fit.

Within 48 hours, plans were being made for transatlantic relocation. It wasn’t real. Or maybe it was. It is hard to recall. Whatever it was, it was heightened. A heightened sense of reality emanating from the sensation of snowfall and moonlight, whiskey and morning pancakes.

It all moved too quickly and I think that for those few weeks I may have forgotten how to breathe. Then somewhere between Chelsea Market and witnessing Kenny G make an unlikely appearance at a Border’s Dean and Deluca, I exhaled. And reality set in. And part of me - paused.

I would take the Feng Woi bus back to Boston and I would hope it would be the same.

It wasn’t.

And after a few days, it became clear that it was a beautiful moment locked in time.

It was a real life snow globe. And I would have to go.

I wish it had been that simple. I wish it had been as easy as taking a train to a bus to a plane and walking away. But it wasn’t.

Loving never is. Even when it is short-lived.