It’s been eight years since we last saw each other.
In the early days, immediately after our break-up, I used to look at his name on my phone screen – never sending him a message, never giving him any indication that I was thinking of him, but still drawn, sometimes, to stare pointlessly at his face. Occasionally, I would see the word ‘online’ pop up under under his name and imagine him, somewhere out there… I used to wonder whether he ever looked at my name too.
We texted each other maybe a couple of times during those years of silence. Once, in the year after our break-up, he wished me a happy birthday. I politely thanked him, but didn’t return the favour when it was his birthday a few months later. The second time I heard from him, a couple of years after that, it was to invite me to his son’s first birthday party. A garden barbecue. I could tell, by the copy-and-paste nature of the message, that he had sent it to a whole bunch of people on his contacts list. Everyone from the old days, anyway. Something about that annoyed me – although really, what should I have expected? A heartfelt missive, personally addressed to me, outlining all of his regrets and broken dreams? Or worse still, a message all about how he was much happier without me?
I couldn’t see myself at that party. Couldn’t face the thought of him standing next to his wife and their son, everyone looking resplendent in the summer sunshine, and his family freezing me out: subtly reminding me of how I wasn’t good enough in their eyes. I was seeing someone else by then, anyway – a relationship that didn’t go anywhere in the end, but seemed to hold some promise at the time.
I declined his invitation. And that was it, until three weeks ago. The call that shocked me. The long conversation about his divorce, the custody battle … and then, the apologies. The way we slowly opened up to each other over the course of the evening…
He’s not here yet, so I’ve nipped into the bathroom.
Eight years since he’s seen me, and I am absurdly nervous. I splash some water onto my face and pat it dry with a handful of tissues as I stare into my own eyes in the mirror. I don’t think I’ve changed too much. Certainly, there are a couple of grey hairs sprouting from my scalp now, where they were once uniformly black. But I’ve stayed in shape. Looked after my skin. I look alright. Not unrecognisable, by any means.
I shouldn’t be this agitated. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine…
He is the first person I see when I step back into the cafe. Older now – his hair thinner on top than it used to be – but when he turns around and sees me, the grin is exactly the same as I remember. And somehow, that is enough for all of my anxieties to melt away.
A response to the freewrite prompt three thousand days.
