Page 37 of The Run Back Home

Resting my beer on the sill, I scan the park. It's mostly dark now except for the lights glowing over the main stretches of the path. Beyond it, the building across from mine stands in neat rows of lit and unlit squares.

I trace them without even realizing I'm doing it, following the bright ones like they're connected dots that lead to something.

It takes me a minute to realize what I'm searching for.

Second floor. Fourth. Eighth.

I don't know which one's hers, but I look for it anyway.

Is she home?

Can she hear the music?

Is she rolling her eyes at the noise?

Maybe she's not there at all. Maybe she has the night shift tonight, and her little box is one of the dark ones.

Then a new realization hits harder than the last—me still standing here. Still wondering where she is.

Because six years ago, I was doing the same thing.

Still wondering. Still waiting.

Still imagining where she might be.

And I hate that part most of all.

Because my next thought is this: I don't know where she is, but she should be here.

Not across the park. Not anywhere else in the city.

With me.

And if she was, maybe I'd be having the kind of fun that JJ expects.

Lenny and I might be beating him in pong right now. We might be dancing in the middle of my living room with everyone around us but nobody watching. Or maybe we would have faded into the bedroom—door shut, lights off except for the glow of the lamp I always leave on because I need to see her.

I've always needed to see her.

The way she would put her hair back when she was gearing up to argue, or how she'd twist her mouth to the side when she was trying not to smile.

I shake the thought, grabbing my beer off the ledge and chugging it, hoping the burn will drown her out.

It doesn't.

But it does dull the edges—the ones where I'm still holding on to the us that once existed. That nearly disappeared completely before I bumped into her again.

And to the version of her that promised she'd be here.

"Yo, you good?"

I spin around just as JJ's hand lands on my shoulder. He offers me another beer, but I wave it off.

"Yeah, man. I'm fine. How you doin'? You get your ass beat by the rookie again, or what?"

"First of all…" he starts, his finger in my face. "Yes. But…"

I smile genuinely, grateful for this idiot.