I already mentioned that Emily was the first person to have ever told me that she loved me. Of course my family had been telling me that they loved me my whole life, but when Emily said it, it was different. I already mentioned, too, how I royally messed up the moment when Emily shared this with me.
- Posted by Nathanael Berends at 07:00 pm
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- Filed under: Stories
Zachary and I, in addition to our massive bedroom window, had two other windows that opened onto the roof of our house. We had developed a habit of retreating to our rooftop in moments of crisis. Somehow the air seemed fresher three stories above the street. In the back of my mind I suspected that it was always easier to think clearly while sitting on a rooftop. Maybe it was the stars that helped this clear thinking. Maybe it was something else.
I left for Leawood on a Tuesday. My roommate woke me up that morning.
"Hey. You awake," he asked. "You've gotta see this sunrise."
What I didn't know at the time was that the questions raised on that bench held for Haylie a particular level of significance. Near the beginning of the school year, Haylie had experienced herself a version of this loss of future. Hers was not of the same order of a husband losing a wife or a parent losing a child, but was nonetheless devastating. And it did have something to do with marriage.
I was sitting beneath the Aurora Bridge, on a bench on the Fremont side of the canal. There was nothing particularly cozy about this bench, but somehow it had become a regular meeting place for me and Haylie. The bench had become a piece of furniture in our relationship; something that we both had come to appreciate.
I already mentioned that Emily and I had been together for six years. And that's not untrue. But that's not the whole story.
I say that it's not the whole story because there are at least two versions of every story. There's the story that's easy to share. That's the story that is convenient and effortless to believe. And then, of course, there is the story of what actually happened.
There are a lot of reasons somebody might move to the middle of nowhere. For me, it was simply a matter of changing up the game. I had gone to high school with some kids who were brilliant but never did anything meaningful with their lives because they never had an opportunity to get out of town. Maybe Leawood is my proactive attempt at getting out.