I found myself strolling past your old house with a friend. I told him the story of how I showed up early to your NYE party and you asked me to stay and host in your absence while you ran off to kiss your girlfriend at midnight. How I loathed most the department but you were popular. So I said yes and politely explained to everyone as they arrived you would be returning after giving your sweetheart a midnight kiss.

That night I dreamt about you.

It was a hazy reminder of that brief feeling of desire, curiosity, the ever plaguing ‘what if’ that us romantic writers fantasize upon. The feeling of being desired behind closed doors. That one night we spent on my couch in each other’s arms. All alone, knowing that this was territory not to be tread. You were deciding your future together, following her to Southern California, a land so foreign to you but you had your hopes high, you wanted to be a father. That dreamy space of romanticizing what could have been… that was the fog that filled my dream and reminded me of how I enjoyed being desired in secret. Knowing I could pull this man away if I wanted. She had after all pulled him away from another. How fickle men were. How willing he was in that moment laying on my couch. How easily it would have been.

Just to say… Stay.

We were friends. I had your confidence. You told me all the struggles and woes of your relationship. She wanted to get married and start a family and how you thought you wanted those things too. How you thought you were getting too old to make those things happen.

What a silly thought in hindsight. Now that I am your age, how every year I feel as if my life is beginning anew. Societal pressure to exist on a timeline is suffocating. The choices you make trying to uphold that timeline and how they stifle your freedom to live the way you’re meant too.

I’ll never forget the late night at my apartment. Our classmates vehemently arguing opposing sides on the matter. You’ll never get a girl that hot ever again, lock it down! She’s a vapid superficial idiot you could do so much better! I laughed at the arguments both incredibly solid points. He could do better intellectually, he would likely not do better physically.

But you decided. You were doing it. I conceded. Though never her fan I wanted to be a part of your children’s lives. You marveled on how I could just decide to like her. I reminded you that we had a ‘make up’ at the end of the year. That she didn’t know I didn’t care for her. You laughed realizing this truth.

So the wedding was planned. A huge to do at the library. I remember feeling smug that I got an invention to the ceremony and the reception. Most of the department did not get an invite to the ceremony. But I was your close friend. She looked beautiful. The reception was jubilant. You were the popular couple of the department. Everyone was there. I remember convincing the bartended to give me a bottle of champagne to carry around and pour out for everyone.

And before long you were gone to Lala land.

I reached out to you a few times. But whatever confidence we used to share was gone. Amazing how some people get married and suddenly their friendships change. Perhaps you felt guilty for those moments you considered me. Perhaps that’s just how you felt about marriage. You were older and held to different ideas and standards of marriage.

Years later you came to San Diego with the family. How excited I was to meet your child. I met you at the Zoo. Before I could get more than a hello out of you she pulled me away. Leaving you with the child and her family. We found a bar and she ordered us wine and before I could get a word out she was spilling everything. The struggles of your marriage, your inadequacies as a providing partner. I was not surprised that you fell into a depression, I was not surprised LA did not inspire you to write. That was because I knew you. It didn’t seem as if either she or you knew yourself well enough to see this coming. Now there was a family to provide for and she was carrying that weight alone. Not receiving the financial or emotional support she needed. My heart went out to her. My heart went out to you. They say those first few years of parenthood are the most difficult for these reasons.

Truth be told all stages of parenthood appear difficult from where I stand.

I mused ruefully internally. Whatever rules about not confiding outside your marriage he had, she certainly had none. Here she was spilling all of her complaints about him. He whose confidence I lost the moment they wed.

After a few more glasses of wine we returned and I said goodbye to you having not exchanged a word. I felt bad for you. You had no idea what you signed up for and like so many people that fall to societal pressures and realize too late that this was not the path they would choose again. That’s the way it goes.

I was never going to be a good girlfriend or want a family. I had so many women to become and move through. But I wonder how different it might have been. If I had asked you to stay.