The smell of damp city concrete is the first thing I notice, walking up the subway station stairs. Glad, I missed the quick sunset shower taking the F train from Brooklyn. Not living in Manhattan sure had its perks. I walked the cobblestone street in my new orange-and-pink-striped sneakers, feeling totally content and giddy.
I loved Friday nights in the East Village when hopes and aspirations were high, girls were all dolled up, not sure yet what they will tell about tonight the next morning over lattes and Eggs Benedict. Friday evenings had the potential to be that long-awaited new beginning with someone not-so-new as well as to turn out differently than what you and your very detailed dead-end brainfuckery already predicted. Ben and I, we were at a dead end. I knew it, he probably never thought about it, the forever romantic in me skillfully avoided that fact.
It was spring, a few weeks shy of my twenty-third birthday and I was ready for all-encompassing forever love with a guy almost twenty years my senior, who liked my presence but not enough to put a label on it – hence the detailed brainfuckery.
It was, what I like to call, leather jacket weather. Warm enough to ditch the layers winter required, but still too chilly to walk around in sensible t-shirts alone.
As I turn the corner on East Houston Street to my current favorite bar and even more favorite deejay, I feel that pang in my belly instantly knowing that shit’s about to hit the fan and I better be prepared to deal with it
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