Youth is Wasted Time
He spent the night with me before he left. I had a small bed and while I made dinner he had fallen asleep on it. I yelled his name and he awoke and tried to beckon me into his arms, which I wouldn’t do. I had hours, only hours, left with him. He wanted to sleep them away.
“I’m going to the bar,” I said and turned off the stove where a full meal cooked.
“It’s late. It’s already eleven.”
“You’ll just be asleep here anyways so why would I waste my time?”
“Come on Stel, I won’t be seeing you for a while.”
“Fuck you Corin. Come with me then. I won’t be staying inside asleep on your last night here.”
I went down the stairs of the apartment building and waited outside. He came out slowly onto the sidewalk.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Just walk with me.”
We walked to the park and kept walking. We went through it and got beers and he held my hand and squeezed me from behind so that niether of us could balanced. We walked for so long we ended up at the beach and the first birds awoke and made crisp little noises and the hidden sun made the night sky a dreadful gray. I squeezed his hand tighter.
“Why do you have to go?”
“I have to grow as a person Stelly. I am so young and there is so much I don’t know.”
“And why can’t I come with you.”
“It’s not the right time. I feel even now that the time we spend only spoils what I hope is in store for us.”
“So you’re just going to fuck a bunch of girls then aren’t you?”
He looked mad at me. “It’s true isn’t it? You’re just going to have a little joy ride.”
“I’m not. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I’ve told you, I need to find out who I am when no one is telling me who to be.”
“So you’re just going to be fucking other girls.”
“I don’ know. But that’s not what I am searching for.”
I stopped and he walked on. I hated him. But it didn’t even feel real, the way he smiled about it like it was all going to be okay.
He pulled a blanket out of his bag at the beach and we lay down to watch the gray water. He’d bought two shooters of Jameson and we clinked them. I snuggled into him and he hummed and I cried shaking sobs.
“Don’t go.”
“I have to Stelly. I have to so I’ll know.”
“And you’ll come back?”
He didn’t respond so I looked up at him.
“I’ll come back.” And he squeezed me again.
We got in an Uber and he went upstairs, grabbed his things and took the car away again to the airport.
“Please text me when you get to the airport. And when you take off. And when you get there. Text me when you get to the house.”
With that he was gone and I cried for five and a half days and didn’t eat.
As the new semester began I would meet new boys who would try to talk to me. I would whisper to myself in silent prayers, “Even if he never returns I am still his and I will never love anyone else as I loved him.”
Two months passed and he would still only text me once a day. Sometimes even a few days of no word would go by and I would sit in my bed with all the work I had to do and stare at my dark phone. I could imagine him falling for all the stupid girls in Maine who would oogle over him and he would love the attention.
One night my lab ran late at school and a particularly meek and sweet boy, who had switched into my lab group after the first week offered to walk me to my car. I thought of Corin and those girls in Maine. It was one of those stretches where he hadn’t texted in a while. I said no to the guy but I knew, despite my intention, I had looked at him in a way that left the door open. And so he asked again next week and although Corin had texted me asking how I was doing I had no honest reason to return any love to such a cold and distant being. I loved him, but a terrible thought crossed my mind as I stood before the boy and he asked me my plans for the night— it was that my youth and my beauty — my months and years of opportunity to enjoy life, while I was still able and free, were going to slip away and none of my dreams of reuniting with Corin would ever be realized. And so I let the boy walk me through the campus and the dark lamplit parking lot to my car. He was very sweet and timid. Before I got in to drive away he put his hand on mine and asked me if he could kiss me. It felt like a betrayal and I still felt that to give to any other man what I had given to Corin would be monsterous. But the boy was persistant and he smiled so gently that I allowed him to kiss my cheek.