A Cold December

“It’s always cold in New York,” she said. Amy peered through the window as if she could see the progress of the wind and the rain ten thousand miles north. “How can you live here, where everything is so dead?”

Amy abandoned this view and analyzed the man that had once been her boyfriend and her first love. She remembered Brandon as a soft-natured guy, not really the outgoing type, but amazingly good-looking nonetheless. Blonde, god-like hair and deep green eyes. He was the kind of guy that didn’t really care about flirting and sports, so he was generally ignored by the rest of the girls. The girls who did notice him, however, never got the chance to be with him. There was only one girl on this mind, Amy Brampton.

Amy superimposed this image of a man she had met when she was seventeen years old; with the man sitting right in front of her. The man in front of her was twenty five, and he hadn't lost the good looks that made him unique in her memory. Some of the childishness and naivety of his face had disappeared, his hair had changed too. But he didn’t loose the poise he had since the day they first met.

Moments ago, when they met at the luxurious restaurant in the outskirts of New York, Brandon had been sitting in that same table, looking out through the same window with lost eyes and a blank expression. He’d glanced up and seen Amy, and for a moment he’d examined her too, as a person long ago seen but freshly remembered. Brandon, she’d said then. He stood up and embraced her and they both felt a warmth they hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

Brandon had left New York to study his passion, music. The fact that he was leaving shattered Amy, so they decided to break-up after two long years of a nearly perfect relationship. They hadn’t talked for six years, leaving a feeling of resentment and emptiness in the air. Amy had never stopped thinking about him and she felt that, now that she was visiting New York, she had to close the chapter in her life that included Brandon Shelby.

It’s a waste of time to say that he had been thinking about her too. When but when he heard the message in the answering machine, time suddenly stopped. Everything halted. He realized he hadn’t stopped loving her, even if he had been with other girls during those long six years. Every time he entered a new relationship he remembered Amy and what he learnt about love with her. He also suffered, many times, because he thought nothing could be as magical as what he experienced with her. He didn’t want to leave Amy, he always thought, but if he wanted to study what he was passionate about, then he had to leave something he loved, even if it meant sacrificing the love of his life.

So as they were here talking about their lives and about they’re future, just one thought crossed their minds. Ok, maybe more, but at the moment both were thinking about having each other again, and this time forever. Amy thought about all those lonely nights she had spent thinking about him and imagining him sleeping next to her; and all the times she had cried herself to sleep because of him. Brandon thought about her face, that perfect face with blue eyes and brown hair that had accompanied him in every dream he had had in six years. That was, if he could sleep.

The end of the dinner arrived and, just like that, they had to say goodbye. Amy watched him as he paid, ever so slow, ever so sad. Brandon watched as she placed her coat over her bare shoulders, hiding one more part of her from him as they both had to part. They stood up and Brandon walked her to the car, dreading the moment in which she had to get in and drive away from his life, just as he had when they were nineteen. When they were finally next to Amy’s red Peugeot 206, Brandon stared at her just with one look which told her everything she wanted to hear. She heard, and replied, and everything they had hoped for in six years had finally appeared. They both knew they loved each other still, without words, without actions, but simply by looking at each other and knowing that they were meant to be.

Brandon leaned to her and, just like the first time, he drank her candy-like scent and pulled her soft, damp hair, and planted a cold kiss in Amy’s lips. It was cold as a day in New York, on a windy night of December. It was cold as a chilly breeze and, just like that, it was gone. It was a kiss that lasted for a few minutes which seemed to last forever.

When Amy turned to open the door of her car, she suddenly felt empty. For a minute she couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t anticipated how much it would hurt to be separated from Brandon.

Would it be possible to start again? he wondered. Could he and Amy rewrite their own story? Could they go back to where they left off, but this time for the rest of eternity?

As Amy turned the engine on, she knew they would always be together, in their hearts. They would love each other just as they had six years ago. Brandon didn’t go in, even if it was freezing cold. He waited just a moment longer.