Second Chance

I used to rent a place in Brooklyn with a friend months before I met you.

It was advertised as a sixth story apartment with a water view but was really a box-sized room with a tiny hint of the Hudson. Its larger window offered an excellent view to a dark, back alley that went nowhere. I used to stare at it every morning.

My dreams had felt so fresh when I first moved to the city. The glitz and glamour had lured me, and so there I was, wide-eyed and jobless, promising myself I’d make it big somehow. But then the years passed, and the wonder faded. Work got mundane. My commute felt too long. The laundry and dishes piled up and I never seemed to have time to clear them.

Weeks before I met you, I’d abandoned it all for a simpler life upstate, where the roads were quieter and the lights turned off at night. But there was always Brooklyn, in the back of my mind. The haunting whisper of a life I could have had if I hadn’t walked away so quickly.

Until I met you, and those whispers were silenced.

We made our quiet town feel more alive than Manhattan. Walking down Garden Avenue with your hand in mine, laughter so loud curious glances would linger. I forgot about Brooklyn for the first time in months. I forgot about everything. There was just you and your bright green eyes, and the way you said my name first thing in the morning. It made sense, why I’d had to leave the city every time I saw your car pulling in my driveway.

It was supposed to be this way, because this road had led me to you. I was so sure of that for months. Until the summer faded and took my clarity with it.

I can never remember when it started, but before I knew it we were halfway in. Unspoken questions, questioning glances, accusations that lingered. The fresh air we’d been began to feel suffocating and soon I got tired of trying so hard to breathe. I packed my bags in the middle of the night and found myself on a familiar road that led up to a familiar apartment.

Now I sit again in Brooklyn, staring out a darkened window, dishes piled in the sink and laundry overflowing in the corner.