I Wanna be Your Last, First Love

Eyes locking on the two figures outside of the car, they watered, sending little beads of salty water down the skin of my cheek. Blinking hard, a small cough crawled up my throat and fell from my mouth as my mind quickly tried to silence any form of a sob that was forming in my throat. Michael was walking back to the car now, scowl placed on his face, brown eyes locked to my window. For a moment, I looked down, feeling blood rush to my cheeks as the feeling of him watching me as I cried rushed through my bones.

The door opened and sent in a huge gust of cold air. “Sorry about that”, he said shortly and then put his seatbelt on and threw the car in reverse. As his right arm swung behind my seat and he twisted his body around in the drivers’ seat, he peered over at me and then looked out of the back window. “Are you alright, Tay?” My insides turned to ice as the nickname echoed through my head pushing tears into the back of my eyes. Biting down on my tongue, I looked over at him and nodded showing him that my eyes were now perfectly dry from any tears.

His eyes connected with mine, and for a good two minutes, we just looked at each other, confused on what to say and if words were necessary. After the car sat idle, backed out of the parking spot for another good minute, a car horn blew from behind us, shattering the silence and our stare. Running his left hand through his brunette curls, Michael informed me I had to give him directions to my place; he had enough annoying voices for one day. He laughed, and glanced over at me, waiting for a chuckle, but my mouth stayed shut.

My eyes traced over the clock on the radio. As the low murmur of a T.I. song whispered through the speakers, my mind wandered off to the scenery flying by outside. Small apartment complexes passed by the window. People that lined the streets were in nice clothing, nice coats and fancy high heels or dress shoes. A few men in black coats wore beanies and carried briefcases. Some men walked around in solid color sweatshirts and skinny jeans with solid color Vans sneakers. They were all simple fashions, but somehow on the streets of Manhattan, it made them shimmer, like it was something intangible, like if they just stopped for a minute and someone took a picture, it would be perfect for a poster for a clothing line or a magazine.

As the minutes ticked by, my stomach finally settled down and the tears dried on my face. The only evidence of my past breakdown was the slight shine to my cheeks from where my tears were most traveled and squished. Glancing out of the window as I worked to wipe those shiny patches off of my cheek, I smiled. Streets around me looked familiar, but only because they were the streets surrounding the restaurant I worked at, and many early morning breaks had me wandering the streets. Sure, it was unsafe, but sometimes you need to just get some fresh city air, no matter how dangerous.

“Where do I turn, Tay?” Teeth grinding against the other, I looked over at him and contorted my face, showing strong dislike for the name he just addressed me by. When he glanced over, he sighed and pressed his left shoulder into the window. “I always called you Tay and just because we’re older now and haven’t spoke to each other in three years, and really don’t know much about each other anymore does not mean I am going to stop calling you that”, I blinked slowly, trying to process all of that. When it finally sunk in, I suppressed a smile and nodded, looking straight ahead and quickly blurting out the rest of the turns to my apartment complex.

My apartment came up quicker than expected. As my eyes traced along the bricks covering the face of the building, my mouth let a sigh lose. It went unnoticed by Michael as he quickly parked the car and shut it off. I turned to him; awaiting an explanation because there was almost no way he was coming into my apartment because it probably looked like world war three in there, if he felt the need to walk me to the front door; that’s a different story. “May I walk you to your room?” Michael asked glancing over at me as he took his seatbelt off and opened the door. I let out a small chuckle and shook my head. Michael hasn’t been around in years, but I could still think of what he was going to do before he said a single word, maybe before he even thought of it.

“Sure, why not”, giving him a small smile, my hand quickly fiddled with the seatbelt and door handle. When I was completely detached to the car, the door slammed shut by the use of Michael’s arm which soon found its way around my shoulders as he pulled me into him. Silently we walk up to the front door. Once we were into the lobby of the building, he placed his arm at his side and followed me over to the elevator, which was empty. Pressing the small number of my floor, I leaned into the back wall next to Michael and looked up at him.

Beautiful, chocolate, sparking, brown eyes were focused on me as a cute smile formed on his lips that made me want to melt into the carpeted floor beneath me. “Can’t say I haven’t missed that stupid smile”, I whispered as every drop of blood in my body raced to my cheeks. His laugh filled the metal box and for those few seconds while he was laughing, my mind immediately kicked back to my stupid sixteen year old thoughts when I thought he was the perfect guy.

My stomach lurched forward and I turned my head to look at the opposite wall, trying to stop the sick feeling from growing further than my stomach. “You alright?” His hand lightly pressed against my cheek as he turned my face toward his. As our eyes locked, the sickness quickly spread to my whole body and I bit roughly down on my bottom lip and forced forward the best fake smile I could conjure up at the moment. Michael inspected it and as the huge metal box reached my floor, he tore his eyes away from mine and walked out, waiting for me to give him the directions to my room; down the hall to the left.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Michael’s eyes caught mine as he walked next to me. “I know we haven’t really spoke in years”, a nervous chuckle filled the air, “but I think I can still find out when you’re alright, in a good mood, and angry.” Peering into his eyes, I felt my blood run cold through my veins.

Nodding, I mumbled something to him that I was perfectly fine, and then abruptly stopped at my apartment door. Grabbing my keys from the bag, my hands brought them closer to my face as I studied each one, trying to figure out which one was the correct key. “You’re going to see a lot more of the guys.” This sentence caught my attention and tore it away from my keys. As I glanced over at Michael, eyebrows raised, he gave me a small smile. “They like you and the restaurant. Home games after a win, expect to see them, after a loss, they’ll probably hit up a bar.” His brown eyes rolled and when they landed back on me, they seemed sad in a way.

Shaking the curiosity off, a smile lit onto my face. “I need to be going”, I paused examining the last sentence, trying to figure out if it sounded as stupid as I thought. After a few moments, Michael’s laugh pulled me right back into reality. “Right, I’ll see you around then. Job starts soon, have to get ready, maybe take a quick snooze.” When my eyes met Michael’s, my eyebrows rose to the center of my head. His brown eyes were barreling into mine, wide with shock, kind of like the way he looked when I told him that I was going out with the captain of the town hockey team, James Andrews. Back in the day when this happened, he and Michael were supposed to be best friends, but after we started going out, something had happened and Michael couldn’t even stand the sight of him. Of course, it eventually led to a harsh break-up, but back then Michael was more important than anything else.

Suddenly a sour taste poured into my mouth as my thoughts started drawing lines around in my head, and eventually everything started connecting together. I was able to finally break-up with my boyfriend, who at the time I was madly in love with because of Michael, but he couldn’t cut off the popular kids for one night to spend time with me? Although this anger was used so many times in the past three years, I was still able to find some inside of me. “I’ll see you later”, I snapped angrily and opened my door, pressing my teeth together.

“Hey! Tay, what is wrong with you?” Michael snapped as he caught the door from slamming in my face. Instead of just standing in the hallway, he took a step into my apartment and lightly grabbed my shoulders, turning me toward him. As I battled with my emotions to keep the scowl on my face, Michael took a deep breath and bit down on his bottom lip. “Goddamnit what am I going to have to do to show you how sorry I am for leaving you like that, Taylor! I’m sorry, I regretted going to that party for months, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else to say!” He screamed in a desperate sort of way. Deep in his brown eyes rested pure anger out of the fact that after three years of not speaking, I still had the power to be completely furious with him.

“Nothing, you can’t do anything”

“You can’t just hate me for the rest of your life! I mean, we just went out for four hours and were completely fine! Now all of the sudden after a nice car drive and everything you-“ My finger pressed against Michael’s lips in the middle of his words, and as soon as I felt his lips under my finger and suppressed a shiver, he stopped speaking and looked right into my eyes, almost begging me to take my finger off of his lips. I watched as his body shook a little. The curiosity that was bubbling inside of me was quickly silenced as he took a step back and shook his head. “Whatever. I’ll just see you later”, he huffed and turned on his heels. Without muttering a single word, he walked out of the apartment, shut the door, and disappeared into the depths of Manhattan. Although for a moment I was glad he was back into the one and a half million people in the city. I knew for a fact that I would see him sooner than I thought, that’s just how things seemed to work in this crooked skyline city. When you didn’t want to see someone, they came around, and all of those times when you wanted to see them, they blended in, unseen to the naked eye.

3:00 AM

Tired, sore, and hungry, I collapsed into an open table near the kitchen. The only good thing that seemed to come out of this day were the earlier text messages from Matt, and the huge amount of tips I had received from working Elise’s tables as well as my own. Instead of spending the extra tips on things like clothes and other things, it went right to the bank account, so when my landlord took out the monthly rent, I would have money for maybe next month’s rent too. That means that if I keep putting more money in, I could actually spend my tips on what they were supposed to be spent on.

Shutting my eyes, my mouth formed an ‘o’ and sucked in air until my lungs were filled to capacity. Letting it all out in a stream of air, a smile rose to my face and the next inhale was filled with the strong spices of a plate of ravioli that was now placed in front of me with a glass of Dr. Pepper. Looking to my left, I caught glimpse of Philippe walking back into the kitchen, a huge smile on his face.

The small chuckle was the only sound in the back part of the restaurant, away from the bar. All of the tables around me were clean of dishes and people, and have been for a good fifteen minutes. This was the only good thing about the late shift, during the last two hours of my shift, I normally had no on to attend to, if anything, I would get athletes just back from a nice few hours at a club, or some big business owners – both left amazing tips which made up for the lack of silence.

“Oh, just about to eat too”, my head jerked up and I met the eyes of Joey who had a sad smile on his face. “You have a straggler.” He placed the menu down on a table in the corner and gave me a sympathetic smile before walking away. With a heavy sigh, I walked back into the kitchen and grabbed my apron. Quickly tying it around my waist, Philippe noticed my presence and sighed.

Asking me if there was really another customer, I nodded and thanked him for the food. With a simple nod and wave of the hand from him, my body busted out of the doors and walked right over to the table, but when I took the time to acknowledge who was at the table, my hand quickly went to my back. Grabbing the string, I pulled the apron right off and shook my head.

“I just want to talk to you”, his smooth voice begged. Without turning back toward the table, I walked back into the kitchen and placed my apron back onto the counter. As Philippe caught my eye on the way out, my mouth opened and informed him that it was a false alarm. With a simple nod, he went back to eating the food on his plate, as he sat on the counter, plate on his lap.

As soon as the door opened, my eyes locked onto Michael. His hands were hidden in his sweatshirt pockets, his legs were covered in a pair of dark grey sweats, and he had on a pair of white socks and Adidas flip flops. For that, I mentally punched him in the face. He was in New York City, not small town Stouffville anymore. Fashion sense, even at three in the morning, was needed.

With a heavy sigh, I walked over to my table in the corner and sat down in front of my food. Without saying a word, my butt met the chair and I quickly cut ravioli and stuffed it into my mouth. “Please, I’m practically begging you. Taylor, spare me and talk to me!”

“Mikey, what is there to talk about?” I snapped completely ignoring the fact that I called him as his nickname from back in the ‘good old days’. “You left me, we haven’t seen or spoke to each other for three years, and now we’re back in each other’s lives! That’s it, what’s the big deal. Huh? I over reacted before, understandable. I apologize for that, but-“, he pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.

“I just want to have what we did back then”, he sighed and lifted his eyes to meet mine. “We need to get over this.”

Although I wanted to protest and slam my fork down and scream at him, I just sat there, glancing up at him, silently agreeing with him that we did have to get over this. Even though it was mostly me that needed to accept the fact that my best friend made a mistake, and I was holding a pointless grudge.

I threw my fork down to the table and looked up into Michael’s huge brown eyes. After the shock faded out of them from my sudden outburst, I took a deep breath and stood up. Instead of sitting and chatting over the table, we decided that taking a nice walk outside would be the best way to really talk about everything. The fresh city air was always calming, and no one was around at three in the morning which meant that we could just sit down on the curb around the corner under the streetlight, and talk.

I called into Philippe that I was taking a break. He nodded and waved me out of the kitchen as he turned his back to me and continued speaking on the phone. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my jacket and shrugged into it. Patting my pockets to make sure I had my cell phone and money, my body swiftly moved through the kitchen, out of the doors, and over to Michael who was staring at his laced fingers, extreme worry in his eyes.

Ignoring the nagging feeling inside of me that screamed this was a bad idea, my arm slithered around Michael’s shoulders, although it was a stretch, and I smiled at him. Sure, after everything that had happened my actions may be a little questionable, but seeing those huge brown eyes sad absolutely drove me crazy.

The front of the restaurant was almost vacant except for five tables that had people chatting and drinking at them. The waiters were seated at the bar sipping their drinks, watching the huge flat screen TV. The same TV that showed me the one person who I never thought I would see again who the same person under my outstretched arm was.

Cold city wind hit our bare skin as Michael opened the front door and allowed me to walk out first. As my body entered the chilly outside air, my arms moved closer to my sides, trying to keep my body warm. “So, what-“

My words were cut off as Michael quickly grabbed my shoulders and turned my body so we were facing each other. With a deep breath he caught my eyes and held them, allowing me to read his brown eyes that were screaming in pain as the period of silence grew longer.

Just as I was about to speak again, Michael took a deep breath and shook his head, practically begging me not to speak. Nodding, I swallowed my words and looked down. It felt like he was trying to tell me something, something bad like he came down with a terminal disease or one of our good high school friends had passed.

Finally, as my mind burying itself in thought, Michael’s words echoed through the air. “I know this is random, but I have been dying to tell you this ever since we stopped speaking back in junior year”, my eyes met his and my heart started rapidly beating in my chest. He was going to just tell me off right now. Michael Del Zotto, my childhood best friend was going to point out every single one of my flaws, lay them out in front of me, call me all of the names I deserve to hear after what I put us through, and then storm off to his car and go on living his perfect life with his perfect job and girlfriend without me.

“Back then, maybe starting around sixth grade, I had the biggest crush on you. I thought about you and me and I tried to picture us going out, and some days I could see it, but I knew you would never like me back, so I forced myself to get over it, and then that night that I didn’t come over your house, the night I blew you off, I was out at some party. When I heard about it, I figured it would be an easy way to finally wash the emotions for you out of my system so I went because I knew that if I went to your place, I would finally snap and when I found out you didn’t like me back, I would be crushed and I couldn’t ruin us all because of that. So at the party I was drinking a lot, you know, and there were these girls everywhere, girls I would look at in the halls and would laugh at me and they were all throwing themselves at me, and then there was this one girl, I forgot her name, but we were getting pretty close and then I thought of you.

The only thing that went through my mind was what you would think if I just slept with some drunk girl at a party because of my buzz, and because of that I ended up leaving the party and walking home. When I got home I passed out and the next day, right when I woke up, I went to see you because I wanted to tell you how I felt, even if it meant jeopardizing out friendship. But then everything happened, and we really stopped speaking, I realized that it was stupid, I was stupid. I’m sorry for everything Tay, I really am. I made a bunch of mistakes, I let my emotions get the best of me, and you did the right thing when we stopped talking, you really did.”

His words soaked into my brain making perfect sense, but as I stood in the cold New York City air, I looked into his brown eyes, dumbfounded. It felt like a dream, a sick twisted dream. These feelings would have been the perfect thing to shut me up before I ruined out friendship but no, I couldn’t find out before I killed our friendship, I had to find out three years later, after nights of crying myself to sleep, that the one person I thought would never love me, did in fact love me.