Most of all, I’m thinking about the first time I kissed her, how her lips felt so perfectly warm, like waking in a pool of sunshine through a window pane on a summer morning. I remember how her lips tasted like a strawberry milkshake, how her hair smelled fresh like a forest after a late spring rain. One complex feeling kept crashing over me like a wave as her lips touched mine: You care about people, you are thoughtful and kind, you are forgiving, and you are so much more than the pretty face and body that initially attracted me to you. You are smarter, wiser, stronger, and braver than I. You are light years ahead of me. I love you, Zoe Perry.
And this is the thought that finally breaks the dam and lets the tears flow, and I don’t even give a shit that I look like a pathetic drunken loser, crying and sitting on a pile of garbage in an alley behind a bar.
“Cruddy night, buddy?” mumbles a drunk who has wandered into the alley (He must be a closet poet, too).
“You doan look so good, pal,” he says as he passes. “Here. Call yerself a cab.”
A quarter clinks before me on the sidewalk. Right.
I try to ignore it.
Oh, what the hell. I toss the quarter. It lands on the pavement, heads up.
Mere chance. I toss it again.
Heads.
And again.
Heads.
Should I go after Zoe?
Heads.
If I were to tell her that I really am sorry, that I feel terrible about what I did, that I really, really miss her and would do practically anything to get her back, will she forgive me?
Heads.
Can I catch her if I run?
Heads.
I know this is crazy, I know I should be locked away in a padded room somewhere . . .
but I’m running.
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