Too Little Too Late

It’s a strange feeling, how a place you ran from can still be a place of comfort when you return. Not only did this city hold some of my most terrible secrets, the cause for all my anxiety, it’s also the place I longed to return to for so long. It’s been four years since I left, I had left the big city on the East Coast and traded it for the big city on West. I thought what I needed was space, and time, yet in all my time away from home, I was still as empty as the day I left. Though I used university as my reasoning to put almost three thousand miles between me and the city I called home, in the end it was because of him. Everyone thought I was crazy leaving a career of six years to go back to school, uprooting my already stable life and starting over, but at the time it was what I needed, or at least I thought. No matter how many miles I put between me and my past it couldn’t erase the memories.     I realized quickly, no matter how many things I changed around me, I was still the same person. The same broken girl, the same girl who poured her heart into a six-year relationship only to have it shatter in a matter of weeks. An unforgivable list of infidelity following what was the hardest week of my life. Everything had come full circle on our tumultuous relationship. Nothing left could be said to fix what was broken, what he had broken. I said goodbye to the love of my life a short three weeks after I said goodbye to my future. I turned the page and started new. For me that meant saying goodbye to my parents, as well as having the excuse of a school schedule keeping me too busy to come home for the weekend or holidays.     “Everything okay?” I was pulled out of my own thoughts by a hand grasping mine, I turned my attention over to Kase and gave him a halfhearted smile before I turned back to watching the busy streets pass by while we rode the cab to the place I call home. He knew I had reservations about returning New York, but no idea why. He thought it was a great idea, taking the trip to meet my parents, finally acquainting them with my fiancé of three months. I suggested a getaway to the beach, a relaxing time for us to connect. He had a point though, meeting my parents the day we wed isn’t exactly feasible and of course or wedding would be hosted in New York, where I’m from. It made sense, but the thought of spending so much time here in order to plan a wedding was panic inducing. It had been four years since I rode down these streets, four years of telling my parents every excuse I could think of for missing yet another family gathering. “I don’t understand why you’re not more excited about being here.” He tells me as we grow closer to our destination. I shrug my shoulders and try to think fast of a reply, but I’m drawing a blank in my mind. In a city of over eight million people, it’s ludicrous to think it was even a possibility I would see him.