Eastern Lights

by Brittainy Cherry

  “Hey, Tommy! It’s me. Yeah, I’m outside the bar. I left my keys inside. Can you let me in?” He paused, then bit his bottom lip. He got a little shy, and that was adorable. “No, Tommy. I’m not going to have sex on the rooftop.” Pause. “I know! Okay, what about this: I’ll give you those season tickets for next season we were talking about two weeks ago.” Pause. “Yes, okay. Fine—but only if you promise to let me go to one game with you.” Pause. “Thank you kindly, sir. We have a deal.”

  Within seconds, Tommy stood in front of the door, unlocking it for us to get in. “I can’t believe you left your keys here,” he said. “You should be letting yourself in.”

  Captain leaned in and kissed his cheek repeatedly before smacking his bum. “I know. Stupid mistake. Thanks, Tommy!”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll probably be gone before you tonight, so will you lock up?”

  “You got it.”

  Captain took my hand and pulled me through the now empty space. As we moved forward, it felt odd having no one around us after being in a packed room before. It was just another example of how our time that night was running out; our clock fading to black.

  He took me to the office where I’d met Tommy earlier and grabbed his keys from the desk. He also grabbed the jacket hanging on the back of the door and placed it over my shoulders.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Time-out—why would you have keys to this place? And why would he let you lock up? What am I missing?”

  “Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I own the building.”

  “I’m sorry, what?!”

  He smirked, and his dimple deepened as he took my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

  We began our hike up the staircase, and my chest felt tight halfway up the stairs. I hated how winded I got. I knew I wasn’t in the best shape, but I felt as if my heart was racing faster than normal. I took more breaks than I was proud of, but Captain didn’t judge me. When I stopped my steps, he stopped his, too.

  “I need to get back to the gym,” I joked three-fourths of the way up the stairs. I rested my hand against my chest, feeling my heartbeats intensifying. Each breath was deeper than the one before. He stayed patient with me. He even slowed his steps when we moved up the stairs.

  As we reached the top, we found a spot to sit, facing the sunrise, waiting for the beginning of the end of us. I tried to control my inhalations to bring them back to a normal speed. I wanted to speak, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to until I gathered myself.

  When that time came, I looked over at Captain. “So…you own this building?”

  “Yeah, this one and a few others,” he said nonchalantly as if it was a normal thing for a twenty-five-year-old to say.

  “I’m sorry, what? You own buildings plural? What exactly do you do for a living?”

  “Oh…a lot of different things.”

  And there goes my heart rate increasing again.

  “That sounds like something someone in the mafia would say, and if I just spent the evening with someone in the mafia, I’m truly going to rethink all of my life choices. Oh my goodness, have you killed someone before? Are you a murderer?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “If I were, do you think I would tell someone I’d just met?”

  Fair enough.

  He must’ve noted my low level of fear because he laughed. “I run my own real estate company and am an investor. I’ve been working my ass off since I moved to New York when I turned eighteen, and let’s just say it paid off.”

  “Holy crap. Are you rich?”

  He snickered. “Being rich is such a hard thing to claim. What makes someone rich, anyway?”

  “Do you have over a million dollars in your bank account?” I asked bluntly. His hesitation was enough of a response for me. “Holy crap! You’re rich!”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Says the rich guy. Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you had me buy your drinks tonight! And your chicken wings!”

  “Hey now! I offered to pay!”

  “You should’ve told me you were a millionaire, then I would’ve allowed you to pay,” I joked. “I should’ve asked you to buy me that extremely rare comic behind the counter.”

  He started to stand. “I mean, maybe we can head back that way and—”

  “Shut up.” I laughed as I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “I’m just kidding.”

  “Next time, I’ll get it for you.”

  “I wish there was a next time,” I said without thought. He stared my way for a moment before looking out at the sky.

  “You know what’s weird, Red? You’re still here, and I already miss you.”

  I smiled, he smiled, and I loved the way we smiled together.

  He pulled out a comic book and began to read to me. His thumb brushed against his upper lip before turning the pages, and I became fixated on watching every movement he made. At that moment, my heart decided it would beat for him for the remainder of the night. Probably into the next morning, too.

  Unfortunately, the sun began to rise, and I hated that the good was coming to an end.

  I hated the sun. I hated how it couldn’t shift its schedule for one day to allow me a few more hours with him. I should’ve felt tired, but if anything, all I felt was sad. The lighter it grew, the sadder I became.

  How had a stranger become so important in such a short period?

  “Remind me again why we aren’t allowing ourselves to fall for one another tomorrow and the day after that, too,” he said, his voice low and shaky. He was becoming more anxious about the impending end of whatever connection we’d formed, too.

  I sighed. “Because you’re too busy building an empire, and I’m a girl who hasn’t unpacked the past baggage and insecurities from my previous relationship enough to truly engage in a new one this fast.”

  “Ah, yes. Reality.”

  “I hate it here,” I joked, biting back the emotions sitting behind my eyes. Did I desire more nights like the one we’d shared together? Yes. Did I understand that we both weren’t truly ready for more? Also yes. I had never believed you could meet the right person at the wrong time until this very night.

  “We have to make a few promises,” Captain said as he placed the comic book down. He turned to sit face-to-face with me and took my hands in his. “This night was special and I don’t want to jinx it in any way, shape, or form. I like the idea of us crossing paths again, with destiny tossing a coin into that chance encounter. So we have to avoid the places we’ve gone to tonight. We can’t force the universe to push us together. We gotta trust the stars that somehow we’ll cross paths again.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  He turned my palm up. “Well then, Red”—he kissed my palm, causing a wave of butterflies to flutter through my system—“thank you for the happiest night of my life.”

  My eyes felt like watering because he’d done the same—given me the happiest experience, which I needed more than words.

  He kept holding my hands and stared down at our fingers, which were now intertwined. “I have a confession to make to you.”

  “A confession?”

  “Yes. I knew you wouldn’t fall in love with me in five hours.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think I love you?” I asked. We hadn’t even discussed the challenge we’d created about falling in love. We’d simply spent the past five hours laughing, diving deep, and connecting. Honestly, I’d forgotten all about it until he brought it up.

  “No, I don’t.” He shrugged. “And I’m okay with that because I might have had an ulterior motive.”

  “And what was that?”

  “All I wanted to do was make you happy, remind you that no matter how bad your heart can hurt, you can find happiness again. You can love yourself enough to find joy in life. You can get back up again after feeling defeated. I knew it would be impossible to make you fall in love with me—I mean, I’m just some guy from Kentucky—but I also knew it was possible to ma
ke you fall in love with yourself again. Because that kind of love never strays too far.”

  “I don’t think you know how much I needed you tonight.”

  “The feeling goes both ways, Red. But just in case you forget again tomorrow, here’s a list I compiled tonight, of things about you that are worth loving.” He cleared his throat and pretended to pull out a piece of paper from his invisible pocket, which he read from. “The way you wrinkle your nose when displeased. The way you dance when no one is looking. The way you nerd out about comics is worth every second of loving you. The way you feel things deeply—that’s a gift. So many people in the world are closed off and disconnected from their feelings. Your emotions live loudly inside you—the good ones and the bad—which makes you balanced. You should love the way you smile. That smile is worthy of all the love. And your eyes, the way they drink people in and are filled with kindness. The way you love others who probably don’t deserve your love. The way you live. The way you breathe. The way that outside of all those things, you deserve to be loved because you exist. Your mere existence is reason enough for you to be loved.”

  And just like that, I fell.

  I loved him—at least for that single moment.

  That night I learned it was possible to love individuals in singular moments. I learned there could be seconds of time when the world aligned perfectly to create a moment that caused your body to be overwhelmed with love for a complete stranger. I’d discovered flashes of love.

  We were close now, so close I was almost sitting on his lap as our foreheads rested against one another. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him, allowing me to fall into his body. I liked the way that felt. I already missed the way that felt.

  “I feel bad for whoever it is that gets to love you next,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing against mine. “They will never be worthy of the magnitude of love you’ll give to them.”

  I closed my eyes. As he inhaled, I exhaled. Our breaths intermixed as our bodies did the same. I didn’t want to let him go because that meant waking up from the dream I’d been living that night and going back to reality.

  I wasn’t certain I wanted to live in a reality where he didn’t exist.

  “The sun is up,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s time to let go.”

  “I know.”

  Still, we stayed frozen together for a little bit longer. We allowed the sun to kiss our skin as we both worked hard not to kiss one another. Our lips were close enough, but I knew if I gave in, I wouldn’t walk away.

  As we stood, I felt like crying, but I also felt an overwhelming amount of peace, too.

  “For the record, Red, you aren’t the barista,” he said as the sun kept rising behind us. “You’re not the quirky best friend, and you’re not some random woman on page forty-five. You’re the main character. Day in and day out, you are the leading lady. And for me, you’re the one who got away.”

  I hugged him. I rushed into him and held on tight because after that moment, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold the stranger who didn’t feel so strange to me anymore. I held on and felt my eyes filling with tears as he held on tighter. He held me as if he cared for me more than any other person ever had, as if he’d given me his all, and my goodness, his all was enough.

  I’d never known I could need someone I didn’t even know to remind me what it meant to fall in love with myself again.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as I lay my head against his chest. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

  “Thank you,” he replied. “Can you make me a promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Next time you get into a relationship, don’t settle for less than you deserve.”

  I smiled. “I promise.”

  “I got this weird feeling we’re gonna meet again, mark my words,” he said, seeming hopeful about the possibility of us crossing paths again.

  “You believe that much in fate?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I just believe in us.”

  “How about we bet on it. If we meet again, I’ll pay you a dollar. If we don’t…well, I won’t pay you a dollar,” I joked.

  “All right. Deal. Each year that passes, though, you add a dollar onto the tab.”

  “Spoken like a true businessman.”

  “If anything, I’m consistent.”

  We parted ways that night, and the broken parts of my heart were temporarily healed by his kind words. He emptied my sad soul and filled it back up with love.

  I took the subway home, with my hands held against my chest, feeling my heartbeats. The heart that seemed so deeply broken was beginning to beat again, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as if I’d be okay. When I emerged from the subway, I breathed in deeply and exhaled the chilled air as the thoughts of the stranger who’d made me the main character for one night kept crossing my mind.

  I knew it seemed ridiculous and the next morning, I’d likely awaken to reality, but I was almost certain the thought floating around in my head was somewhat true. I’d fallen in love with a man that night, and I hadn’t even known his name. But, I knew his touch. His laughter. His heart.

  I’d remember the feeling he’d given me as I moved on through life from that day forth.

  I’d never forget his flashes of love.

  The following week, he stayed on my mind. I moved through my internship with more smiles on my face, and each day I worked at the coffee shop, I felt as if I were floating as I brewed coffee for individuals.

  “Excuse me, can I get a few extra sugar cubes for my coffee? And maybe a cinnamon roll, too,” a woman asked me as I stood at the counter of C&C Café. She broke me away from my thoughts of Halloween night, forcing me back to reality.

  I smiled at the warm grin she was giving me. She’d been a regular for the past few weeks, a beautiful Black woman who had the most striking brown eyes I’d ever seen. When those eyes looked at me, they seemed so welcoming, as if one of the best moments of her day was looking my way—almost the same way Captain had stared at me. It blew my mind that some people were born with such gentle, caring eyes.

  “Of course! Let me ring you up, and I’ll bring it right over to your table,” I told her, punching numbers into the keyboard.

  “Thank you, uh”—she looked down at my name tag then back up at me—“Aaliyah. That’s a pretty name.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  She moved back to her corner table and sat down, pulling out a novel. She’d been reading the same book for the past week, The Rule of Magic by Alice Hoffman. Each week, she’d bring in a new book, falling deep into the pages.

  As I brought over her chai tea and cinnamon roll, she didn’t tear her eyes away from the page. Sometimes, she seemed somewhat invested in her novels, but she was more than intrigued with this go-around. She was melting into each word that came to her, flipping the pages with speed.

  “It must be a good one,” I said, placing her order on the table.

  She looked up and laid the book down. “Oh my goodness, it’s such a good one. I’m part of a book club, and this is our most recent read.”

  “Oh, that’s fun! I’m a big reader, too.”

  “Are you?” She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of books are you into?”

  “Personally, comic books, but I do dive into thrillers from time to time.”

  “Comic books?” she asked, surprised. “That’s fun.”

  “Well, you know me. I have good taste,” I joked. “Enjoy yourself, and if you need anything—”

  I paused as my chest tightened a bit. Everything came to a rushing stop as my knees began to buckle. My hands flew to my chest as I began gasping for air. My heart was pounding at an irrational speed, and as I fell to the ground, I was quickly surrounded by my coworkers.

  Their lips were moving fast, and I saw the fear in their eyes as I tried to control my labored breaths. I shut my eyes and knew nothing good was going on. My heart felt as if
it were on fire. As if it were shattering right inside my chest and trying to pound its way to freedom from the chains that seemed to be suffocating it.

  I passed out at some point, wanting nothing more than the pain in my chest to disappear.

  I awakened to bright lights shining down on me. My arms were hooked up to machines, and a nurse stood with her back to me as she was filling out something in her hand.

  “What happened?” I asked, dazed and confused with cotton mouth. Nothing was making any kind of sense as I tried to get a grip on the situation. Everything seemed so fuzzy in my mind as I tried to connect the dots.

  Flashes.

  I remembered flashes that took place before my arrival at the hospital, yet none of them were flashes of love. No…

  I had flashes of pain, flashes of fear, flashes of death.

  The nurse turned my way with a big, bright smile. “There you are. It’s good to hear you talking. You’re at St. Peter’s Hospital. Do you have family you’d like me to call?”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s just me. What happened?”

  She smiled, walked over to me, and took my hand in hers, squeezing it lightly. “You’re going to be okay. You had complications with your heart and—”

  “Complications?!” I asked, panicked about her word choice, and the worry that hit her eyes made it clear she wasn’t the right one to deliver the news.

  “Let me get a hold of your doctor so he can explain everything to you, okay? I’ll be back with answers for you.”

  “How long have I been here?” I asked, moving only slightly but feeling intense pain shoot down my spine.

  “About twelve hours.”

  “What?!” I spat out, sitting up straighter, terrified. Had I been out for that long? What was happening?

  “The doctor will be in shortly.”

  She left me to sit by myself, scared about what was happening to me. I looked at the numbers on the screen, my vitals. My hands were clammy, and my mind spun as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on. The last thing I recalled was being at work, and then everything went black.