The Last Goodbye.

We said goodbye, not once, not twice, but three times.

It wouldn’t stick, as it never does. We keep circling back, falling towards the inevitable.

The first time was in anger. I told him I never wanted to see him again. We yelled, I got sick, we fought.

The second time was in happiness, surprise when he randomly hugged me on the platform of the L before he took the Q uptown and I took the N to Brooklyn. It was a solid goodbye. I was content with this goodbye. I didn’t expect to see him again.

But the siren always calls. I had a wedding the next day, a day full of pictures and posing and holding flowers as the Mr. and soon-to-be Mrs. stood before the priest. He e-mailed me. “I know we said goodbye. But I want to see you again.”

There were things I was supposed to do that night, as there are always things to do. Instead, I sat in traffic on the BQE. I got lost. He stood on the pavement in a pair of jeans, waiting for me to find my way back to him. Somehow, I always do.

It was too hot for clothes. It was July, summer, the time where love stories are written in the steam rising off the ground.

We walked the four flights to his apartment. I could never remember which door it was and would follow him blindly. Would I follow him blindly now?

His room was missing everything but him. He climbed into a box, joking that he decided it would be cheaper to just ship himself back to Chicago. I laughed, exhilarated, we had one more night. We teased, we taunted, we tortured each other mercilessly. I sat on top of him, pinned him down on his bed, one of the few things left in his room untouched.

“Look! There’s an alligator in the corner!” I gave him a strange look, and looked anyway. “No really! Do you see the alligator in the corner?”

I poked him. “Why is there an alligator in the corner?” I asked. “Because every time you look away, I get to look at you without embarrassing you.”

My cheeks burned, but I couldn’t help the smile. We were interrupted, his phone rang. “The guy is here to pick up my drums,” he said. I walked down with him, carried pieces of it out to the guy’s car. I counted out the four hundred dollars in twenties to make sure it was all there. Is this what it would be like if he stayed? I wondered. It was so easy. It was home.

I felt like a girlfriend. His girlfriend. I wanted to make the world right for him, for us, sing our story out to the Puerto Ricans yelling on the street, to the C-Town on the corner, to the plants on his windowsill. He grew life here. We grew here. I wanted to stay there forever, to mark this room as ours, because it told the story of us from our beginning to our end in New York.

We said goodbye, finally, meaning it but not. I broke down on the BQE, tears streaming while on the phone with my best friend. “Why does this hurt so badly?” I asked.

A year later and I’ll stand for two more friends at their wedding this weekend. I’ll remember how it was when I beamed with happiness at the last wedding, because what we had? It was real. I had touched it. I didn’t know what it was, but it was. I’ll remember how it was when we both lived in New York, before the distance, before the fighting, before the circles. I’ll remember the wracking sobs when I realized he was really gone, and the tears of joy when he told me he didn’t want us to end.

A year ago, we were just starting even though we were both leaving. Goodbyes never last.