We whiff the stink of the grate and hold our tongues. A throng freezes across the street. Having pummeled through our own crowd to the curb, now we breathe heavy and stand still. No cars pass, but the collective default at this corner is cowardice. No worries. Waiting means we can be exactly parallel, staring straight and sneaking looks. Transit through crowds is necessarily staggered, if not single-file: words get sucked into the din, as I lose sight of my companion and the whole lovely shock gets dissolved by the urgency of our impending splintering, when I am torn towards the train station, and she towards dinner with a friend.
For we are not here together. She’s staying with a mutual friend right around the corner from the rink, and I’m here for the day, having spent the day uptown. We have twenty minutes, tops. Just enough time to brush up on why we bothered seeing each other for such a brief spell. Four months of separation crushed under the weight of seven years of knowing each other. Her purple-panted legs rock in the light mid-autumn chill.
Shit-heat not enough for ya? I ask.
She laughs, feigns stepping right onto the grate. A taxi whizzes past, and I grab her arm, pull her back onto the curb.
Bruh, she says. I over-shrug. Her eyes roll. My eyes roll a beat later, above the smirk she expects. This is our charade. She steps back, and we stare parallel. It’s twilight over the thronging plaza, kids carrying skates, flags crinkling in light wind, black-nosed dogs sniffing through the crowd, and the sun about to set behind window-speckled apartments—I almost feel her lean against me. I twist my neck, hoping to meet her head with mine, feel her hair against my cheek, but she is gone. Halfway across the street, lost in the crossing jostle. I follow, stepping over the grate, and join the crowd of cowards.
— Will Sussbauer