The Fourth Sunset

We said we’d meet here on this day every year, and we have for past three years. Hopefully, in about 10-minutes, it’ll be four years.

I’m not so sure about this year, however. Everything has changed between Maggie and me. Her life has managed to start taking off, and mine has seemingly been at a stand-still lately. Things have been tense between us because of the changes in her life, and lack of change in mine.

I suppose it’s normal, for your best friend to have found love in someone else and wishing you were enough for them. Besides, it was never “like that” between us, and if it was going to be, we’d missed that bus awhile ago. It’s not like I didn’t try either, the words never came out when I wanted them to, so we just became best friends.

Timing is the bitch of all relationships.

So now, I feel the air get a little chillier, as it does now, and the sun starts to crawl a little closer to the tops of the trees. I put my sunglasses on, and look through my tinted-lenses to see if Maggie is nearby.

The wind rustles the leaves, shaking a few loose, adding to the pile of auburn and brown leaves on the ground. The sky’s color begins to change its hue from a baby blue and gets saturated with mellow oranges and a slight shade of lavender, foreboding the evening to come.

I take a seat along the lake, and across the pond I see a young couple making out next to a stack of school books.

Maggie and I met in college, I’d always sit next to her in our creative writing classes, and we’d make fun of the pseudo-intellectuals who spoke because they had to say something. She and I rarely spoke, unless we had something to say. We understood the underlying difference between just saying shit and having shit to say, and that became one of our bonds.

We would banter back and forth after class, on our way to our cars. After that semester was over, we’d do lunch together once or twice a week between classes. We tried to be there for each other when we were in relationships, while we were absent from each other during most of the relationships, we gave each other comfort during the rocky times and the ultimate break-ups. This time around, she hasn’t needed me at all.

Maggie has been seeing John for a couple years now, and this past year, I guess it has gotten pretty serious with the two of them, with talks of marriage and whatnot. She basically lives at his place now. Nowadays, whenever I do see Maggie, which is rarely, it’s hard not to associate our meetings with that simple missed connection, the words I could never say, knowing our friendship has been enough all these years, but wondering if we could have ever been more than that.

The sun sinks a little more, and still no Maggie. I’d call her, but we just know about this day, where we just watch the sun sink and maybe talk about things…we usually just listen to music together until it gets dark.

–

We decided to meet here four years ago, just to let go of everything and anything on our minds. She’d just broken an engagement a few days prior, having decided not to marry at the young age of 20. She was supposed to be at the altar that day, but they’d called off the wedding.

I’d been coming to the park a lot back then, just to walk around and escape everything. Most days, I was just trying to recover from the previous night’s high…trying not to let the MDMA in my system get the best of me, or I was nursing the after-effects of a coke-binge, or anything to that effect. No one knew why I went to the park so much those days, not even Maggie, at least not until that day.

We both broke down during that first sunset. I’d spilled the fact that I needed to recover and that I’d been feeling so low, but I never told her why I started doing drugs in the first place. Maggie just needed her best friend while two families were expressing disappointment toward her on a daily basis.

We cried until the tears became sniffles, and through our puffy-eyes, we watched the sunset over the lake, we didn’t say a thing to each other during that time because there wasn’t much left to say. We just needed to be there for one another, and no words were left to express our gratitude for each others presence at that very moment.

We’d decided to make this a yearly tradition, since the sunset sort of marked us going through the worst and making it through.

The couple years after that, we spent the evening just watching the sunset and catching up with each other, finding out what we’d been up to during the day or week.

With every sinking sunset, we were assured that no matter what we were going through, things would be okay.

–

Fifteen minutes have passed, and Maggie still hasn’t gotten here. The sun has reached the trees, and the sky has turned into a dark, burnt orange. The clouds are a dark purple, and what’s left of the shining sun is bouncing violently off of the lake, shimmering into my eyes.

To be honest, with all the shit that Maggie and I have been going through, I’ve almost been tempted to backslide, tempted to call my old dealers, just for one more quick fix.

The orange in the sky is starting to fade into a dark blue. The stars are starting to twinkle above, and I’m convinced that Maggie isn’t going to show up. She’s probably caught up doing something with John, as she usually is these days, or doing something with her girlfriends. She never had a lot of girlfriends, and I think it’s good that she does now.

It’s getting cold now, and it’s about time to leave. I feel a little let down, and a bit more tempted to call up Darius to see if we can meet up sometime tonight for an exchange of goods…just anything to make me feel less like I do right now.

As the wind sweeps against my face on my walk to the car, my phone rings.

I’d love to say that it was Maggie, but it was not. It was Carlos.

“Mike! Hey, Mike! A few of us were about to head over to McClain’s Pub in a bit you gonna show?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?”

“Great, see you there buddy!”

Click.

Whatever keeps me from feeling how lonely the world just got. Whatever keeps me from calling up Darius for a fix. Sure, I’ll be drinking all night amongst a crowd of people I could care less about. One drug for another, I suppose. Booze and empty company in place of cocaine and loneliness. I guess that’s a better alternative.

–

I kept to myself, for the most part, at the bar. I’m not typically regaled by stories of how drunk someone had gotten the night before, or who some girl slept with a few days prior, or anything like that. It’s not like this crowd wanted to talk about life-changing movies or songs that inspired them to pursue the life’s course they’ve taken, and it’s not like I was in any mood to do so anyways.

I just let the taste of alcohol numb my senses, and the overwhelming noise in the bar drown out any other thoughts running through my head.

After a few pints of Stella Artois, I headed home. I checked my phone as I had all night, with no call nor any message from Maggie. I laid in bed and stared hard at the ceiling until I couldn’t hold my eye-lids open, just wondering what the hell my life was coming to. All I could think of is the fact that most of my relationships are empty and fulfilling, and that one of my best friends was drifting away. As a result, I felt like I was floating away from the world…all the things that could make me relevant were becoming non-existent, and that I was becoming a ghost.

The truth is, I’ve never been a fan of fame, but on that same coin, you need people in your life to notice you for who you are. You can only do so many things for yourself, but if no one notices, what is the ultimate point? I’m starting to believe that no one is noticing.

–

After a couple days of sulking and meandering through the usual routine, I woke up to a call from Maggie.

“Where were you the other day?” I asked.

“When?”

“Sunday evening, sunset?”

After some hesitation, Maggie finally dug up an answer.

“I was out with John. He wanted to go see a movie, and I was all like, ‘Yeah, why not?’ It’s not like we had plans, did we?”

God, was she serious? Was she kidding? Did she just forget how important that day was for the both of us?

“You know what? Forget it, look, I’m busy right now, I can’t talk right now,” I told her.

“Okay,” she responded.

Click.

Truth is, I wasn’t busy.

I was broken.

Maybe that last sunset wasn’t meant to be shared. Despite the fact that I didn’t feel like everything was going to be okay, the sunset always assured us that things would be alright. Maybe things will be alright, as sure as the sun will set later today. Maybe I’ll find my way in the same vein that Maggie has. Maybe I won’t need to look to the sun for that assurance.

For now, it sure doesn’t feel that way.

I took another look at my phone and looked up Darius’ number.

Before I could give a second thought to dialing him up, I quickly deleted it from my phone.

–

Email message from Maggie

I am so sorry that I missed the sunset the other day. It was totally my fault, and I promise to make it up to you somehow. I know I’ve been getting caught up with my life, and that’s no excuse for neglecting my best friend. Just, please get back to me when you get this. I’m really sorry.

By the time I finished reading this, the sun was sinking down below the city’s rooftops, and I’d felt tethered to the world once again.