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.I wondered if he remembered us as well as I did.Then I chastised myself immediately for even wondering.I already knew I was nuts for still thinking about this.How could I even imagine that he was too?I walked along Victory Lane and then turned right onto Parker Drive, where my old school sat nestled among green trees, grassy lawns, and stone walls.I was still for a moment, looking at the school facade, thinking about how much history this building held for so many people.And everyone’s story would be different.Every triumph would have a different prize, every heartache a different face.I turned and headed back to the parking lot to leave.Passing the tall tree I’d passed every day on my way to and from Nate’s car when he’d drop me off and pick me up.Somehow it was the tree that got to me.It made me tremendously sad, not just because of the time that had gone but because the time had somehow gone without me really noticing it.For one crazy moment, I remembered what it felt like to walk this pavement without the weight of my world on my shoulders.To head toward the old blue car he drove and get in, tossing my books in the back and sliding against his familiar warmth.Would Nate and I have the same memories of those times? Not all of them, of course, but if a police sketch artist were to somehow illustrate our time together based on what we said, would it look even remotely the same?Or had I created a mind full of sunny days and starry nights because I knew I was adored? He’d had cause to doubt that, time and again—would his picture of the same time look bleak and sad, reflecting tension and anxiety instead of a powerful optimism that anything was possible?It wasn’t that I was a terrible girlfriend.I’d loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone else—but I was so young and he was so sensitive.… I had a nagging fear that maybe the little jabs I’d tossed around to make him jealous or to bring a reaction out of him might have been more hurtful than I’d ever known or intended.My adult perspective on the situation was much different than the selfish, childlike perspective I’d had at the time.I knew now that his home life had been turbulent, that his parents were on the verge of splitting up, and that he had probably spent a lot of time feeling out of place in an acrimonious atmosphere.I just hadn’t realized it at the time.I left the parking lot and headed back out the way I’d come, pausing for a moment to see the echo of Nate’s car, where he always parked, waiting for me after school.Then I headed out, along the path I’d walked many times after that.But when I got to the corner of the road, I turned left toward his house instead of right toward mine.I wasn’t ready to go back to my mom’s yet.And, honestly, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to the present yet.I’d delved this far into old memories, there didn’t seem to be much reason to abort the mission now.Might as well go all the way.So I walked down the hill, passing the little houses from the sixties that had looked outdated for as long as I could remember.I’d passed them all so many times in my life that under hypnosis I would probably be able to give an exact and detailed description of each.The only detectable difference between now and high school was the cars.I remembered walking this way on many summer nights with my friends, and sitting outside of Nate’s house, talking as dusk got heavier and heavier and eventually became night.In my mind’s eye, all of those nights had been balmy enough to go swimming and get out of the pool without freezing.The sky in my memory was always filled with stars.And the neighborhoods were green and lush, and at night they smelled like earth and wet pennies from the sprinklers that hummed back and forth on the many manicured lawns.It wasn’t like that now.The road at the bottom of the hill was under construction, with orange traffic cones rerouting cars that drove too fast on the residential street and clunked into and out of the potholes that the hard, salty winters had carved into the old pavement.I longed for the heat of real summer.I turned onto Nate’s road, not stopping to think what I would say in the unlikely event that his mother happened to be outside and happened to recognize me (his parents had divorced around the time we’d split up—news he’d gotten the night before we’d broken up, as it turned out—and I had no idea if his father was even still in the area).A quick glance up the street told me there wasn’t any obvious movement in front of the house, so I was probably safe.I moved as if compelled by some force other than my own will.Next thing I knew, I was there, in front of the house.I remembered a cold night that felt like it had been a hundred years ago when I’d run here in bare feet to beg Nate to take me back after I’d broken up with Pete Hagar.Odd, how time had shaken out those two relationships.I remembered Nate with crystal clarity, of course, but I had only a few memories of Pete and most of them were from school, not personal.Which was funny because Pete and I were Facebook friends now, so we shared brief exchanges now and then about meaningless things, yet when I looked at pictures of him now I could barely reconcile them with the heavily faded photograph of him in my mind.Yet this—the house Nate had grown up in—was almost as familiar as my own.Obviously I used to pay a lot more attention to my surroundings than I do now, because the pattern of bricks on the walkway to the front door, the gold and black mailbox, even the small gap of cement where the garden was just a little bit lower than the front stoop, were all things I could draw with my eyes closed.I stood out front.It was a stupid compulsion, I was completely aware of that.Under any circumstances, I’d feel like an idiot if anyone who knew me caught me down there because it wasn’t exactly the normal route for a walk from my old house.But I had to do it.I wasn’t sure why
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