Escape to Manhattan: Four

After Braden left the apartment Christian told me that he was going to Todd’s for the evening. It took all of us quite a while to calm down after Braden had shown up out of nowhere and started a fight with Nick, but once we’d calmed down a bit Christian and Todd left the apartment looking happy and holding hands.

I felt bad for Nick because it was my fault the whole fight had happened in the first place. What was I doing wandering around the city with a strange guy and stealing kisses under the neon lights of Times Square?

“I feel really bad about what happened,” Nick said, his hands in his pockets. He shuffled his feet. “I didn’t mean to hit him that hard. It’s just that, you know, I saw him push you and I saw your head slam into the wall and I just—I guess I got protective. I don’t know. I swear that it’s not normal for me or anything like that. I don’t go around starting fights.”

I held the ice pack to my head. My head was throbbing, even after the four Excedrin. The bottle had said to take two and I figured it was going to take twice that much to take care of the headache.

“I don’t want you to think that Braden is really that kind of guy, either,” I told Nick. “I think he was just probably really stressed out after taking a red eye to get here to see me and he’s been paranoid about Christian anyway because Christian and I were boyfriends ages ago.” I shook my head. “And I was really shitty to Braden the other day on the phone. He was really paranoid about Christian and for whatever reason it just rubbed me the wrong way and I just kind of chewed him out on the phone. Then I topped that all off by walking through the door of the apartment holding your hand after he came all the way to see me when I didn’t call him after what happened to me—I mean, I can start to understand why he did what he did tonight.”

Nick leaned up against the countertop. “Do you love him?”

I looked out the window. “You know, I don’t know.” I sighed. “I really don’t know right now. It’s just such a crazy time in my life right now.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked gently.

“I mean that I’m in my last year of college, I don’t want to do get a job that has anything to do with my major, I’ve got this relationship where I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going, and I’ve got all these classes that are driving me nuts.” I folded my arms. “I’m just really maxed out, I guess. I’m having a little quarter life crisis, I think.”

“And I’m part of that,” Nick said with a grin.

“Nick, I feel really bad about this. You’ve been nothing but sweet and adorable and polite.”

“Aw, anybody can be polite for a night,” he said. “Especially with you.” He walked across the kitchen and stood near me. He rested his hand on my shoulder. “Who knows, though. I could actually be a brutal serial killer considering what you saw tonight.”

If I hadn’t been feeling so shitty I probably would have laughed.

“Nick, I think I have to find Braden. I think I owe him that.”

Nick nodded. “Okay. Would you like me to help you call around and see if he checked into a hospital somewhere?”

I shook my head. “You’ve been so good to me, Nick. Tonight was unforgettable, really. But at the same time I’ve got all this craziness going on and—”

“Shhh,” Nick said. He put his hands on both of my shoulders. He gave me a peck on my lips and then looked at me. “You’re a good guy, Jordan. You’ve got my number. Why don’t you take care of all this business you need to take care of and then give me a call sometime. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you. I promise.”

I guided Nick out the door and watched him trod down the stairs before I went back into the apartment and called information on my cell phone to start calling hospitals to see if my boyfriend had checked in anywhere.

* * *

I wrote down all the numbers of the hospitals on the back of a Chinese takeout menu. I started methodically calling each hospital and gave them all the information about my boyfriend that I could. Unless Braden had checked in somewhere under a fake name it appeared that he hadn’t been to a hospital.

On a whim I decided to try calling Braden’s cell phone. I was shocked when he answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

He sounded like he had a bad head cold and I felt bad right away. “Braden, it’s me,” I said.

Braden let out a long breath. “Hi.”

A long pause stretched between us. “Braden, I was wondering if I could see you. I was wondering if, uhm, if we could talk. Or something.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said slowly.

“Braden, where are you?” I asked calmly.

There was another long pause. “I’m sitting on the stoop across the street.”

I ran to the window. Sure enough, there he was.

“I’m coming down,” I said. I hung up the phone, grabbed the keys and ran out the door.

The evening air was much cooler. I shivered as I ran across 103rd Street to where Braden sat at the top of the ornate stoop leading up to a gentrified old brick apartment building. I stood in front of him with my arms folded tightly around me.

“Can I sit down?” I asked.

Braden gestured to the empty stoop near him. “Sit, by all means,” he said. He dabbed at his nose with the wad of tissues I’d given him.

“Are you okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned about him.

“Yeah. I snapped my nose back in place.”

My stomach churned. “Jesus, Braden.”

He shrugged. “My dad taught me to do it when I was a kid. I used to play baseball and I broke my nose a couple times.”

“I’d forgotten that you played baseball,” I said quietly, looking at the cars parked along the street and the street lamps bathing the sidewalks in light. Another breeze washed over me and I shivered.

“Well, I wasn’t very good at it,” Braden said. “That’s why I kept breaking my fucking nose.”

Again we sat in silence.

“Braden, I’m really sorry,” I started.

“No, Jordan, we don’t need to do this. I know you’re sorry, I’m saying I’m sorry now, and I think we should just leave it at that. Don’t you?”

I looked at him, hunched over with the tissues, looking miserable and in pain, defeated.

“Braden, you do know that I love you, right?” When I said it I knew that it was true. He nodded slowly. “But Braden,” I said, “I just…I just wonder if we’re what the other person is looking for.” I folded my hands in my lap. “I feel like we’ve been drifting apart for a while now. I mean, you’ve graduated and you’ve moved on and you’ve got a job now and you’re making money and you’ve got nice benefits and a great apartment.” I shook my head. “I’m graduating and I have no idea what I want to do and I have this whole huge future ahead of me and all these things that I don’t feel like I’ve been considering for myself.” I looked at the street in front of me. “Look at this place. New York City. I could be a part of this. I could move here. I don’t have a job, I don’t have benefits, and my lease is up right after graduation.” I sighed. “I just feel like there’s such a big world out there and I don’t feel like I’m ready to settle down yet.”

Braden looked at me, still obviously in pain from his injury. “And what if I wanted to move with you maybe? What if we made this thing between us more serious and took it to the next level?”

I looked at my hands. “Braden, you like your job. You’re good at it. You’re establishing yourself, you know? And I think that maybe I need to establish myself by myself.” I tentatively reached out and rested my hand on Braden’s leg and he let me keep it there. “Do you really think that moving in together is the right thing for both of us right now?”

Braden took in a long breath and let it out. “Well, do you think that guy you were with tonight is the right answer?”

“Who, Nick? God, Braden, I don’t know. I certainly don’t have any plans to shack up with him and start a life. Nothing like that. I think I just need to be alone right now. I have this huge future ahead of me and I need to figure out how I want that to look and feel and what I want in it.”

Braden nodded. “I guess that kind of finishes it then, doesn’t it?”

“Oh Braden, don’t say it like that. You know it’s not like that.”

He shrugged. “It is and it isn’t.”

I pulled the apartment keys out of my pocket.

“Braden, come in and spend the night.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t sleep in Christian’s apartment.”

I gave him The Look. “Braden, you’ve really got to get over that.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I would feel too guilty after causing all that drama tonight. I ruined everybody’s night.”

“Braden. Please. They’re over it. Nick went home and the other two are probably humping their brains out and imaging what kind of china they’ll register for when they get their domestic partnership.”

Braden tried to smile but then immediately groaned. “Oh God, it hurts to smile.”

I put my hand on his back. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go to bed.”

I brought Braden upstairs to Christian’s apartment and dug through the medicine cabinet to try and find something to play nurse to his wounds. Apparently New Yorkers feel the same way about their medicine cabinets as their refrigerators because Christian’s medicine cabinet had almost nothing in it. Still, I dressed Braden’s wounds as best as I could and then brought him into Shane’s bedroom (who was still in Connecticut) and helped Braden take off his pants and his shirt. I stripped down to my shirt and underwear and crawled into bed next to Braden.

It broke my heart to spoon Braden. I could feel his heartbeat as I wrapped my arms around him. I knew it would probably be the last time I ever slept with him.

As we started to drift off to sleep I thought about all the nights that I’d slept with him before. I hadn’t really thought I’d marry him and spend the rest of my life with him (though I had occasionally wondered about it), but I also didn’t think that our nights together would be over so soon, either.

I could feel Braden’s heart beating and it was the steady rhythmic beating of his heart that eventually lulled me off to sleep.

* * *

Braden left the next morning in a signature yellow New York taxi. He was headed to La Guardia to try and get a standby flight home. He hadn’t packed anything in his hurry to get here so he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a Visa in his pocket. He’d just gotten on a plane to see me after he heard about what had happened and I found that unbearably sweet. It was that last grand gesture that turned out to be the final breath of our ailing relationship.

Christian hadn’t come home and I envisioned him waking up next to a warm, smiling man. I remembered what that had felt like when Braden and I had first fallen in love and I had an incredible pang of nostalgia just thinking about it.

I walked back up the stairs to Christian’s empty Manhattan apartment. I stood in the kitchen and found an instant coffee singlet in one of the cupboards. I boiled some water in a saucepan and made a cup of steaming coffee. I opened the curtains on the kitchen window and pulled the window wide open. A blast of fall air came rushing forward and I leaned into it, sipping my coffee.

Autumn was coming to a close and the first wisps of winter crept into the tendrils of the morning breeze. I drank it all in.

When I finished my coffee I changed into a heavy sweater and a pair of old jeans and walked out onto the street.

Another day had just begun.

* * *

It is that day in New York that I remember the most. I wandered through Central Park again. I visited the Museum of Modern Art and I bought discount tickets to see a new comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom, Blythe Danner. I sat by myself on the main floor of the theater and, as the lights went down, felt myself waiting in anticipation for the play to begin as if I’d never seen a play in my life.

I took a cab from Broadway to Barney’s where I splurged and ate a small but very expensive lunch, including a glass of pinot noir that almost knocked me off my chair. I drank the wine slowly, feeling the warm wash over me and letting the wine swill around my mouth and down my throat.

In short, the day was perfection. When I did finally return home to Christian’s apartment I found Christian and Todd sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Hey stranger,” Christian said, patting a spot next to them on the couch. I sat down and told them everything that happened with Braden.

“So is it really over, then?” Todd asked.

“I think so,” I said. Just saying the words out loud made it seem so much more final. Part of me didn’t want it to end. Being with Braden was safe, comfortable, and familiar. Striking out on my own was a scary step. Soon I’d be leaving the confines of my college and I, too, would have to find a job and hunt for benefits.

But there were possibilities. Oh how there were possibilities.

* * *

I met Nick on a bridge in Central Park with an amazing view of the apartments on the west side of the park. He was standing there waiting for me as I approached the bridge. He wore a heavy brown sweater with faded jeans and a smart wool jacket.

“Hi,” I said as I walked up to him, suddenly feeling just how much he was a stranger. I knew almost nothing about him.

“Why, hello there,” Nick said. From inside his jacket Nick presented me with a yellow rose. I laughed and took it.

“A yellow rose, huh?”

“It’s for courage. And for friendship. And hope.”

“Hope?” I asked.

“Well, you know. Hope for that distant someday.” He winked at me.

I smiled and then turned and looked across the park at the Central Park West apartments. “You know, Nick, there’s a chance I might be out here someday soon.”

“Really?” he asked.

I nodded. “Maybe after graduation. Sometime in May, maybe.”

Nick nodded. “Alright then. I think I like that.”

I laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, mister. God knows what might happen before then. I mean, look at what happened in one extended weekend.”

Nick nodded. “Well, if your plans include New York someday, I would like to think that you’d consider having a cup of coffee with me and pencil me into those grand plans of yours.”

I planted a kiss on Nick’s cheek. “It’s a deal,” I said.

I stood there on the bridge and closed my eyes. The wind could have carried me away with the gentlest breeze.

* * *

Josh H., 22, is a Minneapolis-based writer.

The final section of "Escape to Manhattan" will appear Tuesday, April 5, 2005 on this site.

If you have questions or comments you can reach Josh at joshcentral@hotmail.com