I walk down the long streets of Manhattan through the snow with my phone in my hand. Every other block I pass, I look down at my phone to see if I’m going in the right direction. I would’ve voted against meeting a high-profile celebrity in the streets of New York City, but I figured this would be best and the least awkward thing to do. The last thing I need is the media camped out in front of my house waiting for Kalia to walk out in tears or some shit.
I finally get to the small coffee shop in the Upper East Side. I look around and immediately am surprised at how pretty the neighborhood looks. The fallen snow is all grey and slush-like back in Brooklyn; here it looks like the snow hasn’t even been touched by a tire of some sort. Anything that looks like a page of a perfectly scripted and edited piece has Kalia written all over it.
I walked into the coffee shop that Kalia suggested to meet up at. It’s one of those coffee shops that has all the pastries and baked goods displayed near the front window of the shop; the ones where you can’t tell if they are actually real or fake considering they look the same no matter what time of the day it is. I took a seat at the table towards the back of the coffee shop. It was something that I picked up when I was dating Kalia; if you’re toward the back of a place, there’s less of a chance anyone from outside will see you or find you once they entered. I looked around some more one I got comfortable at the table. It wasn’t long after that I saw a young woman with sunglasses and a head scarf walking toward my direction. She immediately sits across from me, then takes her sunglasses off.
“Glad you’re not one of those people that wear their sunglasses indoors,” I mentioned to Kalia. Kalia just looks up to me.
“That just makes you more suspicious and prone to getting approached in public,” she said as she placed her sunglasses in her purse and put her bag beside her. She looked back up to me and smiled. “I was happy that you messaged me. I was afraid you didn’t have my number still.”
“You still have mine?” I asked, not realizing what she meant by her statement until I had already asked. Yeah, dumbass, on her second phone. “Don’t answer that–“
“I do,” Kalia answered anyway. “It’s… hard to delete off of my phone.” I continued to look at Kalia as she looked at the menu. I was confused into my she was; it’s a small ass coffee shop that sells like 5 different things. Her eyes peaked out from behind the menu. “Do you know what you want already?”
“I mean, I can’t order a pack of cigarettes in here so I guess a coffee will do,” I answered, sighing. Kalia placed the menu back on the table.
“I thought you quit smoking,” Kalia mentioned. I shrugged my shoulders as a response.
“Picked it back up I guess,” I answered and began to get up from my seat. “What do you want to have? It’s my treat.”
“Micah, you don’t have to,” Kalia insisted. I hated when she did that in our relationship. Every time took hr out for a date, my money was never enough for her. She would buy everything without letting me spend a dime of my own money. It made me feel less of a man at times in our relationship.
“What do you want?” I repeated, just trying to get a straight forward answer from her.
“Caramel Macchiato with a chocolate eclair,” Kalia answered. Is it sad that I already knew what she wanted before she told me? Kalia was a creature of habit, in a way. She hated to try new things so instead she would always order what she knew she would like. I caught on pretty quickly to them as we were dating. I walked toward the counter and order the food and drinks for us. To my surprise, the pastries and baked goods in the display were not fake after all. I walked back to our table and handed Kalia her pastry and coffee.
“Thanks,” she simply said as she took a sip of her coffee. I sighed before I said anything.
“Of course,” I began to say, rubbing my hands on top of my thighs. “Listen, Kal, I wanted to talk about what happened last night at the gala.”
“I know,” Kalia said as she placed her drink back down on the table. “And I’m sorry if I was babying you with the whole alcohol thing.”
“Thanks, but there’s more to it than that,” I looked at Kalia. “Maybe it’s about time we talk about everything that was unsaid between us before we broke up.”
“I agree,” Kalia said, looking directly at my eyes. I took a moment to put my thoughts together; I didn’t want to say things out of anger. The wound was healing, but still felt so new watching her sit across from me. “Is it okay if I start?” she asked before I got the chance to say anything.
“Sure,” I said, leaning back on my chair.
“When we broke things off before I left, I really didn’t want to lose you completely,” Kalia began to say. She looked down at her fingers as she spoke. “Before all of this… you were my friend.” I look at Kalia and remember when we were back in high school. She was a junior when I met her in my band class; she was the only girl drummer in the ensemble and thought that was dope. She was super talented. We spoke about possibly recording a song or two and sending it out as a demo once we graduated from high school. I think about that Kalia a lot; the Kalia that just wanted to play music in my mom’s dance studio and didn’t care about what other people thought about her. I lost that Kalia when she began to accept the fact she was the daughter of a well-known actor. It’s shitty to say this, but I miss the Kalia that was afraid for the world to know who the fuck she really was.
“I know,” I simply responded, not really knowing what else to say.
“I hate that I left the impression that I didn’t love you anymore,” Kalia continued to say. “But it wasn’t fair to you to have a long distance girlfriend whose career was now going to take up so much of her time.”
“But who made you decide that for me?” I interrupted. I was annoyed that Kalia always felt the need to make decisions for the both of us without including me in that process. “Maybe I didn’t mind that. Maybe I was already used to the fact that your career came before us.”
“Would you have been okay with that?” Kalia asked back. “I already feel like you felt a certain way being my boyfriend before the movie role came into the picture.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I started to say. “I don’t care if you were the fucking president’s daughter. I was with you for you.” I was with you because I was holding out faith that the Kalia I knew was still alive in her.
“Micah, we weren’t perfect,” Kalia mentioned.
“Who called us perfect besides the media?” I pointed out. “We had a long way from being the perfect couple, but I felt like you wanted to show the world that we were.”
“No,” Kalia corrected, looking a little annoyed now. “I wanted to prevent the media from being in all of our business.” I scoffed as an answer, knowing it was nearly impossible for her to sway the media to paint us the way she wanted. Kalia didn’t like that. “I feel like I can’t even talk to you about these things without you already having a judgment about it or about me.”
“Kal,” I started to say, trying to not allow my anger about the situation completely take over me. “I’m sorry. You have to understand that I still hold some sort of resentment about everything that happened. You have to understand that when you made the decision to cut things off because of the distance, I was still in love with you.”
“I was too,” Kalia said and stopped herself from continuing. “I still am.” I looked up at Kalia when she said that. That was unexpected. I can tell Kalia felt exposed; her face looked worried and she seemed like she was gonna jolt any second.
“Me too,” I confessed. Kalia looked relieved that her confession wasn’t a mistake to make. She let out a dragged out sigh and leaned back in her chair. “Kalia, we literally broke up not too long ago. Those feelings weren’t going to easily go away.”
“I know,” Kalia said. “I just thought you’d hate me for how things ended and all of that.”
“It wasn’t the smoothest way to end things,” I pointed out. “But things happened the way they did.” Kalia straightened in her seat, gaining back her composure.
“You know if I didn’t have to film in Sweden, I wouldn’t have ended things,” she said, playing with the napkin in front of her on the table. “I know this is asking for too much, but…” Kalia started to look nervous again. I don’t like when Kalia looks this nervous, but it reminds me of the Kalia I knew back in high school. High school Kalia used to be nervous every time I would tell her to hop on my bike as I rode it after school. She would hold onto me tight, sometimes screaming and laughing at how fast I would go down the deep hills. She would call out my name every time the bike would go faster, and I always would reassure her that I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.
I still wanted nothing bad to happen to her.
“Can we start over?” Kalia asked, finally letting out the question. I didn’t answer right away, not because I was really thinking about what to say, but more so because I didn’t know what to ask her back. Starting over means getting to know each other again as if all of the memories we shared don’t exist. Some of the memories I have with Kalia are some of the best memories I have, because I was in love with a girl that was in love with me. I let out a deep breath before answering.
“Let’s leave,” I said, getting up from my seat. I put my hand out for Kalia, in which she slowly puts her petite hand in mine, helping her out of her seat.
…
The garage door opens as Kalia and I look into it. I was the first one to walk in; Kalia quickly followed along as I turned on the garage light and closed the door behind us. Kalia looks around the garage, confused as to why I took her here. I walk to one of the corners of the garage and turned back around to see Kalia. She looks at me with her arms crossed along her chest.
“Why are we here?” Kalia finally asked. I turned around and lifted the car cover from the motorcycle. I smiled as I turned around to see Kalia’s reaction. Of course, a smile flashed on her face.
“I haven’t rode it yet,” I said, turning around to see the brand new looking motorcycle. It still had its shine from when I first got it.
“You didn’t get your motorcycle license yet?” Kalia asked, walking closer to the me and the motorcycle.
“I did,” I answered, looking now at Kalia next to me. “But it never felt right to ride it after everything that happened.”
“Micah, you could’ve rode it,” Kalia stated. “It’s yours.”
“Yeah, but I remember promising my girlfriend that when I got my first motorcycle and my license that I was going to go on my first ride with her,” I pointed out, smiling at Kalia. “The weather isn’t bad and the roads aren’t icy.” Kalia cocked her eyebrows up.
“You want to ride it now?” Kalia asked. “With me?”
“Of course with you,” I answered. “I miss hearing your voice call out my name when I used to ride my bike too fast back in the day.” Kalia smiled as her initial response.
“I remember those bike rides,” Kalia recalled. “God, we would go around the entire borough of Brooklyn on that damn bike together.” I smiled as she spoke. I turned to her and lifted her chin so that I was able to kiss her. Her lips were still as soft as I remember. They had a slight taste of vanilla from the lip balm she would always put on. The first time I ever kissed her, I was nearly addicted to the taste of it. I didn’t realize just how badly I needed to taste the vanilla on her lips again, and I didn’t realize just how much Kalia would allow me to kiss her after everything that has happened between us.
“I missed you,” I let out in the middle of our kiss, confessing how I was feeling. She looked up at me and smiled.
“Me too,” she confessed. I looked at her for a moment, wanting to stare at her face for hours. I guess she wanted to do the same, because her eyes did not leave mine until she smiled and looked at the motorcycle. I followed her gaze. “Wanna show me around the city again?”
“I would love to,” I answered, quickly kissing her again as I walked toward the motorcycle to get it out of the space it was sitting for months.
Where I was sitting for months wanting nothing but Kalia to come back in my life.
Letters From Liz. 