The Cliffside Reunion

It looks perfect from here.

The ocean is still. The cliffs stretch endlessly to the north and south, made romantic by the golden light of late afternoon. A hawk turns in the air. Waves whisper below, like they know how this will end.

I envy their knowledge.

She’s already there, standing near the guardrail. Same windbreaker, same half-braid, same way of holding herself like she might float off. Her figure is backlit by the sun and, for a second, I forget what happened. Forget the years. The words. The silence. The sorrow. The pain. The failure. I forget everything like it doesn't matter.

And perhaps it no longer does.

There were five of us that summer. Now, we are two.

I take the path slowly. Not for drama; for my own sake. Each step from the graveled lot toward the lookout is a memory.

I picture our old car here, the one that broke down three times on the way; it might've been more than that. I hear the laughing, the fighting, the heatwave radio songs. I remember her hands flicking ash out the window, swearing at traffic. I remember the guys hooting and hollering.

And then, I remember when we stopped talking. When we stopped hanging out.

She doesn’t turn around, but I know she's aware I'm behind her.

"Hey," I say.

It falls between us. A peace offering after time apart.

Her head shifts. I believe it to be a nod, to acknowledge I'm here. Still, she would not look at me. Perhaps she can't find the strength to. "Thought you wouldn’t come."

"I almost didn’t."

Below us, the tide pulls out. A couple walks the sand, far enough away to seem like figurines. The sun is lower now. Her shoulders tense when I speak again.

"He would’ve liked this."

"He hated cliffs," she says.

I smile. "He hated heights, but he sure loved the views."

"He loved getting his way, too."

We fall back into silence. Not comfortable. Not hostile. Just long. And too quiet.

"Why here?" I ask.

She finally looks at me. Her face is worn from grief, but her eyes are the same as I remember. "Because it's the one place none of us ruined."

A seagull cries out. Below, the couple disappears behind a rocky bend. The sea stays quiet.

"I didn’t know," I say. "That it was that bad."

"You didn’t want to know."

The sun brushes her cheek.

I remember how often she cried that summer, and how quickly she covered it up. I remember her puffy eyes, all red. I remember not asking. Not listening. I never did. I remember choosing him, over and over. I remember always preferring the guys over her. It was just easier, I guess, to hang with them more, even when we were a group. I suppose I just hadn't cared that she was being left out a lot.

"I was stupid," I say. And in love, but I don't mention that. "Not just then. For a long time."

She shrugs. "I didn’t ask you to come here for an apology."

"Then why?"

She nods to the bench at the overlook’s edge. It’s worn, the plaque rusted. We used to sit there, the five of us. Well, we tried to. Before everything got ugly. Uglier.

Before the drinking and the blaming. Before sides were picked. Before the ditching started. On purpose that time. Before the breakup. Before the letters and the hospital and the last phone call I never returned.

Before her brother got diagnosed with cancer. Before his two best-friends left him behind. Before he died with just his family by his side.

Before so, so many things.

We sit, side by side. Close, but not close.

She hands me something: a Polaroid. The five of us. Someone’s finger in the frame; probably her mom trying to direct us on how to pose for the picture. Everyone is squinting. Smiling. It was taken a week before everything started heading downhill.

"We weren’t always broken," she says.

"No," I agree. "Just too close to the edge."

The wind picks up.

She doesn’t ask me to stay. I don’t ask for forgiveness. We just sit there, with the view, and the space between us. Remembering him. Remembering them.

From here, everything looks perfect.