The Narrator

The day had turned stunningly cold, and the salt was rising into the air from Long Island Sound, announcing a coming storm, but we had said Greasy Nick's so I sat there outside, picking a table with a bit of the shelter of the building, and waited. She would come, as she always did, in sadness. I never saw her in happiness. Only between lovers, between jobs, between houses, between dreams. Today, I already knew. A mutual friend, a hospital nurse, had whispered "cancer" to me at Dudley's last night, as we sat on the deck over the water and drank to the Equinox. I watched spots of rain start to spread across the road, coming from the shore. I thought back to our first meeting. In the park. In the rain. Both of us bruised and battered by the fists of men we worshipped. I had held her then. I had promised that it would all get better. Maybe it had. Though not together, as I had desperately wanted in that first moment. Now the rain exploded, waves of water merging s...