One and the Same

by Tanya Newman

When Amelia’s eyes happened upon Aaron’s name, backlit by the lights from a marquee, she hadn’t been expecting to see him, now or ever again.  January, the icy darkness of winter had settled into Spartanburg, leaving the streets relatively bare.  Only the tiny coffee shop where Amelia and her man of the moment, Justin, lingered in, seemed to offer light and warmth that night.  Justin talked to her, at her, really, about how poorly her latest art show had gone, reminding her of the chance he’d given her.  

Amelia said nothing but nodded to let him know she was listening, even though she wasn’t, before looking down at her coffee cup.  Her eyes drifted to the floor-to-ceiling window they were seated in front of, to the concert auditorium across the way, and finally, to Aaron’s name. 

And that’s when something happened.  Amelia was still there, but wasn’t.  The icy wind as someone pulled the door of the café open, Justin’s voice, her untouched coffee steaming before her–these things didn’t exist, or did on a lesser scale because she wasn’t there.  The auditorium pulled her to an image of Aaron nearly fifteen years earlier, to the incandescence of his green eyes and how they’d looked at her as she stood on her mother’s porch before leaving her and the summer they’d spent between graduation and the rest of their lives.  They were young and free with all that season had promised them, and didn’t worry about the future or reality because those things were still so far away.  Money was sparse, but they were deliciously rich in time, and they spent it surfing along the low waves at the beach or in his parents’ garage as he and his band played songs by the Eagles or the Allman Brothers or Tom Petty.  He didn’t like contemporary rock.  Even the songs he wrote sounded like they were straight out of the 1970s, she noticed, as he strummed the guitar he’d bought secondhand and taught himself to play while she sat and sketched charcoal images of him and his band.  She never could get right the intensity of his look as he played.  But that didn’t matter, she’d thought back then.  She would eventually, and their whole lives were before them and their dreams of being a musician and an artist were going to come true.  

She still heard him say good-bye to her that afternoon in late August, heard herself vow to wait forever for him, saw him smile with only one side of his face, like he knew what she didn’t, that when the years would start to pass, she would begin to realize just how long forever was.

She was still there, back with Aaron, wondering if he and the one whose name she now couldn’t take her eyes off of were one and the same when Justin sighed, bringing her back to him.  She cut her eyes to his face, waiting for him to say more, to notice she wasn’t really listening.  She sat, balanced on the edge.   But then he got up and informed her he was going outside for a smoke.

She watched through the windows as Justin ambled along the side of the building, his back erect, shoulders down.   

Only recently had her talent, what little was left, began to wane.  She used to be really good at this painting thing.  Really.  She’d won Art Student of the Year in college, a merit she’d thought was prophetic of upcoming successes.  

She had a while before Justin came back.  He always liked to take his time when he smoked, like to think.  She got up from her seat and made her way to the door.  The icy wind lifted her hair off her shoulders and she pulled her black leather jacket, stylish but hopelessly inappropriate for the sub-zero temperatures, closer around her as she jogged across the wide street, never looking back at Justin, at the café whose windows illuminated the dark night.

She reached the square box office and looked all around for a poster or an advertisement, anything, that would tell her whether or not she was delusional, but found nothing.  If she really wanted to know, she’d have to go in and find out for herself.  She suddenly remembered how she felt as a teenager, standing in line for tickets to a popular movie she was desperate to see, tickets that would inevitably sell out any minute and crush her if they did.

She fished a twenty out of her jacket pocket and presented it to the bored teen reading a comic book behind plate glass.  He barely looked up as he rewarded her with a ticket and the information that the show was nearly over, that the singer she wanted to see was probably on his first encore by now.  

She didn’t say anything, only pushed her way through the double doors, into a warm two-story lobby floored with plush red carpet.  Cheers and the sound of an all-too familiar voice emanated from beyond a second set of double doors.  Amelia pushed through them with shaking hands that had nothing to do with the cold.  A slight breeze danced against her face, but it was the music and his voice that reverberated through her.  

And then, there he was.  

Everyone was on their feet, cheering and singing along with the familiar song as he stood in the center of the stage, strumming his guitar, looking down as he sang the words she’d become all too familiar with years ago.  

She didn’t bother with trying to find a seat in the chaotic crowd, just moved a few steps along the aisle, watching as girls near the front screamed and jumped for the stage, loving him unconditionally though they didn’t know him, never knowing that a woman who’d entered the auditorium really did know what it was like to know him, and love him.    

She could feel her face break into a smile as he brought the final chorus home, and for a moment, there was only the two of them in that cavernous concert hall, and he was singing that song only to her once again, and she was back in that summer, still living the best time of her life.  

When he finished, finally, he waved to the still-cheering audience, smiling, and she automatically raised her hand in response, and could swear, just for an instant, that he saw her.  He froze, staring right through her with those eyes, but never made a move to come toward her.  If anything, it was like he was moving farther away—his eyes, his voice, until none of it, not even the memories, felt real anymore.  And then, something began to hurt inside her chest and her head, something realized by the beginnings of hot tears.      

She turned quickly, taking the new memory of him with her as she hastened out of the concert hall, back through the lobby, and outside once more into the freezing wind as everyone still cheered relentlessly.  It was too deafening. 

Silent, thick snowflakes circled and twirled all around, and she stopped hurrying.  She held her hands out before her, as if receiving a gift, allowed a few crystalline flakes to gather in her palms.  She’d be in the cafe when Justin got back.  But now . . . now there was only the quiet, the darkness, Aaron’s name behind her, the snow, falling and whipping all around, the promise of a full-blown storm throughout the night.

* * * * *

Tanya Newman’s lifelong love of stories first led her to write a book of her own at age ten. It was only thirty pages, but cemented her love of writing, and eventually led to B.A. and M.A. degrees in English.  Her short fiction has appeared in Gadfly Online and The Fictional Cafe and she has published two novels, The Good Thief and Winter Rain, with Black Opal Books.  She lives in South Carolina with her husband, son, daughter, cat, and dog, and is currently working on her fourth novel.  For more, see her website: https://newmant720.wixsite.com/mysite