New Year's Eve

She was watching him from the other side of the room. Noticing her, he smiled, so as not to offend her, but turned away shyly to avoid confrontation. He didn’t like looking at her, especially not when she was surrounded by always superior others, especially not when she was having fun oblivious to everything about him.

He escaped to the kitchen, found a beer and popped off the lid. Drinking carelessly he noticed the time, eleven-fifty-five. Collecting himself he sighed and headed back into the front room.

The party by now was in full swing. The once clean cream carpet had become a shit-coloured dance floor for drunken teens, twisting this way and that, far gone and lost in intoxicants. Unconfidently, he began navigating their maze, gently pushing people sideways without any real sense of direction. Someone put a hand on his shoulder and he stopped abruptly. Turning, he met her, face to face.

She looked nervous and glanced immediately away from the direct eye contact. Although simple the words seemed difficult to say, her ‘Hi’ coming after a long moment of awkward silence. ‘Hi…’

He looked at her closely, her beauty flickering on and off in the strobe light, her flashing eyes completely holding him.

‘How are you?’

He stammered for words. ‘Yeah…good…good. Long time no speak!’

‘Yeah, I know, it’s been ages, hasn’t it?

‘Yeah it has – How have you been?’

‘Erm, ok, just fine really. Nothing exciting to really talk about… How about you?’

‘Yeah, good.’ He was struggling to hear her above the music, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Yeah. That sounds great.’

At the back of the room a door that opened out onto the garden. They sat on the stone steps leading down to the lawn. The night was clear and the air was cold, their breaths melting into clouds and rising slowly before them, stretching elegantly before dispersing into the black. Behind them, everything in the house seemed so uncannily distant: the party; the people; the dancing; all seemed to fade out gently as the music blurred.

He was the one who spoke first, ruthlessly breaking the silence without even looking at her:

‘You know I’m leaving tomorrow – don’t you?’

She nodded solemnly, ‘Yeah. Yeah I know.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘I’ve looked forward to this for so long, worked so hard to make it happen, and now I’m not even sure if I wanna go.’

‘What? Why not?’ She sounded alarmed. ‘Don’t you think you’ll enjoy it?’

‘Yeah, I do, it’s just… leaving all this stuff behind, you know, leaving home. I really do think I’m going to have the most incredible adventure – but right now – on the eve before I go – I think I’m sad to be leaving all this behind.’

‘But you said you needed a change,’ she argued, ‘You said you’d out grown this place…’

‘I know, I know, and I still think I have. I’m just sorry to leave it all behind.’ He rummaged in his pocket for a cigarette, lit it and drew it to his mouth.

For some moments they sat there in silence, the smoke winding upwards in the moonlight, each lost somewhere deep inside their thoughts. The full moon made the sky look magical, the midnight blue canopy glistening where pierced by myriad of stars.

‘It’s weird,’ he said after a while, ‘How time works. The way it just keeps on going, never stopping, not even for one moment. At one time you can be really really happy but before long you can end up really bummed out. And you can never get those moments back, the happy ones, the ones you should have cherished and made the most of. People always say that time fixes the bad but it ruins the good too; it’s like a bomb, always ticking, and you can never stop it. It never stops changing things.’ He sank deep into reflection.

The New Year was now approaching and people were starting to count down, ten to one, a new number lost with each passing second. On zero shouts and cheers went out from the house, filling the still air with merry chorus, ‘Happy New Year,’ they sang.

‘The only thing that separates the good from the bad is time and just the smallest tiny bit of it.’

She remained silent. After a moment he spoke again:

‘You know, I really thought at one stage you and me would last forever. And if I wasn’t so stupid I still think we could have. I want you to know that if there was anyway I could take back or change what’s been done I would, but I can’t, that’s fixed now, and I’m sorry.’ He looked down to the ground before he spoke again, ‘And now we don’t even talk anymore…’

Turning to her he saw she was brimming with tears. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘We never talk, we’ve lost so much… everything’s happened that we said wouldn’t no matter what. I wish so badly that I could turn back time too.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Do you know what I would love now? More than anything? Another day with you, when we were happy, when we had it right, before I fucked it up. I’d do anything to go back and have just one more day with you.’

From somewhere behind her name lifted into the air and turning around she saw her taxi had come.

‘I’d better go,’ she told him, ‘But it was really nice talking to you again and I hope you have a wicked trip.’

He nodded silently and she started to walk away. As she reached the door she turned back to look at him, hopeless and lonely, and she found that she pitied him despite all that had happened. She ran back to where he sat and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Happy New Year,’ she said, smiling half heartedly, then she ran back up the steps and left.

He sat there awhile in complete silence. Above him the moon crept noiselessly across the sky and he watched it glow with a profound thoughtfulness. Then he laughed gently to himself, smiling, only slightly, and got up and walked back into the house.