I hadn’t seen him in ten years, and yet there he was, standing on the corner of Park and 9th, wrestling change from his front pockets while keeping warm underneath the coffee man’s umbrella. The onslaught of icy gust swept his hair across his eyes, causing him to drop the $.15 he had worked so diligently to remove. He swore and bent to retrieve the elusive coins, but the vendor stopped him and offered a gentle smile.
“Ya know what buddy, is ok, you take da coffee. I got fifteen cents to cover ya.”
He smiled weakly and trodded onward, down the street and to the next block. I followed him, walking where his footsteps were, putting weight where he had made holes in the snow and pretending that he had created a path for me to follow. In reality he should have forgotten about me and left me to fade in the recesses of his mind. Where we were once lovers now we were strangers. I had wronged him, and to remind him of my crime by exposing my presence would be heinous; and for the second time in my life, I let him go.