It was him.
It was him, and I was going to run the hell away.
It was him, and I was going to eat a mint because my breath was probably terrible.
It was him, and I was going to tell him I was sorry, and then I was going to fade into the mists of time forever.
But it wasn’t him.
I exhaled and fell against Alison’s side. She shouldered me off. “For God’s sake. Don’t swoon all over me.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, glancing in the direction of the slouchy-hatted boy. He wasn’t really a boy. He was probably in his twenties, older than Jamie. Taller, too, and he had an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. In my semi-dazed state, I might have stayed there longer, forcing myself to accept the definitive proof that this person—a backpacker probably, a tourist—wasn’t Jamie. But Alison was already clipping down the street away from me. I had to jog to catch up with her.
We headed through the Imperial Palace grounds and kept right on going toward Iidabashi. The air was crisp, and it didn’t really seem like summer anymore. The sun was sitting lower in the sky, and the light had turned almost golden.
“Where are we going?” I asked, hopping a little to keep up with Alison.
“So far,” she said, “we’re just walking.”
“The last time you and I walked somewhere together, it did not end well.”
The light at a pedestrian crossing turned red, giving Alison no choice but to break her stride. “That’s because you refused to tell me what’s been happening with you and your gang of miscreants.”
She had a point. “Do you want to me to tell you about my gang of miscreants now?” I asked.
The light turned green.
“Well, we’re still walking,” she said.
I told Alison about Jamie. And about Mika and David. I told her about staying in Shibuya all night and about getting drunk and letting David kiss me. I told her how awful it was knowing you would miss someone but knowing that all your missing would get sucked into a vacuum because, once you left, the person you cared about wouldn’t be a complete, genuine person anymore. Just a blurred, inconsistent memory.
Saying it out loud made me feel crazy. It also made me feel like I was standing on the glass floor in Tokyo Tower, mentally rehearsing what would happen if the transparent platform dissolved away. And it also made me feel okay. A little less alone.
We turned onto a narrow street lined with trees and apartment buildings. Alison stopped and I stopped, too.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Alison said. “Except. This is it.” She lifted one hand and made a halfhearted flourishing gesture. A deadpan ta-da.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The place,” she said. “The apartment.”
“The apartment?”
Alison took me by the shoulders and pointed me at a squat brick building behind us. It had black metal balconies on every floor and a parking lot tucked to the side.
“Third story,” she said, tilting my chin up. “The apartment we lived in with Dad.”
It didn’t seem like much. The innocuous black balcony was crowded with plants and a couple of red plastic chairs. There was a sliding glass door behind the chairs, but the glass was reflective. I couldn’t see inside.
“Are you joking?” I asked.
Alison shook her head.
The apartment we’d lived in with Dad, the first time we lived in Tokyo. I’d figured it still existed, of course, but I’d never been back. Because it was too distant and awkward and way too weird. Plus, I’d had no idea where it was.
I turned on Alison, suddenly and inexplicably furious with her. “How long did you know this was here?”
Alison shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I made Mom take me this morning. I didn’t think she’d want to, but she was oddly at peace with the whole thing.”
I scrambled for something to say, but everything I thought of was wrong. Maybe I could try to make myself feel the way I’d felt the last time I was here. But that was impossible; I’d been five then. And this building could have been any random apartment building in any random part of the world.
“This is not what I expected,” I said.
Alison sighed. “I know. I remember it being taller.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
A woman came out of the parking lot. She had bobbed hair and was talking on a cell phone in French. The French school was near here, I realized. This was the neighborhood where all the French expats lived.
“I figured you should see it,” Alison said. “You know, before we leave forever.”
“Well.” I folded my arms over my stomach. “There it is.”
“Come on,” she said. “We’re here. We might as well check out the front door.”
Together, we walked into the parking lot. And that was when I remembered the day it snowed and Dad took us down here. I’d pulled the snow off car windows with my hands while Mom took pictures from the balcony. I remembered unbuckling my seat belt and running out of the car and Dad catching up to me, yelling. I cried so hard that Alison yelled back at him, in French.
That same parking lot was so much smaller than I remembered. Only six or so spaces with a few trees clustered at the edges. The building itself was five stories tall and made of orange-red brick. The front door had a cast-iron handle attached to it that used to be too heavy for me to pull by myself. Dad would open the door with me, all four of our hands holding on tight.
I pressed my palms against my temples. “How have I never been here?”
Alison sat down on the curb. “Because it’s depressing.”
“It’s surreal,” I said. “And it’s nothing at all like I remember. Where’s the Thai restaurant across the street?”
Alison dipped her head and gave me a confused look over the top of her sunglasses. “The Thai restaurant? You mean the one with the lanterns?”
I nodded.