autumninnewyork

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that is not always true...since I’ve been here I’ve barely thought about Will at all. Well, I’ve thought about him. Wondered if he was worried about me or if he’s found himself a new girlfriend yet. Maybe mused is a more appropriate term for the way I’ve been considering him lately. I’ve had musings about Will Keene of late. Yes, that’s it. Musings.

But I haven’t missed him. There’s been no longing, no tears shed. I haven’t cried myself to sleep at night because I wanted to feel his arms around my middle, his breath at the back of my neck. I haven’t wondered about the sound of his voice or the brightness of his eyes, the way his hair is so unruly in the mornings. He hasn’t really come to the forefront of my thoughts until now.

And even now? He’s a pleasant memory, mostly. But I’m not missing him. Not here. Not when I have so much to learn, to see, to experience. Every day is something new, another adventure. It’s like a dream made corporeal. Ephemeral moments stretched into a seeming eternity. How can I ever miss the mundane when submerged in the ethereal?

And Will Keene? He’s a mundane.

Charlotte Fielding//Autumn in New York//213

“In a year or so I’ll be a sob story so you can bag more chicks.”

He didn’t like me saying that. He never likes me saying anything humorous about my impending demise. Or dramatic things—like calling it my impending demise.

It’s funny to me that Will is more than twice my age. My antique. My old(er) man. I have to clarify that he’s older, not old, fragile male ego that he has. Funny because while he has all ready lived twice as long as I have, death still disturbs him in a way that it doesn’t me. Maybe it’s because I was made aware of my mortality (and that of everyone else’s) when I was young.

It wasn’t just my parents dying in a car accident that showed me that yes, Charlotte, we mortals are fragile things and can be snuffed out in an instant. It’s the fact that I’m sick. Well, not so much sick, but there’s a tumor growing in my chest that is eventually going to crush my heart. No one thought I’d last this long, really.

My tumor and I are both in things for the long haul, it seems. I’ve outlasted it longer than the doctors said I would. The tumor has bested radiation and chemotherapy when the doctors insisted it shouldn’t. You’d think I would stop listening to them, these wizened old learned beings, these doctors, but no. I can’t because I do know they are right, eventually the tumor will grow too large and my heart will be too weak and then I will die. I feel it sometimes, when I run too fast or take too deep a breath. Laugh too hard.

But see, that’s just it. I’m dying but I’m still laughing. I’m still living. And yes, in a year or so, Will Keane (New York’s hottest restaurateur) will once more be free to seduce the women of Manhattan. And who will be able to resist the handsome charmer with a tale of romance and love cut so tragically short?

I know I wouldn’t.

Charlotte Fielding//Autumn In New York//345