Choking

The air in here- it's so thick with nostalgia I'm choking on it. Nostalgia filling my eyes, my ears, my lungs- I can't breathe, I can't breathe!

And then I'm outside, collapsed against the rough brick of the wall, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths. Was that what an asthmatic feels like, in the throes of an attack? I suddenly have a lot more sympathy for my nerdy cousin Alvin. How horrible to constantly feel like you're encountering the ex-love-of-your-life whenever a dog walks by.

This thought makes me giggle. Maybe hysterically; I don't know. What's an appropriate giggle when you're suddenly drowning in four years of memories that you've spent the past seven years flushing?

I bite my knuckle, and the sharp pain focuses my mind. Sharp pain, in contrast to the dull, bone-deep ache that sprang up when I realized that I was not okay, not okay at all and what the hell possessed me to come to this? Sure, Amy was sick and that's why we were all here because we all still love her even if we can't stand one another. Even if, until I got the email, I couldn't even stand the thought of her because of all the other thoughts snarled up in the same ball of horrible painful thought-yarn.

But she was my best friend, man. We did everything together, back then. How could I not come now? And how could I not expect that he would be here, too?

Not that he is. I mean, not his body. But that's not the point- the point is that his presence, it's everywhere, it's in everything. People look at me and they don't see me, they see half of a whole that hasn't existed for a long, long time and it makes me feel like a crippled ghost, you know?

Is it better that he's not here? Do I wish that he was? Would it be easier if it was actually him, instead of just the expectation of him?

I don't know. And I don't know if I can go back in there.