When You Were Here

love.
    That’s the secret. That’s the cure.
    I am no longer the left behind. I am the living. And I want everything this life has to offer.
    I stop for a second and look around at all the shops and stores and stalls. At all the people, going about their days, at all the moments they’re living.
    This is what I want.
    I want to live every moment. I want to feel everything. I want to love one girl.
    I want to walk down this street with Holland. I want to show her the stores, I want to take her to the fish market, I want to buy her rings and bracelets and all the silly things she loves, I want to share these mochi cakes with her, I want to introduce her to my new best friend, and I want to hang out with both of them. I want to be with Holland here, like we planned. So many nights ago, back in my house, in my bed, I wanted her to come find me. She didn’t find me then, but she found me now, and we aren’t the same people we were the first time or even a few weeks ago. We’re different, but we can be different together. Because this is what I believe—that second chances are stronger than secrets. You can let secrets go. But a second chance? You don’t let that pass you by.
    I dial a familiar string of numbers and hit Send. Sheanswers on the second ring. She sounds nervous when she says my name. “Danny.”
    “Do you remember how my mom was always saying how she wanted to look back on her life and know she’d done everything she could?”
    “Of course I remember that about her.”
    “How when she once took me out of school early to go surfing when I was in ninth grade, she said, This will be one of the things we look back on at the end and are glad we did . Even though neither one of us was very good at surfing. But it was eighty-two degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and she felt good that day, so we went and we caught a couple waves. And how she always ordered her lattes with low-fat milk rather than skim, saying, I’m pretty sure I won’t wish I’d had more nonfat lattes when it’s all said and done . And how much she traveled. She always said that when she got to the end of her life, she wouldn’t regret a trip to Italy or Barcelona or Tokyo.”
    “That sounds exactly like your mom.”
    I look up at the sky. It’s cloudless, like that day my mom and I played hooky at the ocean.
    “Where are you right now?”
    “I’m at the Imperial Palace. Well, outside. Walking around the gardens.”
    Of course. Holland. Gardens. They go together.
    “Will you wait there for me? It’ll take me twenty minutes to get there. I have to catch the subway.”
    “Of course I’ll wait for you.”
    The most interminable minutes I’ve ever spent sludge by as I wait for the next train. I pace, like a caged animal, on the platform and peer down the tunnels. When the light from the next train appears, I want to reach out, stretch my arms all the way down, and yank the train closer. Finally it stops and the doors slide open. The train charges by a few stops, and minutes later I’m racing up the steps, taking them two by two, and then I run across the street seconds before the traffic light turns red, the cars and cabs just a few feet away from me.
    The Imperial Palace looms in the distance. I speed through the late-morning crowds in the park that flanks the palace. Or, really, the park that flanks the moat that flanks the palace. I get why the emperor needs a moat; I’m totally down with keeping people out. But I don’t need a moat anymore; I don’t want one. I cross the park and find the path to the gardens. I run along the edge of the pond, avoiding the tourists snapping photos of the mossy trees and lush green bushes and languid water. On the far side of the pond are the cherry blossom trees, their bare branches reflected back in the pond.
    I see her. She stands next to the water, lily pads floating nearby. She’s talking to an older, heavyset couple, obvious tourists in matching Hawaiian shirts and white sneakers. She holds a camera and shows them a picture on the back of it. She gives the camera back to them, and they smile and thank her. They walk away, and she sees me and her face lights up. She wears a V-neck white T-shirt, jean shorts,flip-flops, a ton of silver bracelets, and her star ring. Her hair is summer blond, wavy again.
    I walk closer, and she does the same, and I’m sure my heart is beating outside my body. I want to hold her tight, but there are things that need to be said