the last time I saw him

“He’s the one that got away, isn’t he?” she says. My nervous laugh appeases her. “I always thought so. You really liked him.” I nod.

“But he thought I was too tall and too young,” I say. “I wish he’d seen it differently.” She thinks it’s funny, but for me, the mention of him is always bittersweet.

We met at work, and he’d often stop by my desk just to tease me, knowing he could make me blush with a kind word, or the flash of a crooked smile. He was one of those guys everyone liked. He warmed every room he walked into. When we no longer worked together, he started showing up on my doorstep like a stray.

The first time we were drunk. The second and third times we probably were too, at least I’m sure he was. It was fun and it was easy.

“You mean you’ve never?” he asks. His laughter makes me cringe. “Like never, ever?”

“Seriously,” I say. “Like never, never, ever. It just didn't happen.” He eyes me like I have shape shifted into a completely different creature.

“Well, we have to do something about it,” he says, very matter of fact. “We can’t just leave you like this. It’s one of life’s greatest moments!”

One night he instructs me to park behind a local school. Determined to deliver my rite of passage, he insists we cram our long bodies into the backseat of my little sports car. We laugh our way through it, hitting our heads on the roof, while jockeying for position. It was as awkward and funny as it was memorable.

  One day I asked him to let me go, so he did. He got married and had a kid, and I was happy for him. Over the years our paths crossed at work events, and a fondness remained between us.

***

“How are you?” I ask, expecting the usual answer, but it wasn’t.

  “For the past three years, every month has been Movember,” he says, somehow delivering bad news with his typical wry humour. “It’s stage four.”

I feel like the solid matter has been squeezed out of me like toothpaste. My breath takes a pause, but reality defibrillates me back and I gasp. I try to hold it in again, as if not breathing will stop the passage of time.

“I’ve been trying to keep things pretty quiet,” he says, “but people have found out and word is spreading. We knew each other very well at one time—and I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

Stage four. Movember. Cancer. He is too young.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.  

“Let’s take the dogs for a walk,” he says.

It is a warm spring day. He is bundled in a tracksuit and I am in shorts. “The radiation has fucked with my thermostat,” he jokes.

We walk as our pups play, recalling some old stories, and telling a few new ones. This is the most time we’ve spent together since we parted ways 18 years earlier. He claims I still look the same but refuses to admit he does too. We laugh, and it is still easy.

“I like to say I’m living with the disease, not dying of it,” he says.

I can’t help but think how generous he is. It is a lesson in compassion. He doesn’t need to go on a dog walk with me. Perhaps he knows it will be important for me to have this time and another fond memory someday. I hope for another dog walk, and he hopes for more time.

***

The last time I saw him he was happy, and it was perfect.

The cancer was back, but that day, despite doubts he’d feel up to it, he joined a gathering of old friends.

Amid a kaleidoscope of familiar faces and the bustle and loud talking, our focus narrowed momentarily to a pinpoint. It is me and him in a booth, relaxed and content like the old friends we’d become. We met when I was 21 and I’m now 52.

“I know you differently than everyone else in this room,” he says, with the same breezy and confident energy he once channeled while walking past my desk all those years earlier. My slight shift on the bench seat is only detected by him.

Through narrowed eyes, with heat searing my face, I laugh because I can’t believe he can still embarrass me. I pause for a moment to look at him, his kind eyes lit and his expression content from successfully creating my discomfort.

“Yes," I say. "You certainly do.”