In the last week of the year, I go running on a path alongside an airfield in Colorado. Early in the morning, the fighter jets pivot and take off. I turn at the mile marker and jog back toward the mountains.
On the last night of the year, I’m back in a city, again with the boy. Now drunk in a series of places: rooftop bars under heatlamps, emptyish dance floors. There are brief walks skittering in heels on sidewalks. And there is this boy, standing against a wall with his eyes half-closed. I walk over and touch his jaw. The year ends and we endure six hours into the next. Taxi cab back to the parked car in the suburbs, a return drive into the city when nearly everything is gated shut, a filthy McDonald’s, egg sandwiches unwrapped in bed.
This year will not be easy. I want to stay out late in bars, memories unraveling without nostalgia. I want to fall asleep, exhausted and safe beside him, and wake up on cold mornings with days ahead like promises. There will not be time for all this.