“I hadn’t planned it, Leah; I hope you know that. I mean, yes, I wanted to be with you, and I was so happy when it happened. But I had always hoped it would be the start of something more for us, not the way we said goodbye. I hate myself for leaving you with that as your last memory of me, thinking that I’d just abandoned you.”
“Matthew,” I said quietly, “you can’t do that to yourself. We were teenagers. I could have figured out a way to get in touch with you, too. We were just too young to sort those kinds of things out. Plus, we didn’t have social media or cell phones the way people do now.” I paused a moment before continuing, deciding to tell him everything. “The truth is that, yes, I spent a lot of years mourning over you leaving. I would alternate between being mad and sad. I spent more time than I care to admit crying over you,” I confessed, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. I sniffed and dabbed my eyes with my napkin before adding, “Finding out how hard things were for you, though, has really put things into perspective for me. As awful as it sounds for me to say it, it helps knowing that you, too, were hurting. I think we both need to forgive ourselves for what happened as far as losing touch. I want to be able to remember all of the good times we had and forget the mistakes.”
“And make new memories, right?” Matty asked, reaching his hand out to take mine. “We can’t change the sixteen years we were apart, but we can certainly start making up for them.” We held hands and smiled at each other, and I felt the heartache that I had carried for so long lift. “Maybe we had to be separated for that time to be better together now.”
“Are you two ready to order, or do you need a minute?” our waiter asked as he strode up to our table, interrupting our intimate moment. Matty and I smiled at each other before letting go of one another’s hands to quickly skim the menu. I ordered the cheese ravioli, which seemed the easiest offering to eat; I didn’t want to risk spilling anything on myself. Matty ordered the fettuccini alfredo, and I was already laughing inside at the thought of him trying not to make a mess of the saucy pasta dish.
“You’re thinking I’m going to get sauce all over myself, aren’t you?” Matty asked in an overly dramatic accusing voice, reading my mind. “I can eat in public without staining my clothes, you know,” he added with a grin.
“Well, seeing will be believing, I guess!” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
I had been fearful that, after spending so much time together over the past couple of days, that we would have run out of things to talk about during dinner; but we immediately began chatting. We dipped the complimentary bread that was at our table into the olive oil, nibbling at it as we continued filling in the blanks of our years apart.
Our food arrived and no sooner had Matty coiled the first noodles around his fork did a piece of chicken fly into his lap. “Some things never change!” I chided him as we both laughed.
While other diners were constantly pausing between mouthfuls of food to talk, Matty and I ate in relative silence, only pausing a couple of times to remark on the taste of the food, which was delicious. I had always found it funny that people felt they had to talk and eat at the same time when they could just get the eating out of the way and talk afterwards. Of course, I did the same thing when I ate with other people, but only because they themselves were talking. I was glad Matty, though, was still the same and that neither of us felt the need to constantly stop our conversation in order to chew. In fact, we finished our meals in under ten minutes; and only because Matty suggested we order dessert was there any reason for us to stay at the restaurant.
While we had eaten our entrees in silence, we lingered over dessert. Matty ordered raspberry cheesecake and I got the chocolate mousse; but we took tiny bites and shared with each other so that we could stay in the intimate setting of the restaurant. Eating from each other’s plates seemed as natural as breathing, even though we hadn’t done it since we were teenagers.
While Nonna’s usually piped in music on the weekdays, tonight the in-house piano player happened to be there and started playing romantic standards. There was small dance floor set aside in the center of the dining room. Matty looked at me, and while part of me was terrified to dance with him, the other part hoped he would ask.
“Will you dance with me, Leah?” Matty asked quietly.
“Yes,” I answered, not able to contain the blush that once again rose up my face. Calm down, I told myself. You have danced with Matty dozens of times; this is no different. It’s no big deal. However, it was a big deal as I hadn’t danced with anyone since our sophomore year prom. I hoped I would remember how to move correctly.
Matty stood up and extended his hand to me, which I took, letting him pull me out of my chair and lead me to the dance floor. He gently put one arm around my waist while holding my hand; and I put my free hand on his shoulder. “Grown up dancing!” I blurted out. “This is new!”
Matty laughed and said, “I know! I wasn’t sure if
