Reunion Weekend, Class of 2009

I almost did not go. My college roommate said reunions were trauma tourism. She was not wrong, but curiosity is its own drug.

The gym smelled like floor wax and beer. Nametags with old yearbook photos—cruel and kind. I found my circle, counted divorces, admired surgeries, lied about how happy I was.

Then I saw Nate.

Senior year, Nate wrote me letters on notebook paper, folded into triangles, passed in hallways like contraband love. We kissed once behind the auditorium. His family moved. We promised to write. We didn't.

Now he had grey at his temples and shoulders that filled out a jacket. His nametag said married. His left hand agreed.

"You're staring," he said.

"You're here."

"Bad idea for both of us."

"Then walk away."

He didn't.

We drank in the alumni bar until the committee turned off lights. Talked about nothing first—jobs, cities, who died, who got famous on TikTok. Then the real talk: the letters, the move, the ache of unfinished.

"She's a good person," he said about his wife.

"I'm sure."

"I shouldn't be here with you."

"But you are."

The hotel was attached to the venue. Industry standard for reunions, which is to say someone planned for bad decisions. His room was 512. He texted from the elevator: "Door open. Last chance."

I went.

Not drunk. Clear. Clearer than I had been in years.

We were slower than teenagers, more skilled, more sad. He cried after, silently, face turned to the pillow.

"I love her," he whispered.

"I know."

"This doesn't change that."

"I know."

We met again at breakfast with spouses who weren't there. Ate eggs like strangers. Hugged in the parking lot for cameras.

He texted three weeks later: "I can't."

I replied: "Don't."

I deleted his number on my birthday and typed it back in twice before finally letting go.

Reunion weekend lives in me like a song you hear in a store and have to leave because your body remembers every word.

Class of 2009. Nate. The letters.

Some people are time machines. You only need one night to understand you never got off.