He woke up the next day in his hotel room with a hangover. He pushed his blanket aside, sat up, reached for a bottle of aspirin, then dropped his head back down on the pillow. Damn, he said out loud. He had class today and he wouldn’t make it. The sun was bothering him; the blinds were slightly open. New York was killing him; the city stank, the cab drivers were crazy, honking aggressively, and everything was too damn expensive. He couldn’t make his body move. He was tired, exhausted, and felt paralyzed. An hour passed and he finally got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed as hurriedly as he could, and walked out of the hotel with his one suitcase. As he got into a cab, he remembered the terrible funeral and felt a knot in his stomach. He asked the driver to get him to the airport as fast as he could because he couldn’t stand the sight of Manhattan anymore. Because he couldn’t breathe and everything made him sick and he wanted to throw up. The driver, a friendly, middle-aged man with a heavy Indian accent, told him not to worry; they would get there in no time.
Inside the airport, he got himself a cup of coffee and sat himself down on a chair. He had never forgotten her and had hated himself for not having that last coffee. He had thought about her a lot during those four years that she was gone, and he had read her emails over and over again. He had realized that she had given him more than he had given her, that she had cared for him too much, that she had always been there as a friend. He had denied his feelings, his growing attraction towards her. He had convinced himself that she was a student and he a professor and that nothing should happen. He had convinced himself because he had feared that those feelings could turn into a fatal attraction.
And now that he sat inside a grim airport, drinking a cold, bitter coffee, he could no longer deny those feelings, feelings that could have grown into a deeper love had they not been dismantled. He threw his empty cup away and headed for his gate. He would go back home, eat a nice meal, and he would let her go like he did four years ago.
The end