climbing the hill now than he was ten minutes ago. Or ten years ago for that matter.
When Eric asked him over, he thought he could do it. He thought he was ready. And, in the moment, he had every intention of going to their house, seeing them, trying to let all those old feelings go. Besides, it wasn't as if he didn't have a ready excuse to refuse Eric's invitation. He and Stacy were scheduled to fly out this evening, and he certainly wouldn't have accepted if he didn't think he was ready, if he didn't think it was important for him to finally see them together. But it wasn't until after he explained to Stacy that he was staying an extra day—an innocuous explanation, withholding any relevant dramatic and historical details—and sent her off alone in their rental car to the airport, that he was faced with the stark reality of seeing them again.
But it wasn't the prospect of seeing them together that gave him pause. It was the thought of seeing her again that really had him in knots.
When he knew he was coming back home, and seeing her was only a possibility and not a foregone conclusion, it was endurable. Barely, but still. Now, though, knowing that she's there, in that house atop the hill, only a couple hundred feet away, he can hardly stand it.
He thought this was the time to come home and face what he'd spent the past ten years avoiding. It was time to put all his anger and resentment behind him. If anything, he'd let too much time pass since he'd been back. He believed that ten years was plenty long enough to learn to forgive Eric, to forgive Annie. And, even if he hadn't quite forgiven them, it was time for him to make them believe that he had forgiven them.
But once he was here, his mere proximity to her woke up all those slumbering emotions. Not as if they were ever completely gone. He'd clearly never forgotten his love for her, never let it stray too far from his thoughts. Really, she's lived with him like some wonderful disease over the past decade, and she's kept him beautifully in ruins. And, though he could've tried harder to rid himself of her, he's never quite wanted to let her go.
He's spent the better part of the last decade feebly trying to suppress her from his memory—through work and other women—but he's always pulled her back to him whenever he's needed her. She's always been his touchstone when he needed something true to believe in again. Too often, he's unfolded memories of her during periods of emotional turmoil. He seems to have built some mythology about her in his mind, a mythology that keeps some vital light alive inside him.
But he believed he'd gotten to a point, had been far enough from her for long enough, that at least he could pretend that he was over her. After all, he'd gotten so good at pretending over the years, pretending that he wasn't starving for her.
But, as he travelled from the airport with Stacy, he found himself taking the long way to his parents’ house, passing all the places he and Annie used to go, all the places that still hold the memories he has of her: their high school, the art house movie theater where they spent so many evenings, the lake where they first made love.
Of course, this drive through he and Annie's past was done under the guise of taking Stacy on a tour of his hometown, but he never quite anticipated how much it would wake up inside him. If he had spent the past ten years fueling his love for her exclusively through what he could remember, then all the memories that were newly recovered by traveling through the landmarks of their past were only building a brighter torch.
He can't deny that there have been moments when he's wanted nothing more than to forget her. She's still the only woman he's ever truly loved. And it's not as if he hasn't tried to move on. He's been with his fair share of women since Annie, but none of them could hold a candle to her. Perhaps, she's created an unfair metric in his personal history for any other woman to hope to reach.
But, then again, when Eric asked him to come for dinner, he thought this could be his opportunity to see that she's not all that he remembers her to be. No doubt she's changed since the last time he saw her, the spring before she graduated college.
Maybe she's let herself go. Maybe time has made her more cynical, taken some of that light from her face. Maybe the cruel realities of adulthood have beaten her spirit, weakened her old joy of life. She is, after all, living in their old hometown, teaching piano to kids. This certainly is not what she hoped for herself when they were still young and idealistic.
Not that he hopes for her to be unhappy.
In fact, it could be that, if she were unhappy, he may feel compelled to want to rescue her. And he can't afford to find that kind of hope.
Not that he pines for something to happen now. He only pines for what used to be. And that's gone now.
Unless…
What if she's still the same? What if she still looks the same? Like his Annie? The Annie he remembers? The Annie he still loves.
When Annie and Max were together in high school, Eric was long gone at university. In fact, Annie only remembers meeting him once or twice at Max's family's holiday get-togethers, and she can hardly remember if they ever even spoke to one another. She probably did have words with him, but, back then, there didn't seem to be another man alive other than Max.
They became friends at the beginning of their junior year, and it was apparent immediately that they were romantically interested in one another. And once they started dating, they were inseparable. They spent every available second with each other, only separating at nights, and even then only because they had to abide by certain social and parental perimeters. Their lives revolved so closely around the other's that they found they had very little time or interest in maintaining their other relationships, and, consequently, they let many friendships dwindle away. But they never tired of one another's company, and they honestly never felt they needed for anything when they were together.
And this immersion in one another continued through their junior and senior years. They grew together, matured together. And they were never naive about the tension between their youth and what that could mean for their relationship's longevity. Many young love affairs have been cut short by attempts at a long distance relationship, and they knew the odds were against them. In order to prevent this from happening to them, they prepared their futures with the health of their relationship at the forefront of their planning. When it came time to apply to colleges, they had decided they would apply to all the same schools, and agreed to only attend one where they were both accepted.
But Annie was a musician. She'd been playing piano just about as long as she could sit upright on the bench. Music was the language she knew almost before she spoke English. Her mother was a proficient player, and taught piano part-time from their home. So, either by playing the piano on her own, or hearing the piano played by others, it became the primary soundtrack to Annie's life. And thinking of going to a liberal arts university, and not a college specifically built around music, made her worry that she might be selling her future short somehow. It was simply a part of her life she couldn't ignore.
So, as a long shot, she applied to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She didn't tell Max, which was strange and difficult for her. She'd kept nothing from him up to that point— every doubt, every feeling was openly expressed between them. That's one of the reasons their relationship was so special, and—she would learn later—unlike any relationship she would ever experience again.
Eventually, Max and Annie learned they were both accepted to Stanford. They were ecstatic. They were going to be able to escape the east coast for the west, and they were going to be able to do it together, and at one of the elite schools in the country.
She hadn't heard from the Berklee College of Music by then and had pretty much given up on the whole idea. In her mind, at least she'd given it a shot, and she would never regret having given it a try. But, a few days after her and Max heard about Stanford, she received a letter inviting her to audition in Boston. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and one her mother let her know she simply couldn't pass up.
Her mother was not the kind of parent who pushed her
child toward her own life's dream. She wasn't that selfish. Sure, her mom played the piano with her as a child, but it was something they did together, and something Annie gravitated to on her own, something she genuinely enjoyed. Some of her fondest memories from childhood are of sitting at the piano, learning to play, and the joy of playing something true. She's always appreciated the time her mom spent with her at the piano, and having been able to share this deep love of music with her mom was a gift she never took for granted. But her mom was not the happiest person, and she certainly had regrets, wished she'd lived a more exciting youth, and she certainly did not want to see her daughter carry similar regrets.
Annie's mom met her dad when they were both undergraduates, and her mother had dropped out after she became pregnant with Annie. So, her mom could not help but let her own life's regrets inform her attitude toward Max and Annie's relationship. She never kept a secret of the fact that, though she loved Max, and thought he was good for Annie, she also believed they were much too young to be so serious.
But they were serious, and love has never been discriminate of age.
Still, Annie started spending less time with Max as she began to practice for her audition, and it