2024/2025 (part 1)

It had been five years since Lucky had moved to Reno and at the moment he was feeling anything but lucky. Without a receipt he was unable to return an item he’d received during Christmas and he stood at the counter wondering if he should just accept store credit and move on with his life.

And that’s when he heard the song lyrics through the bustling of the other shoppers.

There are times when I can feel your ghost

Just when I’m almost letting you go

He didn’t know the song or who sang it but her hurried to a speaker in the ceiling to listen to more of it.

I will always love you for what it’s worth

We’ll never fade like graffiti on the overpass

And I know time may change the way you think of us

But I’ll remember the way we were

It hit him like a ton of bricks. Everything else melted away and he was somewhere else. Someone else. The dam broke and he closed his eyes and felt her hand in his.

There were times when I forget the lows

And think the highs were all that we’d ever known

The cards were stacked against us both

He hurried home to find out who sang the song so he could add it to his playlist.

And for the second time that day he felt anything but lucky.

“Ed Sheeran?!” His head swam. It didn’t get more mainstream than Ed Sheeran and Lucky prided himself on his always swimming against that particular stream. He suddenly questioned his place in the universe.

And while he was busy suddenlying, he suddenly had the desire to jump in his car and drive back to the East Coast and find her.

Tell her he still thought about her every day. Tell her all the things that she already knew.

As the final day of 2024 progressed, the feeling only got stronger. He wrestled with the reality that she surely had settled on a new relationship and his turning up unexpectedly would only cause unnecessary drama and, eventually, inevitably, heartache. Disrupting her ongoing attempts as contentment.

And yet… there were scenarios where that might not be the case.

“Fuckin’ Ed Sheeran” he muttered to himself as night fell and he stood watching the bubbling contents of the pan in front of him. The cooking term for the process of intensifying a liquid’s flavor is reduction. Which seemed to indicate a certain linguistical contradiction at play. Reduction is achieved by simmering a liquid until the water evaporates and leaves the ‘fond’ at the bottom of the pan.

Boom. Another contradiction of sorts.

Is that also what was going on between his ears?

He could feel New Year’s Eve coming. 2025 was circling like a bird of prey.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1… another year without her.

He wanted to listen to a song from Noah Kahan (which would make him feel cooler than most people) but instead found himself listening to something else (which made him feel much less cool).

I never wanted to break it, or leave us tainted

Know I should walk away

But I just can’t replace us or even erase us

Baby, you will never be lost on me

“Fuckin’ Ed Sheeran.”