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Neverland

Skylarose Butler

    I believe the words coming out of his mouth, every single one. Not because I think it’s the truth, but because I wish it was. Like Catholics believe in Jesus despite evidence to support that he wasn’t real, I choose to believe that the honest man that I love is buried beneath the new man this city has created, despite the overwhelming proof that the man I fell in love with is gone. It’s easier for me to love him if I pretend like he’s still a good person. Afterall, I’m in New York, and New York is where people come to pretend.
    “I’m using her, nothing’s actually going on with her. I’m trying to make her think something will happen so she’ll promo the band. You know I only love you, babe. Come on,” he says.
    I’m almost offended that he can’t think of a better excuse. But still, I nod and go along with it.
    “Please don’t leave.”
    As he says this, for a second, he looks like the boy I fell in love with. His eyes, for a second, have life behind them again. I know that I’m looking at this new man, but I see the boy I love trapped behind this mask. So I stay.
    It gets harder and harder to stay as the night goes on. I drown out the urges to run with alcohol and cocaine and eventually, he and I are far gone and wandering around the city. Tonight, we walk quietly around Brooklyn, and the city feels different. I do not see the same beauty I once did in the blinding lights and tall buildings.
    “Wanna watch the sun come up on the bridge tonight?” I ask. I am desperate to feel something other than complete apathy. Watching the sun rise on the Williamsburg Bridge was the first thing he and I did when we first came to the city, and in that moment, I while I don’t remember exactly what it felt like to see, I know it was something great. I crave that feeling again.
    “Sure,” he says, and there is no excitement in his voice.
    As we walk the city streets, it occurs to me that New York is one of those cities that is full of empty, vapid people. It’s a shallow place, I think as I pass the endless neon signs of the endless bars, all full of people on their phones, taking pictures of themselves with masks of happiness, posting those pictures on to the Internet, to convince strangers that they are completely satisfied with their lives, and that they are important. New York is a place that unique individuals come to die. Not in the literal sense of the word, but in the sense that once you enter, you are no longer an individual. You disappear, and suddenly, you are part of it all. You enter this Neverland, and you never grow up. The man I love, he’s Peter Pan.
    We get close to the bridge, but it’s only four in the morning so we go into this bar that’s open until five and hang out there until they kick us and the other stragglers out, and while we wait we do shots and get more wasted, and we take turns going to the bathroom with a small vial of coke that he wears as a necklace, where we do lines. When it’s my turn, I pour a decent amount of power out of the vial onto my phone, and cut it into four thick lines with a credit card. Inhale the powder through a rolled up twenty dollar bill. My head snaps up from the sting, and I see my reflection. I stare myself in the mirror as I stop my nosebleed, and I think back to the innocent girl I was. I feel sick. When I leave the bathroom and re-enter the bar, he’s flirting with some girl, who he sends away when he notices me. How typical.
    When they do kick us out, we walk a few blocks and we reach the bridge. We walk along the path meant for bikes, until we get to a spot with a great view of the Manhattan skyline. He films the sun as it comes up.
    “This is my favorite thing about the city,” he says.
    I struggle to find beauty in the reflection of the orange and pink sky in the metallic buildings and the sparkling water. It no longer fills me with hope. I feel nothing. As he edits and posts the video online, quoting some song lyric about New York being Babylon for the caption, I try my hardest to remember what it was like when I found New York beautiful when I was eighteen, and he and I ran to this city from our small town. I look over at him, and he’s texting someone, probably that model, and I struggle, too, to remember what it was like when I found him beautiful. He’s too different, now. When we fell in love, he was a sweet boy with messy hair and a guitar and a dream that, one day, we would make it. Now, he’s just some other good looking, but vacant, guy - just an echo of the boy from long ago. I need to leave this place. It is poison.
    As he’s looking down at his phone.
    “Goodbye,” I say.
    He doesn’t respond, too involved in whatever bullshit he’s doing.
    “Goodbye,” I say again.
    He still doesn’t answer.
    I grab him by his shirt collar, and pull him down into one last kiss. I feel nothing.
    “I’ll remember you,” I say.
    He looks confused.
    I walk towards Manhattan. He doesn’t follow me. I don’t look behind.

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