(Re) An Ideas Journal: Turnabout

Published in: https://reideasjournal.com/paula-colangelo-cnf/

Driving through Long Island en route to a friend’s wedding, I’m reminded of the trek out here after prom. My first would-be love agreed to be my date after a friend said no, then asked someone else. At three a.m., all I could see were headlights on the forgotten end of the highway, landscape shrouded as it is now.

He was six years older. Owned an olive-green Dodge. We drove too far and U-turned back on the empty road, brushing gravel on the soft shoulder. We camped on the beach, that cool night in May. As I pass Montauk Point State Park, I realize it was there that I pulled back at the last moment. Whether lack of birth control or fear caused my change of heart I’m not sure. Up to that point, I must have been thinking more about the dress than where it would lead me.

All this time later I wonder if he was angry, having invested in the lavish night, charming my friends, making the long drive to where New York reaches farthest into the sea. He didn’t protest at the time, but I didn’t see him much after that trip. Now that I think of it, his mood changed the next day on the beach as a pale sky opened above us.