I stood outside the swinging doors, I could hear a muffled noise from inside, murmuring and chattering. The anticipation had been building, I felt slightly nervous now. The thought of seeing her again made me feel sick. I paused, rolling up my shirt sleeves around my forearms, took a deep breath and stepped into the room with baited breath.
The noise flooded me instantly, dozens of faces, some recognisable, some not. People all around, old classmates, friends, people I hadn't spoken to in years, people whose names I had forgotten - strangers now. 'What did I care for them?' They walked around me, spoke in huddles, laughed and shouted. I took a glass of champagne from the table. I walked intently through the room, scanning like a predator. I caught a few women's gazes but they were not who I was looking for. Maybe she wasn't here. I felt relieved and began to laugh and talk with a few old classmates as I made small talk.
"How've you been?"
"How're you doing?"
"So good to see you again!"
"You haven't changed!"
Soon I was bored, the conversations all started and ended the same way. The same questions repeated over and over. The same answers given over and over again. Like a broken record looping the same old track, fake smiles and fake congratulations, fake friends... fake over saturation. I'd finished two glasses of champagne and was dying for a cigarette. Boredom throbbed through me. 'Where the fuck was she anyway?'
Then I saw her. Lily. She stood in a corner of the room, I recognised her form instantly, the beautiful long dark mane, her olive skin, the way she held her head, unmistakeable even now. 'How many years had it been? Ten?' At least from behind she had not changed, her slim figure still as perfect as it had been when we were 17, the slight curves sung through the black dress. She sipped from a glass, tanned fingers nimble around the crystal, laughed, that fake laugh she always did and touched her companion, a suited man, on the arm. I felt the old twang inside. I could recognise the movements. A spark of anger and jealousy and bitterness flashed through me. Fuck. 'Why did I come here?' Fuck. 'What did I think was going to happen?' She leaned in to kiss him. My glass shattered in my hand. Broken shards of crystal gleamed from the floor. I looked around confused. A puddle of champagne spread out on the marble floor.
Everyone looked around. "My bad." I put my hands up laughing. Lily turned around, her eyes widened with surprise, dark amber honeyed by the light. I thought a smile flickered across her face briefly, perhaps it was a trick of the light. We held eye contact for a second I was sure she recognised me but her face was stone cold - a poker face, she turned away. The crowd went back to their talking and their laughing. She continued as though she had never seen me. Could she have forgotten me?
Troubled I stepped out through the doors into the duskiness of the evening. The streetlamps weren't on yet and the street was dark, shadows blurring into hazy shapes along the empty road. I lit a cigarette and felt the warm smoke in my lungs, inhaled - exhaled, blowing rings into the eve. There was no one else here. I watched the red ring burn in the dusk. Fuck. I couldn't get her out of my head. They say you never forget your first love. 'How many girls had there been since?' I'd lost count. But still she haunted my mind, still she crept into my dreams. Part of me had hoped she'd be ugly, had hoped she'd changed and grown old. Had hoped it would break the spell. But it hadn't. The desire ran deeper and stronger. Kindled anew by the sight of her.
The door opened behind me. I knew it was Lily without even looking.
"Hi excuse me. Do you have a cigarette?" Her voice was softer than I remembered.
I turned to her and stood up.
"Yeah." Handed her a cigarette, lit it.
"Do I know you? You look familiar." The smile is there, dimples carved into her cheeks. The coyness, the taunting. Fucking bitch.
"I think so. Have we met before?"
"I don't know." She blew smoke into my face through gorged lips. Teasing brat.
"Who are you with?" I tried to keep my voice nonchalant.
