The Exit

I was about to head to bed at 4am when the phone rang.

"Ben! J got a DUI. We're in the back of a police car right now. The cops are going to drop me off [somewhere] -- can you pick me up?"

I went out to get her at the gas station where the police left her. And she wanted to go home, get the keys, and pick up the car before the tow trucks got to it.

That's when this unlikely situation put me in an unlikely location: the Yerba Buena exit.

I hadn't been in that area since February of last year. Prior to that, I frequented the exit, always to visit the same house. We took the lonely winding road past the turn I used to always make. My spirits darkened, as if that street were haunted by the ghosts of my memories. Of pure happiness gone awry.

That night, our trip took me past that street four times.

As if the once weren't enough.
As if the agony of being so close (and yet so far) hadn't woken all those hidden emotions.
As if those emotions, once awakened, could return to their peaceful rest again to leave me be.
As if I knew what to do with this, how to deal with it all.
As if.