Whirlwind

50

[Riley]

"You look good! Wow." I marveled at the almost unfamiliar image looking back at me.

It was those damn blue marbles in his eye sockets. Well, that's what they looked like at this second and they appeared sharper than usual, piercing right through the screen of my MacBook and this sudden silence. They were leaving me speechless, mouth slowly falling open as I stared back and proceeded to admire a far more mature looking man than the one I was used to all these years - ten to be precise.

My eyes were slowly drifting from them to the smooth jet black beard adorning his chin and to the fuller crown of hair sprouting from his head. His cheeks were vibrant red, nothing alike to the hue that used to bomb his face back when we were sophomores and he was that ol' bashful Donovan breaking out of his shell. This was different. It projected poise; a certainty in himself that he had gradually shifted into over the course of his twenties, and a reaction as my impulsive compliment. 

I was in awe and I suppose I could blame it on the distance and time away from New York and one of my favorite people. That alone and the fact that on this very day Donovan was officially stepping into the dirty thirties and it clearly had morphed him into some handsome lady killer. To say the least, age and life was doing one of us justice. I was sure of it.

"Thanks, I think? What's your definition of good though?"

"Have you been lifting weights too?" I wondered aloud as I completely ignored Donovan's question and turned his coy smile into a fit of chuckles. "I'm sorry. It's just these curls or waves, and you! You look like a heartbreaker, someone who will run up all kinds of credit, blood pressures and induce headaches. Damn! I sure do know how to pick attractive best friends."

"That you do, and they're waves." he confirmed as he ruffled his already tousled roots. "Well a mix of both. I'm not really sure what's going up there, my hair kind of has a mind of its own these days. I'm just letting it grow out. "

"I can see that and if I shall say, I am diggin' it. Uh, Happy Birthday!" I exclaimed with a flustered laugh as I shook my head. "You feel different right now. Even through a computer screen I can feel it. So spill the beans! How's the best manager to ever grace Columbia Records doing? Something is new."

"Well, I'm moving into a new apartment. I'm probably the world's biggest idiot for signing the lease since the location, which is in the middle of Queens, is going to make commuting back and forth hell for me as if it isn't already. But I had to do it Ry, it's the perfect match."

"Is it now? Break it down for me, baby."

"Nostalgia made me do it. When I walked through the front door and set foot in just the living room area, it I felt like I had reversed time and went all the way back to our post college days." Donovan began as we both leaned forward. "You remember them well. Everything was a clusterfuck of mess, but somehow the way the three of us survived and still enjoyed life as tough as it was made it a time to be alive. The building is actually a few blocks away from you and Leslie's old place in Jamaica; 161st Street, actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it is. Maybe I'm crazy for wanting to always have even the smallest piece of my past in the present, but I just miss my friends and what life was like before we all grew up and went our separate ways." Donovan admitted as his eyes wandered from the screen momentarily and seemed to dull as he pressed on. "I honestly thought we never would, so now I'm adjusting. Outside of that discomfort, life is good. I wouldn't have it any other way, but tell me Ry. Is it wrong to leave a part of me unadjusted? If that's even a word."

"No, it's perfectly normal and okay. I'm the same way and you know this, but the difference between you and I is that I lose the present, and I run when I can't fully adjust. You however don't, you still push through. You always have and you always will. That's admirable and it's all okay."