Nina was my first girlfriend, my first female kiss and the only girl I’ve ever had really strong feelings for. We broke up when she finished her course at university and went back to America. This summer she came back to the UK and we met up for lunch today. It felt strange meeting an ex, but at the same time, kind of nice.
Nina and I decide to meet at 1pm for lunch, at the Starbucks by Charing Cross Station. At 5 past 1 I start worrying about her getting cold feet, although I don’t know why she would. As if reading my mind, she calls my phone and for the next 10 minutes we have a confusing talk trying to find each other. We end up circling around the same building several times in confusion.
“I’m next to Jigsaw. That’s where is it right? Across from the station?”
“Yes, I’m standing right outside.”
“I don’t see you? It’s off the strand, in the little ally way right?”
“No, it’s ON the strand. Next to Jigsaw. Ok, why don’t we meet at Jigsaw, I’ll come around.”
“Wait, where are you now? I’m outside Jigsaw”
“Oh, I’m outside Starbucks now.”
“Ok let me come back. Next to the underground exit.”
“There are three different underground exits on this street though Nina!”
This is a classic Nina Harriet mess around. It turned out she forgot it was Starbucks we were meeting at and thought it was Subway which was on the opposite side of the Starbucks building. Both Starbucks and Subway have an exit to the underground.
I eventually find her and she looks exactly the same. Cool as a cucumber, even though she’s scattier. Her hair is the same and her clothing style is the same. But instead of the quiet home town from before, we’re standing on the busy streets of London and it feels kind of surreal.
I take her to Chinatown because we both like chinese food. We go to a place next to the market that has a good portion sizes and fairly authentic dishes. She has the mapo tofu and I go for Chairman Mao’s braise pork. We order some black fungus to share. The food arrives promptly and it’s delicious.
She tells me she now teaches maths and highschool and gets embarrassed by how young I was when we were dating.
“You weren’t that much older than the students I teach now. I feel like a creep.”
I tell her about how originally I kept going to group events hoping to run into her, and that really I was the creep for semi-stalking her originally. We reminisce a lot, it feels nice. She tells me she thinks I’ve grown taller and that I’ve lost weight. She tells me I suit the big city life. I tell her how amazed I am at her being a teacher, and how she cares so much about her students. It sounds like she’s working really hard and I’m proud of her. We laugh about the time she set the university dorm kitchen on fire and I made instant ramen for us to eat that night, outside on the lawn because no one could enter the kitchen.
We finish our food and I plan on taking her to a cafe for some shaved ice, but I ask her about her flight.
“It’s at 6:10pm from Heathrow on Norwegian Airlines.”
“Norwegian doesn’t fly from Heathrow Nina. It flies from Gatwick.”
She laughs it off, but I insist she checks her ticket. I’m right and for a while we panic about her getting to the right airport. We don’t make it to the shaved ice place because we have to sort out her plans. I want to spend more time with her but I don’t want her to miss her flight either. I forgot how much of a clutz she was, that even though she was older and more mature than me, I was probably always the more responsible one. It’s a dynamic I haven’t had in a relationship since, and I enjoy the feeling of looking after her like that.
We hug at the train station, after getting her the ticket for the right train to the right airport and there’s a moment where we both look at each other and we know that we’ve both changed a lot. We’re still the same towards each other, and there’s the melancholy of wondering what if. What if she hadn’t moved back to America. What if I had been a bit older. But we’re both happy with how things are, things are on good terms, and I kiss her on the cheek.
After her train goes I get a text message saying thank you and that if I’m ever in NJ I should come visit her. I smile and make my way home. Meeting an ex wasn’t as weird as I thought it was going to be. It was nice, it was bittersweet and it was fun. We’ve promised to keep in touch. She’s just as beautiful as I remembered.