A memory

There's an image in my head of a park. It could be any park with an open space and flower beds and trees in the distance. In the distance of this park there is a path leading to an old fountain and a small pond behind tall grasses. It could still be a picture postcard of a park near you but this park is very close to me. It's beautiful and wide and green and all that spoils this scene is that it's empty and devoid of people. In my mind it is just a warm summer's day and birds may sing but very quietly in the distance so as not to disturb the gentle breeze that sways the tall grasses. I imagine that park as I remembered it and yet it is an empty park. No one walks there in my mind. I should be there and he should be there but for reasons I cannot fathom, the park in my mental image is a peaceful and yet empty place. Once, long ago I walked in that park and I was not alone. He walked with me, very close to me. He did not hold my hand yet I sensed that he wanted to very much. There was a shy reluctance about his character that seemed hidden behind an imagined protocol of exemplary behavior. He was a gentleman and a schoolboy and I loved him, in my own way of course.
During those emotional turbulent days of my teens, I was secretly trying to find my way, especially regarding my sexual orientation, but in the public eye, I was behaving as I thought I should and that meant having a boyfriend even if just a token one. I was trying to think back exactly how he and I met.
There was a girl, Etsu was her name, who used to like horse riding as much as I did and so we hung together a lot because we went to the same riding school on Saturdays. After the training we'd hang in the coffee shop or go into the record stores and just listen to the latest sounds. There was a boy who was so much in love with Etsu and he so wanted to be with her and he followed us around often but rarely actually with us. She told him she was with me and three is a crowd when he dared to come close! He said he'd bring a friend for me so we could make a foursome. She looked at him and then at me and then she shrugged her shoulders. I looked at her and at him and back to her and then I shrugged mine too.
The next Saturday he strolled into the coffee shop with Terutaka.
"Let me buy you a drink" he says to Etsu in a swaggering confident manner.
She giggled and looked at me.
I looked up at Terutaka. He was wearing his school trousers and a shirt that looked far too big for him and had probably seen better days. It wasn't the faded look. He also sported his unshaven look which for a 15 year old was a noticeable achievement.
He seemed very shy as he stood there looking at me and said nothing.
I'd seen him around my school, he was one year senior to me and he was fairly good looking in a geeky kind of way but he always seemed, and as I was later to find out, unashamedly reserved.
It became a regular foursome with trips to the park or the museums or the theater or we went out on picnics. Etsu and Katashi fell in love over time and eventually they just drifted off together leaving Terutaka with me. By this time he'd been invited into my home and my parents liked him and my Father knew his Father and I think we just fell into a routine of being together. His parents were always happy to see me too.
He walked me home from school, he played with my cat and he helped me with my homework.
Even while I was seeing Erika and exploring my own intimate nature he was still around and provided what I thought was a good cover. Unashamedly I did use him during those final school days.
I think he kissed be a few times in the time that we were together but he'd never tried to force himself on me or even ask for sexual favors and that kind of made me respect him a lot and we were in my mind the best of friends and he possibly imagined that we were something more.
The day before I left home for Kyoto University, Terutaka and I walked in that park. He walked proudly with chin high and hands clasped behind his back. He'd already left school and had completed one year at University here in Tokyo. I walked respectably two steps behind him as we enjoyed our surrounds. We didn't talk much that day because I think we both had a great many thoughts to consider even when he bought us food from the vendor and we'd sat and eaten together, we did it in silence with just an occasional look at each other. We stopped by the pond and he inspected his hands as if to find something there with which to feed the ducks. Finding nothing he sat on a bench and bid me sit with him.
"I want you to always remember two things Tomochan." he said to me looking quite earnest.
That was my nickname in my younger days!
"What is it?" I asked.
"I want you to remember that I have and I will always love you."
I nodded.
Perhaps this last day before I traveled to Kyoto had forced such a confession from his lips because in the two years we'd been together he had never said it, at least he had never said it aloud, well at least I'd never heard him say it. Perhaps my young years had me giggling a little but I doubt it. I had never known a boy as well as I had Terutaka and if I hadn't had lesbian feelings then..... I could have easily chosen him. He was a great friend and my parents adored him, my Father would speak with him on many topics and he didn't do that with many. My Mother helped me dress and do my hair if I was going on a date with him.
A tear comes to my eye as I recall those wonderful moments with my beloved Mother.
"What else?" I asked him.
 "Never ever forget me Tomochan and always remember this moment, here, now."
"I will" I said to him and he hugged me.

The memory of that day is there, fixed in my mind as a picture postcard but as I have said there are no people there. He and I are both missing from that scene of this empty park.
Twelve years have passed since he and I sat on this bench and as I passed this park once more I remembered it was in here that we shared our last day together. We would not meet again for three more years and when we did it was great and then it was terrible and then it was great again and then it was terrible. The highs were the highest and the lows were the lowest. We became victims of fate.
I still love him in my own little way and I realized that I could not walk past this park and ignore its personal history. I had to come in and sit again on the bench again and place people in that remembered image in my head. I wanted to put him and me back into my mental image and make the memory whole once again.

I told Hitomi the story as we in our turn walked around the park and she just looked at me as if sentimentality had suddenly become a crime. She looked into my eyes with those beautiful black liquid pupils of hers and told me to remember that she will always love me.
I will remember that always.
"And I, you" I said reassuringly to her and kissed her cheek.