She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know why I didn't come, " quoting the popular Norah Jones song.
The song brought me back to my days when my primary residence was a subway platform. I used to sleep on the cold vibrating floor with a ripped leather jacket as my pillow and newspapers for warmth. The smell of urine, smoke and petrol fumes collectively pierced my nostrils creating a fake high when I was short on cocaine or cough syrup.
The subways were the lost city of Atlantis to your average homeless drug addict. Dealers lurked conspicuously in the form of hot dog vendors, peddling their wares. All one had to do was utter the magic word.
Every morning, Juarez, my dealer and friend, would set up his cart at the entrance and blast his Norah Jones CD and tried to sing along to it. "I don't know why I didn't come..." That was basically the only line he knew in the entire song.
I don't know why I had snorted cocaine in those days. I don't know I had dropped out of high school. I don't know why I had no place to live. I don't know why I had no money. I shuddered from the memories.
The physical pain had vanished with few traces, but the mental effects surfaced from time to time. Walking into a room and suddenly realizing, "I don't know why I came it," or the nightmares that drench me constantly in sweat twice or thrice a week. I will never know why I did what I did, but I do know what I am doing now.
I smiled and took her arm, "I forgive you, let's go."
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