I still had the smell of his hands on me, the soft slick of his breath in my hair. I drove through the heart of this city at 2am and watched the revelers with their Mardi Gras beads and beer cups, slipping on the old concrete. Cab drivers slowed me down.

I couldn't sleep there, next to him. I was wide awake. I stayed up until 3am, wanting to write but instead, watching others write on the screen about all the things they were regretting or wishing would come true. And yet, I didn't know these people. I don't think I even knew myself.

Whenever it happened, I was thinking about someone else, the yet unknown person with whom I really wanted to be. And all along I knew I was going nowhere; I would never find him, if I was with someone else, falling into someone else's world . How could I expect to find him when I never left the house, when I never took a chance ?

But that's always how it happened. And it's why I'm still single after 3 years . And why I want to leave New Orleans, so that I can move on .