It So Happened That...

"Someday you'll meet someone, being with them will make everything alright, and seeing their smile will make you happy, all you'll ever want to do is be with them and then, you'll know you have fallen in love."







He said that looking into the distance, well maybe at the boat ahead, but he had that look in his eyes that showed that he really truly believed what he was saying. Then he looked at me, laughed and added, "Yeah, I am a crazy romantic"






But I wasn't. Even then, somehow, listening to him talk like that made me want to believe in what he was saying and just feel like I've put all the restrictions behind me and fallen in love, fallen for what I believed in. I told him that and added, "That doesn't really make sense, does it?"






"It does…" he laughed on seeing my expression and added, "In a way…"






I shook my head and looked away. He continued, "No really it does make sense… You pretend you don't understand because you don't want to get hurt, because of some b. who hurt you in the past or even because you don't want to hurt the person you are in a relationship with the way you had once been hurt. But then, deep inside you get it, you understand what I'm talking about because you have felt that way before…"






It doesn't hurt to be honest, so I told him that somehow he had read my mind, that he'd figured me out the way nobody had ever done. He smiled and put his arm around my shoulders and said that I was the person who knew him the best in the world too. I laughed and looked at his face, smiling down at me.






"When did you get so tall?" I said, in 'mock reproach' and slapped his hand away. He laughed and said, "I always was taller than you…"






"I was always better looking…" I said, with one eyebrow raised and my lips hinting at the beginning of a smile. He splashed water on my face and laughed as he held my punches of outrage away with one arm.






Then we sat there, at the edge of the pier with the water lapping at our bare feet. Someone could have mistaken us for lovers except for the fact that we were so strikingly similar. We were freakishly alike for a pair of fraternal twins. It is funny the stories people come up with when they see a man and a woman sitting together and talking. Not to mention, watching the sunset, sitting at the edge of a pier.






"It… has been a long time-" I began, and stopped, trying to frame my thoughts that were currently racing against each other in my head. He looked at me and waited for me to continue.






I looked down at my hands on my lap and started over, "It has been a long time since I've been so completely in love, the way you describe it. Over the last four or five years I've dated maybe three guys and gone out on dates with about four others but I had never been in love with any of them."






"Even Jake?"






"Even Jake and I went out with him for over a year and a half. Then again, I never was in love with him, ever.. He'd never insisted either, I mean, he was okay with the fact that we'd never said 'I love you'. But I can't say that I have never been in love the way you describe it… Remember the guy I dated in senior year of high school?"






"Yeah… You were in love with him? But you always said that you 'couldn't fall in love' and that 'it is just a high school fling'?"






"I did, didn't I? I guess I was in love with him, I just hadn't realized it then. But just now, when you were talking, all I could think about was an incident that happened five years ago, when we were in our senior year at high school. I hadn't even thought about this once in the last five years but that was the first thing that came to my mind when you were talking.






"Me and him, my boyfriend of then, were sitting outside school and talking(a lot) about random things, computers or multitasking or thoughts in the back of our heads or maybe even all of that, I don’t know, I don’t remember. Anyway, that's not my point. I remember being happy though I was pretty upset about something before I'd started talking to him. We were both rather shy and neither of us were very affectionate around other people so we weren't really sitting close to each other. I remember how I really wanted to sit closer to him or hold his hand or kiss him or something, anything! I had tried to subtly move closer by shifting my bag around and I kept looking at his hands, the ones I'd wanted to hold and I wished I could sit right next to him






"Later when he had to leave he crossed the road and turned around after he got to the other side. We didn’t say bye or wave, he just raised his hand slightly and I nodded. Though I never said it back then, now I realize, that probably was the first time I had ever been in love… and I haven't felt that way since"






He was looking at me as I spoke but turned and looked at the setting sun as I finished speaking. I looked up too and we watched the sun sank slowly behind the horizon. I imagined a soft 'splash' as it hit the water.






I knew he was thinking about what I said, I even knew what exactly he was thinking but I waited for him to say it first.






"Are you over it?"






"Of course I am… Just because I haven't been in 'love' in the last four years doesn't mean I'm still in love with him"






"True that… Well, as long as you are happy."






We sat there for a while longer and then we had to leave. We had our own lives and jobs and problems to get back to.






I drove him down to his apartment and as he got out I said, "You know what would be the cheesiest ending to this evening?"






"What?"






"If the next guy I meet standing by the road asking for a ride turns out to be him..."






"You are such a romantic!"






"You are so much worse than I am!"






"We both know the truth…"






"Whatever. Get out!"






He laughed, shut the door and waved.






I was laughing as I drove away. A tall man on the side of the road stuck his right hand out as I drove nearer, evidently asking for a lift.






'Aww hell…'






And I slowed to a stop.