What If....
"How
could I love her? I've never met her!"
"Well,
then what's your problem?"
It was a question to which he had no
answer. He had never met her. Not face to face, anyway. And yet here he was,
lamenting the loss of a relationship that never was. He'd been doing that a lot
lately, lamenting the "what-if" and "what could have been" in
his life. To say he'd hit a rut would be an understatement. Work was crazy, his
family was crazier, and as much as he had a strong circle of friends to whom he
could turn, most of them couldn't really relate to his position in life
anymore. Whether it was jobs or kids or marriages, they'd all taken different
paths than the crooked one he'd found himself following.
"I honestly don't know. Why am I so
upset about this?"
"You're a dumbass?"
"Why do I talk to you?"
"Because I'm your best friend and I
won't sugar coat shit."
"I, yeah. Pretty much." The two
friends burst into laughter. They'd stopped counting the years of their
friendship at twenty, though the bond they shared extended far beyond the years.
There was truth in his friend's words, though. There was no rational reason why
he should be affected as much as he was over a woman he'd never met. Of course,
rationality with respect to his love life was something he'd pretty much abandoned
long ago.
"Look, if you like this girl, tell
her. What's the worst that can happen? She says she's not interested? Then
you're no worse off than you are right now. But if she is, well…."
"I hate it when you're right."
"Good thing it doesn't happen
often."
He smirked at his friend. "Ain't
that the truth."
"Hey!" Again they shared a
laugh. "Alright pal, I'm headed out. Gotta pick up a kid from somewhere."
"Which one?"
"How the hell should I know?"
his friend said with a wink. "Later!"
With that his best friend was gone and
he was left alone with his thoughts. Again. He hated being alone in general, but
loathed being alone with nothing to do but think. It was late, it was raining,
and both the cable and Internet were out of commission. He could pop in a
movie, but he knew damn well that at the current moment he had the attention
span of a gnat. So he popped open a beer, plopped down on the couch, and closed
his eyes.
"What the fuck is wrong with
you?" he asked himself as if he had any logical reply. Opening his eyes
and turning his attention towards his phone, he contemplated taking his
friend's advice and reaching out. "Fine. Why not?"
He had her number. They'd been texting
back and forth for some time, and they seemed to have so much in common. She was
intelligent, beautiful and funny. And he had nothing to lose.
"What's up, buttercup?" he wrote.
It took her barely a minute to respond.
"Nothing. What's up with you?"
"Can't sleep. Brain won't turn
off."
"Whatcha thinkin about?"
"Everything. Nothing. I don't
know."
"You ok?" she asked. He could
almost hear her genuine concern in the words.
"I will be, thanks."
"I'm worried about you. Talk to
me."
He stared at his phone for a good, long
while before he began typing. He tried several times to get his message across,
deleting the words he'd typed each time. Finally, he typed one last time, hit "send,"
and waited:
"You should be with me. We should
be together."
©
J.J. Goodman 2014. All rights reserved.