I heard today that marriage was signing up to annoy him for life – ’til death do us part. I could have done that.

Sometimes he seems like a story I once read. Fictional. Sometimes, I forget all the bad (and boy, there was some) and remember only excitement, exhilaration, pleasure.

I remember the pain too, but it’s a pain that made us stronger. You see, in my head each problem is resolved and each obstacle is overcome. We are victorious. We live happily ever after.

But the fact is – and I can barely bring myself to say it – we are not happy anymore.

Now, we do not talk and it has been a while. I do not see him, hear him, smell him, touch or taste him. Gone. As if he was never really there at all. I swore I’d make myself forget. I made a promise that I would and could move on. And yet here I am, still madly in love. Where is he? I do not know.

I used to see him at the very moment where I would choose to make a stab at moving on. Oh universe, you make me smile. And now I wonder why he chose that precise moment to appear. I wonder if he could see me or sense the sea change. I think about where he might be and whether our time together had left us with an alarm that warned us when either might be ready to try life without the other. That maybe the thought scares him about as much as it has haunted me? A life without him. Is that a life at all?

I cannot pinpoint the moment that I knew I loved him. It wasn’t first glance, or second, or third. It was a steady progression of sorts. It was talking for hours. It was longing for a good-night kiss but holding back. We were friends. Friends that imagined said kiss and watched it grow in significance. It was all the things that were left unsaid. So much we wanted to say. So much that we couldn’t.

It was, and still is, him calling me his lady. Like I was worth the world and still priceless to him.

It was years ago. It was a night on the town with my sister. We are in the club dancing and from nowhere he and his brother come running and take us dancing. Brother with sister, me with him.

Was this the way they planned it or a happy coincidence? Sometimes I believe it was all planned, that the universe had a future mapped out and it involved us. Why else? Why else would it put him and I together?

We grew up as neighbours and friends. I remember he was the quiet one, but I didn’t truly notice him. Did he see me? He has told me since that he did. But now I am unsure.

The saddest part of our long, drawn-out tale is that there is now so much that I doubt. Months went by when I believed every word that he said. Years past when I fell into a great love for him. He was the reason for smiles, laughter and comfort. He was the person to go home to. He was the one that made the long journey home pass quickly, faster.

And yet all it took was one night to tear it all down; a few short hours to sweep away everything that he had ever said into an ocean of lies. Words that meant worlds; that meant a future.

Now they mean nothing.

FC