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... front of me and told me that many had tried before, and all had failed. She was untouchable, they said, cold and standoffish to men in general. "I just pretended to sulk over the drink. But I knew the truth. I guess I'd seen it all along.
She wasn't cold or unapproachable. In fact, she was one of the warmest people I've ever met. She was just simply... dignified. That's the word.
She was a person of dignity. She wasn't about to stand for anyone who didn't approach her with sincerity and humility and respect. Maybe I was just the lucky guy who finally did so, accident though it was... " She smiled. "So what happened? Was that when you knew you loved her? That first night in that bar?" He thought for a moment. "No. Well, maybe.
I don't know. I guess looking back from the perspective of a couple years, I think maybe I did fall in love with her at that first exchange of eye contact and words. What was more obvious to me, though, was the moment I knew for certain I loved her... "We'd been seeing each other for just a couple weeks after that night in the bar. I'd stop by her sorority house after classes or she'd come over to my apartment before she had to go to work. We'd had dinner a couple times, I guess, and just talked and spent time, you know? It was nice.
But there was this one moment, this one point in time late one night that something happened to me that I can't really explain even to this day. "It was about midnight in the middle of the week and I'd been working like a dog all day, either at practice or studying for some test or another. " He shook his head and laughed bitterly at himself. "God, I was so completely wrapped up in every detail of those things, so obsessed. It all seemed so important. Success, "But she called just then, just to say goodnight after she'd come home from work. I think she sensed my mood and so she asked me to come over and spend time with her, just to take a break. Of course, I went on and on about how I had too much to do tests and everything. But she was persistent, and so I agreed to go over and see her. "When I got there, though, I was a real jerk.
I mean truly. I just sat in a chair and pouted about how I was going to screw up the test the next day or how I needed to sleep for tomorrow's game. God, looking back I realize how stupid that was, how little those things really mean in comparison to someone you care about. But back then, they seemed like everything to me. Accomplishments. Recognition.
All of it. So I sat there and fumed, selfish as could be. "But she just looked at me from where she was sitting on the bed, her back resting against the wall, and she smiled - this unbelievably knowing smile, born of her old soul. She told me to be quiet and to join her on the bed. I looked at her for a second, not quite sure what to make of the request.
It wasn't forward or overt or anything... I don't know. It was just pleasant. So I got up out of the chair and walked over to her. "She reached out to me and sat me down next to her. She placed my head on her shoulder, and just wrapped her arms around my chest, and I lay there supported against her, her back against the wall and me resting in her arms. And what happened to me next I will never forget.
It sounds so simple, but it was the first time I'd ever felt it. "I took a breath. For the first time in my life, there in her arms. It was the first time I ever noticed that I was breathing. Honest to God it was the most amazing sensation.
I was there next to her, neither of us said anything, and she just held me. And I breathed. "I didn't think about anything else, and even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered. It was surreal. I felt every breath and each heartbeat in my body, and I felt her arms rise and fall with my chest. Everything else just went away. It was that moment.
That very instant when I knew that I loved her. " He shook his head slowly. "Never did. I'll never know why I didn't... Just scared, I guess. When you spend your whole life setting goals and chasing after them, it's a bit frightening to meet someone for whom you'd give them up. "Oh, God, no.
I would have loved for it to go on, to have more of a chance to learn what I was feeling. No. It wasn't I. She was the one who ended it. And it wasn't much more than a few weeks after that night on the bed. "I don't either.
I don't either... " His voice portrayed deep curiosity and just a hint of remembered pain. "Even now I don't know why. She just told me one night that I wasn't what she needed. I guess her exact words were something like 'she didn't want someone who she felt obliged to care about. ' It was too hard for her at that point in her life, she said, to be with somebody that made her think long term, and she told me to take it as a compliment... " He paused a moment and grunted sarcastically, "Yeah... Compliment. Really made me feel a whole lot better about the situation. "Maybe she was right, though. Maybe to her you couldn't be just a passing moment. " He nodded slightly and then was silent for an extended moment.
Eventually, he shrugged, "Well, I guess I wish she'd realized that life itself is a series of passing moments. Let one go by, and you " ll never get to the next. " She studied his face for a moment. "You still love her, don't you?" He didn't hesitate, "Yeah... Yeah I do. If for nothing else but that one night. I'll never forget that experience. Yes.
I still love her. "Don't be, " he squeezed her tightly as she held him. "What she gave me was priceless, even though I never told her. " She fell silent, thinking long and hard. Eventually, she found the courage to ask, "I know you don't know anything about me, don't even know my last name. But... Could you feel like that here with me?" He laughed quietly to himself, a little sighing laugh of wisdom. "You could ask me that question ten years from now knowing everything about me, knowing my deepest secrets...
You could ask me that as my wife and as the mother of my children... " He smiled and touched her cheek as he whispered; "The answer wouldn't change. Only once can someone breathe for the first time. " Bibliography:
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