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[juliahalle.livejournal.com]

Title: A Love That Lasts
Genre: Romance. (i guess?)
Rating: G
Author: Julia Halle
Summary: a very short story about a man and a chance meeting with his love.

Note: I'd love helpful comments and tips on how to improve my writing. :)




A Love That Lasts


Love is both pain and pleasure.

People get hurt, and from there the pain is born. But what keeps them trying is the pleasure. The joy, the contentment.

I've fallen in love -- once, and it seems once and for always. I've never fallen out of it. Maybe you could never really fall out of it, maybe if you thought you fell out of love, there was no real love in the first place.

It's been four years since we last met. For the past four years, I shove her out of my mind each day -- I battle against thought of her and each day, I never win. I refuse to give up the fight, but for three days each year, I wake up and acknowledge that I will lose again and instead of my usual struggle I allow myself to just think of her the whole day. Think of what happened, what I wish would happen, and what I wish I had done, or hadn't done.

On Valentine's, I purposely wallow in melancholy and swim in the memories of her. I think of our the valentines we spent together and I grimace at my self-inflicted torture. Still, there was something confusingly poignant about spending valentine's day thinking of the past and other what could have beens that I couldn't help but take on the aches that came from my thinking.

July 15, her birthday. I permit myself to think about her all day, and of all the days in a year, it is on her birthday that I feel more a fool than ever. It could be because I don't understand why I'm not with her that day, or maybe because it reminded me that wherever she was, she was growing older without me. There were a hundred other reasons but I didn't want to think about it so I simply tried to recall everything I could about her.

December 16.

Today's December 16, 2004. I last saw her on December 16, 2000. My mind can still recreate that day and play it over and over again in my mind, although not very clearly. And that infuriates me, even scares me, how I can't remember her exact words, how her hair was tied up, what shoes she was wearing.. I feel disloyal, as if not remembering everything about the last time we met is a sign that I didn't love her enough.

December 16. Like the past three december sixteens, I go back to where I last saw her. Again I go to seek..closure? I suppose.

I enter the coffeeshop and nothing much has changed from the time I came by last year. The windchime hanging by the door tinkles when I walk in. I close the door and sit down the table nearest the door. It was where we sat before and as like the previous years, no one is occupying the seats on that table as if it was reserved for me every December 16.

A waitress walks to me. She looks at me and recognition lights up her face. She knows me from last year, and the year before that. She wonders, as I think she did before, what I'm waiting for. Who I'm waiting for.

I order coffee and she gives me, after a few minutes, a steaming cup of black coffee and a sympathetic smile. She waits expectantly but I don't say anything so she shrugs at my silence and walks to another customer.

The windchimes tinkle again and I gaze at my coffee and stir it, waiting but not really expecting.

"Vince?"

I stop stirring. I've had this illusion, this dream, too many times. Sometimes I hear her calling me, sometimes I turn to see her, but it was never her.

"Vince?" I hear my name again and I look up, afraid to see someone else.

It's her. She's here, standing in front of me. Our eyes meet and I feel numb. She looks away then looks at me again. "Vince, it's me. Eve. God, how long has it been?" She smiles, but I know her too well, even now that four years has passed. A person never really changes that much, I conclude.

"Four years," I say, surprised at hearing the words come out clearly.

"Four years," she echoes. I take in her appearance, see that she's gained some weight and her hair has highlights in it. A car horn sounds from outside and she jerks a bit in surprise. "Uh, that's probably my ride. My family's waiting. I'm just, um. Just looking for a ladies' room?"

"They don't have one," I tell her. I wonder what she meant by "my family" but I don't ask her about it.

We stare at each other again, longer this time and I could see from the corner of my eye the waitress who served me my coffee staring at the two of us. The car outside gives another honk.

"I should go," she whisperes. "We're..in a hurry." She smiles again, unsure of what to say next.

"You should go then." I'm surprised at myself again, and I wonder why I said what I said.

"I--," she starts.

"Yes, I'll go now," she finally says. She opens her purse, rummages through it and takes out a business card which she hands to me. "Let's meet."

"Okay," I say simply.

She walks to the door but before she opens it, she turns to me and says, "I'm with someone."

I nod. "I know." I expected it, but only acknowledged it now.

"But let's meet. Still." Her lips curve to a smile I've been wanting to see for so long now.

"Yes," I reply, and then she's gone, leaving me again, walking out through the same door.

I finger the business card and look at it without really seeing the words printed on it.

It's still there, the feeling of pain and pleasure. A love that lasts is often bittersweet. And that was what made it different from any kind of euphoria man could ever feel.

The feeling of mixed pain and pleasure never left me, but this time I let it enfold me willingly.