Looking straight ahead, all I could see was darkness. There was a wave of warmth that radiated towards my face, and with eyes closed a gentle roll of steam brushed against the bristles of the unkept stubble that I had decided not to shave for the past week. My lips dipped into the warmth and I felt the richness like everything that was good and relaxing in the world filter through my body. If I could bottle this feeling, I would keep it with me always, for times when I wanted to escape to somewhere safe.
I put the cup of coffee down and exhaled slowly, looking up and composing myself in front of the most beautiful and accusing eyes I had ever seen in my life. They were a deep brown and open wide, a look of both interest and at this point, angered annoyance. She was a beautiful woman in general with long, dark hair, tanned skin and an incredible body. She had a smile that could literally hypnotize, and a pleasantness about her that made it impossible to hate her. We had dated and broken up some time earlier.
“Well…?” She said. I waited a second before responding.
“Well what?”
“You just said that you regretted it, that you regretted us.” I took another sip from my coffee.
“In all fairness, I never said that I regretted us… “ This was the part where I was going to lose her. “… I just said that I had some regrets. And that was a broad… kind of general statement though. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“You’re impossible sometimes, you know that?” She said and started in on her desert. We had just finished a really good dinner and had been pleasantly catching up on old times when the inevitable conversation came up. We talked about what happened, reviewed why we broke up and the events leading up to it, and amidst all that bad memory I wondered why I had bothered to meet with her again. What was I expecting would happen? Did I think that after one dinner she was going to decide that she had made a mistake in breaking up with me in the first place? Did I think that I was worth her coming back to?
As she ate her desert she looked down at her plate. When she took a drink she looked to the sides and around the room, avoiding my glance. We had desert in silence. For as long as it had lasted, our relationship was fantastic. In fact in that period of time I was probably the happiest I had ever been in a relationship before.
In that moment I relived it all. From the time we met innocently as a stranger helping another stranger out, to the nervousness we both admitted to on our first date, to our first kiss and so many after that and to the night that everything went so horribly wrong. I realized that the problem was me and always had been all along. I never did anything to fix the problem between us… I just let it go. I was broken, and gazing across the table into her eyes and seeing her pain I knew that this was entirely my fault.
The truth was that I did have my regrets. My biggest regret, and the one that I faulted myself on for my failure with her was that too often when I did care for someone that I hadn’t let them know. In front of me was a woman who had, in the entire time that we were together, only done things to endear herself to me, and I adored her for that. For some reason however, it never came out that I did. Each tender kiss was responded to in like kind, but my actions otherwise were entirely inadequate, until the night that I drove her away.
But she wouldn’t get her explanation and I hated myself for it. I couldn’t take the comfort level at the table any more and signaled for the check.
“How much do I owe you?” She asked. I wave my hand slightly, indicating that I would handle it.
“You don’t have to pay for me, you know.” She said with a stern look.
“I know…” I replied. “… Think of it as starting on the path of making things right.” I got up from the table and helped her as well. We walked out of the restaurant and I took her to her car.
“I’m glad we had a chance to catch up.” I said sheepishly. It was dark out now and the light from the parking lot lamps danced across the highlights in her hair and filled her eyes. Her mood softened a bit.
“Me too.” She said, “We’ll have to meet up out at a bar one night with all our friends. You should bring everyone out, I miss them.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I said, and I started to get lost in her eyes. I had to say it.
“I didn’t mention it before, but you look amazing.” She smiled a bit and closed her eyes, and then drew me in close and gave me a hug. We stood there for a moment holding each other in our arms. I could smell her perfume and the scent of her hair, and instantly remembered every intimate moment with her. It was utterly intolerable and I ended it as quickly as I could. I opened the door to her car and showed her in.
“I’ll talk to you soon.” I said, as I shut her door. She unrolled her window and smiled.
“I hope so.” She said, and then started out of the parking lot.
I stood there for a second and thought about the whole situation. I still cared for her, but strangely even after all of this time I couldn’t tell her, especially now when there wasn’t anything to gain, nor anything to lose.
As I got into my car I got a text message from her:
Thanks again for dinner. I was really glad to see you! Ttys.
I deleted her message and then her number from my phone. I couldn’t tell her that I cared for her when it really mattered, so I didn’t suppose I was going to do so any time soon. I would just have to keep things the way they were, and have what positive things about our relationship that I could find keep to the memory of her, even if the memory was the realization that she was the one that got away.
