Four months ago tonight, a feeling was all we had. it was a good one. it went both ways. there were no entanglements with other people or history or stakes. we just talked about how other blind dates usually didn't go so well. we talked about middle school and tried to guess the names of constellations we'd never really seen before.
Tonight I saw Orion shining to the east. I pointed it out and she told me the story of how he got there.
Some people have never fallen in love before, some have, and some still don't really know the difference. I haven't been in love for awhile but this time around it sure felt like it had a chance. It was in the right place but out of room; in the right key, out of tune, and I'm left with all the lines I didn't use, all the nights I had already planned, all the ways I'd later tell the story. As it stands it's not a story of a boy and girl, a game of cat and mouse, or anything else. It's just one more freight train running through Provo in the early Wednesday morning. I'd say, "Thanks, Kid," but she wouldn't get the reference. You know how it goes: you're fighting it, fighting it, fighting it, and then the lights come on and she's gone. You wonder if you ever really had the right to believe. You wonder if she ever gave it a second thought. The world wins another battle, you fall back, you're retreating, regrouping, and repeating and every time the world wins another round you don't even hear it cheer.
it's really nothing personal, you have to understand- it's always only business. it's always only almost right. someday i'll see her wearing a ring too and my mouth will be wide open, but no wider than it was tonight. usually people become more real and easy to relate to the more you get to know them; she was more the other way around. she went from being an idea to another girl to a piece in an edvard munch exhibit. fate is cruel in a thousand ways and i think that each one came across in our story.
tomorrow morning, she'll get out of bed, stretch, and go about her day smiling about the little things and miss completely all of the big ones. at some point you have to wonder if she'll just come and go still wondering what the fuss was all about, all the while trading blows and acting like she can't see the casualties mount- but I can see right through.
