After several months of mutual awareness, Woman meets Man. They do not instantaneously fall in love, but they see the sorts of things in each other that make them each think, "Maybe." They spend a brief, intense period getting to know each other, hoping to find something beneath the surface that will draw them further.
At that point, they meet for real. She can imagine it working; she is both hopeful and naive. He, on the other hand, immediately determines that there are fundamental flaws in the design of their coupling that will undermine its future. Simply put, he foresees doom. Because he is a pragmatist, he ruthlessly and single-handedly handles what must come next. He leaves before they can make any catastrophic mistakes.
Strangely - even ironically - at roughly the same time, Woman meets Guy. He is quiet and capable. He is wry and gentle. Their paths barely cross, but when they do, she finds herself charmed by him. Intrigued. Distracted.
Her heart, though, is in no condition or position to accept a visitor. She is still reeling from the Man's rough handling. He did not break her heart, but nor was he subtle or kind in his refusal of it. And still, she harbors a hope that perhaps that Man, with whom she felt a warm connection, could have come to regret his hasty decision.
Through the days, turning to weeks and months, after the Man's visit, the Guy remains. A peripheral, low-key, vaguely distracting element in the Woman's simultaneously lifeless and complex existence.
Three months have gone by, and she finds herself increasingly shaken by what she perceives as events imbued with meaning beyond mere coincidence, all pertaining to the Man. Without conscious thought, she contacts him again. She states her case both logically and passionately. She understands him well enough to know that he will reply.
The Man's response is swift and decisive. He reiterates the reasons that he gave months before. He adds very little, beyond a general urge that she discontinue her efforts on this path.
She knew that he would do this, say this, as certainly as she knew that unless she forced it from him - the irrefutable end - she would remain in the state of wondering until she made herself sick. She needed the real slam of the door in her face, to know that what was not, was not to be.
Far from feeling like the end, though, this knowledge brought with it a sense of freedom for the Woman. No longer mired in what could be, she was able to pick her head up and see the world again.
Surprisingly (to her, at least), she noticed that Guy just then. He had been there all along, of course, but his presence seemed especially welcome. As she gently probed her own heart, checking for that familiar sad tenderness that was dissipating, she also sought to know the Guy more fully. She asked questions; they laughed together; he told (and showed) her parts of himself that others did not seem to see.
Life is short. She had several examples of it, in a very short time. In a world where floods destroy whole towns, students are killed in lecture halls, and fit young men leave widows in their twenties, it would be difficult to remain unaffected. Life is short. Too short to waste it being unhappy, stingy with your care, unfulfilled, and unloved. There is no guarantee of "someday." Life is short.
Terrified of acting, but even more afraid of being alive without feeling like it, she told him. She told the Guy how she felt. How he distracted her. How she wanted him.
He was charmed by her. He had felt it along, you see, and shared that prickly sense of awareness, despite their frustratingly short interactions. He was reading between those lines, because he had written there, too.
If you know this Woman, you will not be surprised to hear what then began. With no deliberate intention, they proceeded, over a span of several days, to lay out for each other (and for themselves), delicately and sometimes baldly, the condition of their mutual interest - by text message. All through a night, and more again the following day, and the next, and the next, they alternately revealed themselves and demonstrated what more there could be. They both expressed and developed feelings to accompany their desires.
On a quiet, dark, snowy night many months after they met, many weeks after she first acknowledged that the Guy was something more than he seemed, many days after their dance of awareness had begun, they changed the rules. They found themselves together, having contrived to make it so. They were in unfamiliar positions, a different atmosphere, but the connection between them was undiminished. If anything, it was the stronger for finally taking its place at the fore of their consciousness.
Their time together was short. They talked, infinitely more intimately than they ever had the chance to do before. They laughed. They silently sat together, watching the snow.
It was a very short time together.
Only a couple of days later, their connection was altered. Reality intruded and demanded its own way. The Woman - a solitary, thoughtful creature - returned to her solitude. She knows how to wait. She knows patience. She even seems to know what she wants.
Is it over? No. Are there guarantees that it will begin again? Of course not. But she wants to get in more work on this chapter before it is consigned to history.
Woman meets Guy. Eventually, through twists and turns, stops and starts, each finds life made new, thanks to the connection that they share.
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