The Moment When : A Short Love Story

Love is hard to define. It’s a great many things. In fact, that’s it! Love is one of those things everyone seems to have their own definition for and although those may differ, I’d like to think it’s the same feeling for all of us.

I’d like to think that they are the same butterflies we all get when the name of someone you like appears on your phone screen right before you pick their call and in the same fashion, that it’s also the same sinking feeling when you fight, break up and spend endless days telling yourself you’ll be okay if their name never appears on your phone screen again.

That night, as I hurriedly packed what I deemed as ‘essentials’ into an already crammed clutch purse, I caught my reflection on the wall mirror of my tiny apartment and there it was. That feeling of something I had long since given up hope of ever feeling again. Love.

He was going to be getting here soon because unlike me, punctuality was one of his strong suits but the more I looked at that girl in the mirror, the more I found it harder to look away.

It wasn’t just that she was in the sexy wide legged but tight fitting black linen pants, the low cut also black top that did wonders for the already ample cleavage, that she wore her big curly hair open and framing her beautiful face that stood out even more thanks to the winged eyeliner she had taken years to perfect and that red lipstick that was quite frankly stealing the show tonight by being the only burst of color.

In fact, I smiled thinking about how with an all black outfit, red lipstick might as well have been a bullseye for my lips and smiled even more when I realized that tiny anticipation of the kissing that would undoubtedly happen later. Still, time was running out and I knew that at any moment, I would be getting a phone call from the man who would for sure be on time to take me to this mystery spot he’d chosen for date night this week so, I stood up and started fussing with the big mess of hair, while slowly playing back how insane it was, all the things that brought me to that very moment.

How we’d met one drunken night after me and my friends had chosen to celebrate a successful pitch. It was the first step in realizing my dream of making my own consulting company be a success and that as small as that first contract was, I had celebrated the awesome possibility of it being the first of many.

That night, my hair had been curly still and although I had noticed the man in the black leather jacket watching me from the bar, I was too far into my pool table game to care and with my loud friends as my audience, let’s just say, the fun train I was on had long since left the station and was full speed ahead. I just don’t remember how on that same night, the man in the leather jacket and I happened to have a mutual friend and how together we ended up sharing a cab trying to make sure Marcus (said mutual friend) got home in one piece.

Somewhere on the ride to my place, his hand had found mine and maybe it was the whisky (always the whisky am I right?) but I had let him hold it. Had let myself revel in the feeling of having someone, even if it was this guy I had just met, hold my hand. I remember feeling butterflies then but I also remember how my trauma reaction to having had my heart broken in the past after moments that felt very much like that same one, was the reason I gave him a fake number just as I got out of the cab and the reason I walked fast and disappeared into the apartment complex before he could realize it.

I almost laughed thinking about how that was somehow the same guy whose name appeared on my phone screen right then. Exactly 7:30. I don’t know how but he was always on time. I slid into my black heels, grabbed the clutch purse and paused at my door to look at the black leather jacket hanging from one of the hooks on the wall.

It was the same one he wore that night. How it got there would be its own different story but I didn’t need to smell it to know it smelt of cologne mixed with the slight scent of smoke. It was a simple smell really but to me, it was the smell of a hundred hugs and kisses. Of someone with whom I felt safe and happy. The smell of something so familiar, I hadn’t known it then but my heart had come to think of it as home.

Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a WhatsApp notification. He had sent me a GIF of a skeleton waiting on a bench and captioned it, ‘take your time’. I laughed and realized that after what had seemed like a lifetime, I had finally known what it truly meant to be happy. How somehow when it came to him, I smiled the brightest and felt the grandest! I meant every laugh emoji I replied with as I slid into the leather jacket, locked the door and smiled foolishly down the stairs on the way to what was guaranteed to be a fun date.

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PS. This may or may not be a fictional story *insert wink emoji here*. Hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed writing it.