i'd love it if we made it

the fated OFM run-in

On the evening of my 32nd birthday, and as predicted by my intuition - I had a fated run-in with OFM. Post blow-out, on a patio, sipping a margarita with 2 of my friends - that’s when I see him. A few feet away, smoking a cigarette with a group of his friends. My heart did that thing when you feel it fall into the lower half of your body, and your brain stops functioning and everything around you becomes a blur. I grab my friend’s hand from across the table and mutter “that’s him.”

For 5 minutes, I debate. I debate tapping him on the shoulder. I debate texting him. I debate my entire existence in my little denim mini, bright orange mini-bag, and cowboy boots. I watch him walk into the restaurant beside me.

And within the hour, I cave. I text him. And within the same hour, he has invited himself to drinks that same evening with my friends.

He, of course, shows up in a navy blue baseball cap and t-shirt. The OFM uniform. We hug once, for a while. And then we hug again. And as per usual, I forget every single reason why I’m mad, or why I hate him, or why we can never be together.

We spend the next few hours at the bar. He orders us a bottle of Lambrusco. We cheers to my birthday. My friend’s date arrives, and when the date asks OFM how him and I know each other, he responds with: “We’ve been off and on in love for eight years.”

The group ends up separating, leaving me and OFM to ourselves. We have a final espresso martini and then he grabs my hand, and asks me to go to a different bar with him to continue my birthday celebrations. I happily agree.

---

If I could tell January/February/March Emily - that the streets of the neighbourhood would stop haunting her - I would. I don’t think she’d believe me, and to be honest - I don’t know if she’d ever want them to stop haunting her.

“My grief for you will always remain unruly, even as I know it contains the logic of everyone who has ever felt it. Sometimes I close my eyes so that I can listen to it spread. So that I can make it spread.”

And in the corner of this dimly lit bar - he tells me:

“In eight years - I have never met anyone like you. No one is ever you.”

I say nothing, but continue to hold his hand and listen to his tequila-induced ramble.

“I want your friends to like me. Because they know the story but - I don’t know. I don’t think people understand…”

“The whole thing. I know.”

And how can I explain it to them? That I have fully admitted to myself that I don’t feel the need to get married, because I already have experienced love. What people spend their lives searching to end up with - I have already experienced. We have already experienced. And I know people might roll their eyes at this - but it’s in these moments when two people admit the unexplainable, and you realize what really was.

And what really is.

“Well. Your friends hate me.” I say it with a half-smile, but it’s a known fact. His friends are the type to hate any woman that will come into their dynamic and change things. A woman who expects more than a bi-weekly group dinner where the boys leave to smoke cigars and talk about whatever it is they talk about.

“They’re jealous.”

“I’m glad you finally admitted it.”

“When I sent them that article…they just responded with: “So she’s obsessed with you.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s such a typical, emotionally immature response. I’ve said this to you - time and time again - it’s a moment in time that I wanted -

“Remembered. Emily. I know. I understand. You see through me. Right though. And that…scares me.”

We’re still holding each other’s hands. In eight years, I had never pictured sharing my life with someone other than him.

It had always been him.

“Remember when you told me we were too similar?”

He nods.

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that. We have a similar sense of humour…similar fears. But the way we operate in this world…”

“Well, maybe I’m jealous of the way you operate. You’ll always be that mysterious girl who sits at the end of bar.” He says this with a smile, but it’s the way that it lands.

I am an idea to him, and I will always be an idea. A fantasy.

Someone he can’t capture, and someone no one else dares to.

There’s a loneliness in this, a loneliness in which I cannot explain to most people.

It’s the feeling of being the other. The other woman. The one who’s wanted for a moment in time, but will never actually be held for longer.

I have become accustomed to this idea, to this self imposed label. It has been eight years of emotional whiplash, of soul-bearing nights, and of following your freedom to the point of grief.

But I will let myself kiss him anyways. I will let myself get caught up in this moment, I will let myself enter our make-believe world, which isn’t too far off from the world I choose to live in. A land full of stories. Some are just longer chapters than others.

We continue our spectacle outside of the bar. I stand on my tippy toes and wrap my arms around his neck. He squeezes me and lifts me up off the ground, so I’m dangling off of him, yet still have my lips pressed against his the entire time.

My friend tells me that we give off newlywed energy, which, unfortunately, I cannot argue with.

We cross the block, and walk hand in hand back to his place. There is someone in the elevator, his neighbour, so our PDA comes to a halt. It is odd to think of him as someone’s neighbour. To think that another human could see him every day, walking out of his apartment, as just a fellow human, and continue on with their daily life. But I see him as something more.

We go to his balcony, and he lights our cigarettes.

“I get fucked up after every time I see you. It’s all just so…I don’t know. It all just haunts me.” I stare out into the building in front of us.

“I think I’m better at compartmentalizing all of it.”

I roll my eyes.

“I don’t want us to be okay with this.”

“Okay with what?” I put out my cigarette.

“Running into each other every few months. And saying “let’s see where this goes”…”

“It’s like we keep circling the same wound. Over and over and over again - but nothing ever gets..”

“Solved. So what - do we risk it? Do we finally see this through?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Partially because the phrase “seeing this through” feels like “let’s just get this over with.”

We go back inside and sit on his sofa.

“Emily…my parents had the worst divorce in the history of the fucking world and I swore to myself that I’d never put my kid through that. Through any of that. And I want a family, I do. I want a house in 18 months. I want a kid.”

In this moment, I’m unable to tell how serious he’s being. His bravado and charm seems to fall down when he moves closer to me and looks at the floor. In a quiet voice, he asks,

“What do you want, Emily?”

I miss my European adventures. The sea, the piazzas, the linen fabrics. The sunshine, the freedom, the laissez-faire attitude towards life. Living instead of existing. I bookmark the idea of an apartment in France. The baguette in my hand and my silk dress and straw bag. The books of open poetry and overflowing suitcases and of wicker baskets full of lavender.

“You.”

It is the truth. I do want him. And I do love him. And he kisses me because he knows. He knows that I want him, but he knows we want two different things. We’re torn between worlds. So we go to his bed, because it’s always easier than talking. He tells me to kiss him, to keep kissing him, and I do. I do because I want to, and I do because in eight years, no one has ever made me feel the way he does.

We will spend the rest of my birthday like this. He will ignore the missed calls from his friends. He will insist on charging my phone - even though I couldn’t care less if it died or not. I will tell him his sheets are soft. And I’ll pretend to be asleep when I feel him starring and stroking my cheek. And at some point in the early morning I’ll turn over and squeeze his hand to disrupt him from snoring. And he’ll wake up, and he’ll apologize, and he’ll kiss me.

Again and again and again.